Now you are asking yourself what an earth is that, if not than you should be……its from the mind of a medieval wood carver. The carving dates from the 15th century and is an armrest in the beautiful St Mary’s Church in the village of Dennington, Suffolk.
Any ideas yet…….its a medieval giraffe…the wood carver would have been told about this creature with the long neck…..but it seems he wasn’t told the neck went straight up and so he carved what he thought it would look like, bent and resting on the creatures back. Not sure if is true, if not it should be.
Echoes of the Past 
Great theory! More fantasy than armrest, and I’m sure small children would find it a bit of a distraction during a sermon!
He or she is one of the most unusual ones I have found, what I love is the carver has even got makings on the neck, just imagine what it must have been like not to know what a giraffe looked like. I did miss one, a creature hiding under is own big foot, I have to go back and find that one 🙂
Fabulous, a real indication of the imagination and skill of those carvers. From the images we have, I get the impression they must have thought the world was populated with some fantastic creatures – which I suppose it is.
I love them, I am amazed that they are all different, in this church there are lots of what they call hounds and they are all different. I have to go back as I missed the creature that is hiding under his own big foot and then I think I will try and get all of them 🙂 Just imagine if they had know about dinosaurs !!!!
Bizarre – looks like some kind of griffiny-dragon to me! An amazing survival considering its age.
It could be anything really and we will never know what it was meant to be, but great fun in trying to work out 🙂
As always, I need to comment on the craftsmanship of the carvings you’ve found.
I know you just wonder how they did it over 500 years ago 🙂