A Bestiary of Monster Girls
Bestiarum Monstrarum Feminarum
Translator's Introduction
Bestiarum Monstrarum Feminarum
was written in 1243 by Arminius Wilhelm Otto Karl Friedrich Wilhelm Maximilian Melchior Leopold Wilhelm von Ravensberg, known to history as Herman the German. A Generalprokurator of the Teutonic Knights, he wrote his magnum opus as a warning to the knights and missionaries in Prussia, many of whom fell prey to the temptations of monstrous and demonic women. Predictably, though, his text served as less of a warning than a guide, and many were the men who went in search of the women against whom Herman had so ardently warned them.
As Generalprokurator, Herman had the ear of the Pope himself, and the book soon spread to other religious orders through the Roman Catholic Church. From there, it rapidly spread to those who were
not
bound by oaths of celibacy, where it has stayed ever since. The book spread across Europe, and is estimated to be the most widely read book of the 1200s. Marco Polo took a copy with him on his trip to China, as a gift for the Great Khan, and his own marginalia indicate that he encountered some of the creatures described within, as well as others unknown to Herman. It was one of the first works printed by Gutenberg, who is rumored to have had an encounter with an incubus who has once known Faust, and who gave him the idea for his printing press. Later, Roger Williams brought his own copy on his voyage to the New World, so that he might be better prepared against the temptations that he thought he would encounter in the forests of New England. However, after learning the local languages and cultures, he soon realized that the monsters, far from being savage beasts, were intelligent beings with their own society, and he wrote the first English language account of the American monstrous species,
A Key into the Monsters of America
, a book which made his name in England and brought him much fame.
Over seventy manuscripts of the work are extant, most of which inexplicably have multiple pages stuck together as if by some sort of glue, possibly the result of over-eager censors. Nevertheless, enough exist that the entirety of the work can be reconstructed. In the Renaissance, it was a popular myth that the work was a lost fourth book of Ovid's own
Ars Amatoria
, but this is easily disproven, and the clichรฉd trick of attributing a new work to an ancient author is a pathetic way of trying to lend legitimacy to subpar writing. No, it is indeed obvious that this work was written by Herman the German and no one else.
As is to be expected of a work of such importance and widespread distribution, a number of commentaries and translations exist of it. The worst commentary is arguably Ernst August of Hanover's, who, like all other Ernst Augusts of Hanover, was a jerk, and whose commentary consists almost entirely of which insults are most offensive to the various women, and how best to hurt their feelings. The dullest translation and commentary is probably that of Lord Nigel Poppenroy, who wrote in 1857, and therefore had to excise all mentions of legs, breasts, pussies, sex
per anum, orem, et more ferarum
, dildos, bondage, fellatio, cunnilingus, irrumatio, sodomy, gomorrahmy, and snuggling afterwards. Even then, the publication provoked riots in the streets, as well as an immediate increase in trips to the continent.
The best commentary, however, is by and large agreed to be that of Signore Niccolรฒ Melanzana, a minor Florentine aristocrat of the early 1500s, who, using the
Bestiarum
as his guide, traveled throughout Europe, meeting and romancing many of the women described within. His accounts admirably supplement Herman's writings, and the two authors unwittingly create a better work together than either of them did singly. For this reason, Melanzana's commentaries are presented along with the original text in asterisked italics. I have attempted to provide a modern, colloquial translation, devoid of mentions to
godemichรฉs
and
olisbos
, while still preserving the flavor of Herman and Melanzana's original writings. Only the first volume of this work is presented here, but more are to follow soon.
Finally, I wish to thank the University of Verfรผhrungsberg for their generosity with their manuscript, as well as their extreme enthusiasm for this project. Indeed, innumerable undergraduates assisted me throughout this translation, and sometimes I even caught them translating pages late at night.
- Magnus Lotharius, Professor of Monstrous Studies at Cornell University
Bestiarum Monstrarum Feminarum
In these dark pagan lands, there are things far more dangerous than heathen Prussians of which our brave knights must be wary. Things that lurk in the darkness, waiting for innocent men so that they may entice them off the path of virtue into sin and vice. These primeval forests contain creatures long since banished from civilized Christendom, creatures long thought to be the products of the imagination of ancient authors, but as so many of us are now discovering, these creatures are real.