Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio. Hi,
Speaker 1: my name is Robert Lamb and this is the Monster Fact,
Speaker 1: a short form series from Stuff to Blow Your Mind,
Speaker 1: focusing in on mythical creatures, ideas, and monsters in time.
Speaker 1: My wife recently gave me a copy of the nineteen
Speaker 1: eighty five book Magical Beasts from the Time Life Enchanted
Speaker 1: World series. This is a volume I didn't have in
Speaker 1: my childhood set of the books, and as with other volumes,
Speaker 1: this one contains a rich collection of new and classic illustrations.
Speaker 1: Flipping through it for the first time, I encountered the
Speaker 1: expected array of satyrs, harpies, and unicorns. But then on
Speaker 1: page one hundred and twenty two, I encountered a glorious
Speaker 1: illustration by none other than contemporary artist Wayne Anderson, whose
Speaker 1: book Flight of Dragon was the inspiration for the nineteen
Speaker 1: eighty two Rankin and Bass animated film of the same name,
Speaker 1: recently featured on Weird House Cinema. Anderson's interpretation of the
Speaker 1: creature is a splendid, antelope like creature with a single
Speaker 1: curved horn. This horn does not spiral, but it does
Speaker 1: branch off into stunted hollow tubes. It gives the horn
Speaker 1: an appearance of both coral and a fluted musical instrument.
Speaker 1: It also reminded my wife of the Grinch's dog Max,
Speaker 1: once he was augmented with a crude antler. In the cartoon.
Speaker 1: The text of Magical Beasts tells us that this is
Speaker 1: the Persian creature known as Shadhar, and when the wind
Speaker 1: passes over this horn and its apertures, sweet music is produced,
Speaker 1: music so sweet, in fact, that animals of the forest
Speaker 1: will draw near. It is then that Shadhavar's predatory nature
Speaker 1: is revealed, as the creature pounces on its enthralled prey,
Speaker 1: kills it, and devours its flesh. Shadhavar is discussed in
Speaker 1: the nineteen fifty text The Unicorn Studies in Muslim Iconography
Speaker 1: by the late Islamic art historian Richard Ettinghausen. He writes that,
Speaker 1: according to Zakaria al Kuzwani in his thirteenth century book
Speaker 1: The Wonders of Creatures and the Marvels of Creation, the
Speaker 1: Shadhavar lives in remote regions of room, and its horn
Speaker 1: contains no less than forty two hollow branches. The fourteenth
Speaker 1: century writer al Damiri would increase that count to seventy two,
Speaker 1: and it appears that historian Hamdalla Mustawafi contributed the predatory account,
Speaker 1: possibly grafting it on from another imaginary creature, the Serranus,
Speaker 1: which was originally described as a marine animal with musical
Speaker 1: apertures on its snout and later as a land animal
Speaker 1: with musical apertures on its snout. In either case, the
Speaker 1: Serranus was said to lure in prey with its song
Speaker 1: as well. The excellent blog A Book of Creatures features
Speaker 1: a nice illustration of what this Syrianus might have been
Speaker 1: expected to look like, and mentions that the name of
Speaker 1: the creature may be a reference to a Byzantine musical
Speaker 1: instrument that was used, or said to be used to
Speaker 1: lure and capture animals. There may also be some connection
Speaker 1: here to the sirens of Greek tradition. At any rate,
Speaker 1: it's a wonderful, fantastic creature, and also a reminder that
Speaker 1: monsters of myth and legend are fluid. They may borrow
Speaker 1: their attributes from others of their kind, and of course
Speaker 1: they may lend attributes to other creatures as well. Tune
Speaker 1: in for additional episodes of the Monster fact or the
Speaker 1: Artifact each week. As always, you can email us at
Speaker 1: contact at stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. Stuff
Speaker 1: to Blow Your Mind is a production of iHeartRadio. For
Speaker 1: more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.