Dyalogus Creaturarum:

RENAISSANCE WOODCUTS & FABLES


Laurus the Sailor
- click for a closer view -

I

was carved from a block of wood in the last days of the Old World, so I've been sailing around in my ship for quite a while...

Johan Snell was the man who printed my first book, in Stockholm, so I'm Swedish in a way, although my people came from Holland a few years before: and my friends and I had been around a good while before that, in hand-written books and in peoples' imaginations, as they passed the stories on from one to another by word of mouth in the old traditional way ...

M

ADE in 1483, I was: that makes me over 500 years old, about like Christopher Columbus and Leonardo da Vinci. I don't suppose any of you who are listening to me are as old as that, you probably haven't even reached the odd hundred: and I wonder if you'll be alive in the year 2483, after another 500 years, as we are today...

I suppose you youngsters may find us a bit old-fashioned - people had a great respect for authority in the days when we were young, and those at the top of things felt they had to tell everyone lower down what to do and how to behave.

Violent times they were, too - I'm sure things are very different now... And if you think our English is a bit strange, it might help to remember that we're actually thinking in Latin - everyone did in the old days, it helped to keep us together across the centuries.

B

ut if you'll bear with me, I'd like to tell you my little story, and then introduce you to a few of my friends and tell you theirs, too. And then, of course, it's up to you if you want to keep us alive...: maybe you can retell our stories, or tell new stories about us, copy our pictures, or cut out bits of them and stick them back together in different ways, maybe even get us to move, or draw completely new ones, add some music...

W

e'll start with my story.

 


Eight Stories:

About Laurus, the Sea-Eagle
About the Pheasant and the Peacock
About the Owl who wanted to rule over the Birds
About the Countryman and the Bees
About the Lion who built a Priory
About the Donkey-Centaur who built a Palace
About the Monkey who wrote Books
About the Wolf and the Donkey

Introduction

Original editions

Johan Snell's printing

 
Web-weaver - David Kettlewell: New Renaissance web-site
e-mail: david@peak.edu.ee


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