![]() 7 gyf hi hwylc mon niman wile oððe hyra æthrineð ðonne forbærnað hi sona eall his lic. Þæt syndon ungefregelicu lyblac.Ģ) Terlard and the two-headed snakes of Hascellentia Left: Terlard ( source) Right: Two-headed snake in Cotton Tiberius B.v, 79v © The British LibraryĪ Terlard is a Dragon/Ground Pokémon with a serpentine body and two heads. On ðan beoð henna akende gelice ðam þe mid us beoð reades hiwes. Sum stow is ðonne mon færð to ðare Readan Sæ, seo is gehaten Lentibelsinea. This internal flame causes Torchic to feel warm if hugged.” The Marvels of the East makes mention of a similarly fiery fowl, though hugging it may not be the best idea: ![]() ![]() As a Fire Pokémon, Torchic is warm to the touch, as Bulbapedia explains: “Somewhere in its belly, this Pokémon has a place where it keeps a flame. Your local Pokémon centre will tell you that Torchic is an orange Fire Pokémon that resembles a chick (its first evolution, Combusken, resembles a chicken – this makes perfect sense). Seven Pokémon and their early medieval doppelgangersġ) Torchic and the fiery hens of Lentibeisinea Left: Fiery hen in Cotton Vitellius A.xv, 99r © The British Library Middle: Torchic ( source) Right: Fiery hen in Cotton Tiberius B.v, 79r © The British Library Information about most of the Pokémon is from Bulbapedia the Old English text and translation are taken from Orchard 1995. Indeed, some of the marvellous creatures mentioned in The Marvels of the East show (faint) parallels to specific Pokémon. For the non-enlightened, a Pokédex is a digital, illustrated encyclopaedia, which lists all sort of information about the various Pokémon that you can catch and train in games of the Pokémon franchise (more info here). The combination of information about wonderful beings, along with illustrations, may remind some of a Pokédex. In these manuscripts, the descriptions are accompanied by illustrations. the Beowulf Manuscript) Cotton Tiberius B.v (c. Nevertheless, the text had some popularity and can be found in three medieval manuscripts: Cotton Vitellius A.xv (c. Since races of half-human-half-donkeys, polyglot cannibals and giant gold-stealing ants probably never roamed the Earth, we can be sure that most of the beings listed in The Marvels of the East stem from fantastical traditions (although the text also lists Ethiopeans among its remarkable humanoids). These oriental things are particularly extraordinary: dogs with boar-tusks breathing fire, bearded women hunting with tigers and pearls growing from vines! Each creature and place is described with what appears to be factual information (length, height, colour for most of the fauna geographical distance from known places for the flora). ![]() The text, which survives in Old English and Latin, list various beings and places located in the East (Babylonia, Egypt, India, etc.). The Marvels of the East (also known as The Wonders of the East) is something of a liber monstrorum, ‘abook of monsters’. The author of ‘The Marvels of the East’ collected various monsters that could rival Pokémon’s finest, as this blog post reveals… However, this fancy for exotic monsters with special powers is nothing new: in the early Middle Ages, people also showed a keen interest in remarkable creatures from faraway. These days, the World seems obsessed with Pokémon GO. Pikachus, Togepis, Flareons, Charmanders and Bulbasaurs.
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