Medieval Illustrations of Bonnacons

As with many mythical medieval creatures, the bonnacon was a composite: the head of a bull, the mane of a horse, and its horns were “bent inwards upon each other, as to be of no use for the purposes of combat”, writes Pliny. First described by Aristotle (as a possibly distinct animal called the bonasus), the bonnacon was resurrected in medieval bestiaries due to the influence of Pliny’s encyclopedic study of the ancient world. The Natural History locates the dungy bull in Paeonia — roughly today’s North Macedonia — but later writers elaborated its ethology, rehoming it in Asia.

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