The officinal Glugreng
My response to this week’s BestiaryPosting challenge from @maniculum
Jinhao shark fountain pen with fine, hooded nib, with Monteverde Raven Noir ink, over initial pencil sketch.
Reasoning below the cut;
"The bird called Glugreng, as Physiologus tells us, is white all over; it has no black parts. Its excrement cures cataract in the eyes. It is to be found in royal residences. If anyone is sick, he will learn from the Glugreng if he is to live or die. If, therefore, a man’s illness is fatal, the Glugreng will turn its head away from the sick man as soon as it sees him, and everyone knows that the man is going to die. But if the man’s sickness is one from which he will recover, the bird looks him in the face and takes the entire illness upon itself; it flies up into the air, towards the sun, burns off the sickness and scatters it, and the sick man is cured."
The white birb that Looks At You (that's a good sign, right?)
We don't have a lot to go on here; it's white, for starters, and royalty like keeping it around. This made me think of falconry, with the (potentially fanciful) strict hierarchy of what rank of nobility can fly which birds. So, a falcon it is!
Bird of prey also makes sense when you consider how similar some of the description is to the actions of the Raggfong (albeit much more selfless that that noble bird...)
Incidentally, when doing the research for reference material for this one (particularly around falconry ranks), I now have a suspicion what this description might be of. At this point it was too late to do a reversal of my concept, and I could very well be barking up the wrong tree, but I'll be interested to find out...!
Because there's no pattern described, I didn't add one, to give it an all white appearance. That does leave it looking a bit sparse.
I had two concepts for this one when I started; the first was this one (Looking At You) which I figured was an interesting way to go, given the behaviour it exhibits, and the second was a picture of it in its natural environment (royal residence, probably with a token regent or two). Time pressure and what I thought would be most amusing resulted in the former.
This was an interesting challenge to see how well I could draw something symetrical. It's okay, I have other strengths, right? ;)
Also, please don't put bird droppings in your eyes... :(
