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Killer Rabbits in Medieval Manuscripts
- fourseventy 7y agoIs it behind the rabbit?
- username223 7y agoRun away! I never would have thought that the Pythons were inspired by medieval meme culture...
- brianzelip 7y agoIt’s got fangs! Look at the bones!!
- hercynium 7y agoWhat's he do, nibble your bum?
- wavefunction 7y agoThey were mostly fancy lads and lasses from Oxford and Cambridge so I shan't be too surprised.
- kermitismyhero 7y agoOh they absolutely were. Their research into the time periods in which they wrote sketches was often far better than that of "serious" films and TV series. Notably, Terry Jones has had a deep professional and personal interest in medieval literature and art his whole life. I'd bet good money on his being intimately familiar with medieval killer rabbits when they worked on Holy Grail.
- thoman23 7y agoWould it...help to confuse it if we run away more?
- Jun8 7y agoThis is a reference to the Killer Rabbit of Caerbannog (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabbit_of_Caerbannog https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabbit_of_Caerbannog) in the movie Monty Python and the Holy Grail, in case you're unfamiliar with this very well-known meme. It's a hilarious scene (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pmu5sRIizdw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pmu5sRIizdw). Wikipedia entry states "The idea for the rabbit in the movie was taken from the façade of the cathedral of Notre Dame de Paris. This illustrates the weakness of cowardice by showing a knight fleeing from a rabbit." I watched the movie with my son (11) a few weeks ago, and was wondering if he'd enjoy the sometimes dry humor: he loved it, esp. the questioning at the Bridge of Death.
- twic 7y agoApparently there are three (maybe two?) knights chasing rabbits in the stonework of the facade, and another in the stained glass of the west rose window: http://www.geekybob.com/pictures/Killer_Rabbits-8x6.jpg http://www.geekybob.com/pictures/Killer_Rabbits-8x6.jpg
- BLKNSLVR 7y agoMy son is also 11 and a Monty Python virgin. Thanks for reminding me of this necessary cultural education and that it will be at least semi age-appropriate. Damn I'm looking forward to both watching it again myself and watching him watching it. And, depending upon his reaction it, on to Life of Brian in order to cement critical thinking skills against any future attempts to recruit him into lifelong religious servitude (and of course learning the details of latin grammar).
- phamilton 7y agoLet us never forget the Jimmy Carter rabbit incident. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimmy_Carter_rabbit_incident https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimmy_Carter_rabbit_incident
- protomyth 7y agoI think that article overestimates the number of people that saw "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" in the USA when it came out.
- gumby 7y agoI don't know, it was a pretty big deal. A major film.
- protomyth 7y agoNot in the USA[1] in 1975[2] 1) https://www.the-numbers.com/movie/Monty-Python-and-the-Holy-Grail-(1975)#tab=summary https://www.the-numbers.com/movie/Monty-Python-and-the-Holy-... 2) https://www.the-numbers.com/box-office-records/domestic/all-movies/cumulative/released-in-1975 https://www.the-numbers.com/box-office-records/domestic/all-...
- tingletech 7y agoBut it was the CBS late night movie in 1977. Also, the wikipedia page just says "some people" -- not sure that "overestimates" the number of people who would have been aware of killer bunnies.
- protomyth 7y agoYeah, I'm thinking a movie that aired on CBS starting at 11:30 p.m (ET/PT) in 1977 probably wasn't well watched even in the 3 (or 4) channel era. The Wikipedia writer wanted to put Monty Python in the article and ignored the actual history and provided no actual link or cited source of the link.
- swiftcoder 7y ago> like a barber with a wooden leg (which, for reasons that escape me, was the height of medieval comedy) Surely this is no great mystery? Barbers acted as amateur surgeons across the mediaeval world. They'd typically be the ones amputating the limbs, not the ones having amputated...
- wavefunction 7y agoBarbers acted as professional surgeons across the world until surgery became a formalized profession. Maybe 200 years ago at best?
- CamperBob2 7y agoCorrect. No self-respecting "doctor" wanted anything to do with the messy business of surgery. I found The Devil's Doctor by Philip Ball to be an interesting book on this sort of thing.
- glangdale 7y agoThis is more of a ex-British empire thing, but at least some surgeons I have heard of in Australia insist, among medical company, of being called "Mister" not "Doctor", to set them apart from "mere doctors". I think this is a formal distinction in the UK, but in Australia I think both groups can be called Dr. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1119265/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1119265/
- h2odragon 7y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_of_the_Lepus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_of_the_Lepus The killer rabbit needs to be the next zombie fad. Hollywould can do nothing but remakes, let's have a modern CGI extravaganza remake of this please.
- bch 7y agoIn the meantime: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zombeavers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zombeavers
- tzs 7y agoIf I ever somehow acquire a Bill Gates level fortune, my plan is to use it to fund a secret research program tasked with using genetic engineering to create the low level monsters from assorted MMORPGS and figuring out how to set up self-sustaining breeding populations of them in the wild near towns. Offhand, I can't think of an MMORPG that had low level killer rabbits (zombie or not). It's mostly giant snakes, giant bats, giant rats, small orcs, small goblins, small kobolds, small gnolls, small gelatinous cubes, and things like that. (Skeletons are also common, but they don't seem feasible except as robotic skeletons). However, I'll add killer rabbits, as they would fit right in.
- salgernon 7y agoPrior art: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_of_the_Lepus https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_of_the_Lepus
- p1necone 7y agoI am reminded of this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Sheep_(2006_New_Zealand_film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Sheep_(2006_New_Zealand_...
- h2odragon 7y agooh thank you for reminding me of that, Netflix has it now.
- medecau 7y agoI'm getting a "403 Forbidden" on this link. Screen: https://screenshots.firefox.com/iVgcEiymPOnHrmIX/www.openculture.com https://screenshots.firefox.com/iVgcEiymPOnHrmIX/www.opencul...
- twic 7y agoHare-raising stuff.
- RickJWagner 7y agoThe only defense was the Holy Handgranade.
- zeristor 7y agoIndeed they recently found an unexplored one and hat to shut several streets: https://www.standard.co.uk/news/pub-is-closed-by-monty-python-grenade-6841771.html https://www.standard.co.uk/news/pub-is-closed-by-monty-pytho... Similarly they shut down an Underground station on finding an alien foetus: https://www.theguardian.com/uk/1999/nov/04/5 https://www.theguardian.com/uk/1999/nov/04/5 I suppose they’re taught not to think in case they make a mistake
- darkhorn 7y agoThen it appeared in the Worms. https://youtu.be/4dKnnUcNrwU https://youtu.be/4dKnnUcNrwU
- Doxin 7y agoWhere it is the weapon with by far the biggest blast radius, but alas you only get one per game under the default settings.
- slowhadoken 7y agoI thought this was Inkulinati by Yaza Games for a second https://mobile.twitter.com/YazaGames https://mobile.twitter.com/YazaGames
- ims 7y agoMy great aunt wrote some of the original scholarship on this type of marginalia: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5064937-images-in-the-margins-of-gothic-manuscripts https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5064937-images-in-the-ma... It's a shame that she is not mentioned. In answer to one of the other posters wondering about Monty Python, the answer is yes. She told me that Eric Idle or possibly Terry Jones (?) at one point had a fascination with these illustrations and I believe they corresponded. In any case, it wasn't just the rabbit sketch - some of the interstitial animations between skits are taken directly from tropes in these drawings.
- lettergram 7y ago“Drolleries sometimes also depicted comedic scenes, like a barber with a wooden leg (which, for reasons that escape me, was the height of medieval comedy) or a man sawing a branch out from under himself“ ... because how could the barber amputate his own leg? Ahaha...
- ginko 7y agoThese look more like hares to me.