DEORHORD: An Old English Bestiary

Why did the earn (eagle) fly to the sun? Where do you find henna (hens) that burst into flame? How do you defeat an ylp (elephant)? And what on earth is a moon-head? Welcome to the strange and delightful world of Old English animals, good, bad and baffling, and an absolute romp for fantasy enthusiasts. Many of the animals we encounter from those in our fields to the ones in our fantasies have remained the same since medieval times, but the words we use and the way we think about them have often changed beyond recognition. Old English was spoken over a thousand years ago, when every animal was a deor. In this glittering collection of words and animals we find deors big and small, from walker-weavers (spiders) and grey-cloaked ones (eagles) to how sailors mistook a whale for an island in the Harley Bestiary c.1230-40. Here are whales and phoenix and wolves and dragons, ants, dove and creatures unheard of. It is a world both familiar and strange where ants could be monsters and panthers could be your friend, where dog-headed men were as real as elephants and whales were as sneaky as wolves. These are the magical roots of English today, and the stories they tell about our language reveal as much about the world of animals as about ourselves. 340pp, line art and archive images reproduced, a note on Beastly Bestsellers and a useful list of definitions and pronunciations of Old English words at the back.