If there's anything to learn from medieval marginalia, it's that snails once had their own society
We all know medieval marginalia is full of some pretty sick snail fights. No one knows why, exactly, but there are hundreds of old drawings of snails in combat with knights in old manuscripts. The snails are depicted to be the size of a large dog and they’re usually seen going one-on-one with soldiers for a nice joust or sword fight. But Twitter user @erik_kaars introduces us to a new concept: medieval snail ecology and society.
For one, look at this weird snail cat thing, which has a face that doesn’t look too far off anyone starring in a certain upcoming musical film.
Then there are the half-snail, half-humans, who also have jobs. There’s a snail-monk, who definitely blesses the salt away from the earth, and little snail-kids, who, despite their sinister faces, are thankfully nothing like what Junji Ito might have us believe.