VLÉTIF

VLÉTIF

"The vlétif/Uletif is an imaginary animal strangely resembling a sea unicorn or narwhal (Monodon monoceros). This strange animal had a gigantic fish body, a toothed whale head and above the eyes a very long saw-like bone."

"Among others the utelif, which has like a saw on its forehead, three feet long or more, and four fingers wide, and has of two very sharp edges, some of which points are in my possession."

André Thevet, La Cosmographie Universelle

First off, thanks again to Imi for translating this time Andre Thevet's La Cosmographie from 1575!

This one may be my favorite of this series. I really love non-humanoid sea monster and this guy's a wild one. While very similar to the saw fish, it's got a non-serrated unicorn horn and it's entire body is covered in spikes!



Here's the original monster as featured on Gastaldi's Dell'Universale from 1550. It's probable that he read the description of the saw fish (which itself was probably a 4th hand account of a narwhal) and interpreted it as best he could. Bestiaries from this time period are like a wild game of telephone with details being distorted, dropped or added as each artist takes a crack. I know it's pretty far removed but the vlétif is way closer to a narwhal than the saw fish.

Narwhal tusks have often been used to represent other mythical creatures (usually, a unicorn) and we've stumbled upon a few in our travels. However, the most impressive one was located in the Museo Civico Medievale in Bologna. 

Here's an excerpt from a BBC article titled Why We've Always Loved Unicorns:

"In fact, the ‘unicorn’s horn’ on display at the Cluny Museum is the helical tusk of a narwhal, a cetacean found in Arctic waters off Greenland, Russia, and Canada. The most distinctive characteristic of the male of the species is its long ‘tusk’ – actually, a protruding canine tooth, which can grow up to 10ft (3.5m) in length. And, according to Béatrice de Chancel-Bardelot, the curator of the Cluny’s exhibition, Magical Unicorns, people in Western Europe during the Middle Ages believed that rare and exotic narwhal tusks were unicorn horns. Accordingly, they were highly prized. 

How did narwhal tusks end up in Europe? In Greenland, where they occasionally washed up on beaches, local people recognised that there could be a market further afield for these strange and substantial pieces of ivory. As a result, narwhal tusks entered Europe, via a trading network that passed through Scandinavia, eventually becoming prestigious objects, coveted by princes and popes, even though they didn’t know what they were."