
Book of Beasts: The Bestiary in the Medieval World - hoffmanesque
https://www.lrb.co.uk/v41/n24/tom-shippey/throw-your-testicles
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rwmj
_> Who in 12th-century England would have seen an elephant or a crocodile?
Tales filtered back from Crusaders and distant travellers of a giant herbivore
with a nose so long and pliable that it could pick up men and seat them on its
back, and of an armour-plated carnivore that lurked in water and could be
mistaken by the unwary for a log of wood. These were as improbable – and
therefore as possible – as a white horse with a long horn in the middle of its
forehead_

I wonder if there's anything similar today? Subatomic particles or
astronomical objects? Mental health seems to be an area where we currently
have no idea how things really work in the brain.

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dustfinger
I know that the context of your statement pertained to modern globalized
society, but if you consider isolated peoples [1], then it might be the case
that exactly the same phenomenon that inspired medieval beastiary exists
today.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncontacted_peoples](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncontacted_peoples)

~~~
blotter_paper
Going out on a limb, you could argue that cryptozoology is alive today in out
interconnected world. I would be surprised if a bigfoot were found today, but
it wouldn't upend my worldview. Comparable creatures (gigantopithecus) have
existed in human prehistory, and we still find previously undocumented animals
today. I don't think we'll find evidence of a bigfootesque creature existing
in historical times, but if presented with the evidence in 1818 I might have
bet on it. There is still popular media being produced that is profitable
because people want to see Survivorman find a bigfoot, and they think he
might.

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neonate
[http://archive.md/Pwkp7](http://archive.md/Pwkp7)

