Abstract
One of the major problems encountered in the analysis of medieval texts mentioning animals is that we sometimes just do not know what “modern” animal they actually refer to. The observation applies not only to imaginary creatures, fantastic beasts such as the siren, the centaur, or the dragon, but to numerous animals that are perfectly identifiable today. Medieval authors can use the name we are familiar with to refer to a different animal or describe an animal in a way that is at odds with present-day concepts, so that we sometimes wonder which beast they had in mind. This chapter will try to present a survey of the problems medievalists face when trying to reconstruct what kind of animal is actually being mentioned in medieval texts.
Trachsler, Richard