Das Buch der Natürlichen Weißheit’s Wudéwásá
Posted by: Loren Coleman on December 12th, 2011
This is the time of year to remind ourselves of this recently discovered woodcut. It shows details taken from Das buch der Natürlichen weißheit (The Book of Natural Wisdom), published in 1490 by Ulrich von Pottenstein (Munich). The creatures certainly appear to resemble the wudéwásá, woodwose, the “hairy ones,” more popularly known as the “Wildman of the Woods” or “Wildpeople.”
The European wudéwásá are to be found in the art from that time period (see above and below).
Hominologists have theorized that the art showing these creatures may represent examples of the late survival of Neandertals.
Source of Das buch der Natürlichen weißheit image: BibliOdyssey
If you are aware of how to obtain the Wudéwásá coin above, we are looking for one for display at the International Cryptozoology Museum. Thank you.
Thank you!
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These are only some pages of the book they are but interesting.
manticora
I don´t think the hairy “humanoids” in the woodcuts are actually wild men or wudewasa. If you look at the other plates, it seems this is are only animals acting like humans, for example the bear with the sallet and the halberd. It seems more probable to me those creatures are just monkeys, which were already at medieval times known in Europe, and often used for allegories and fables, and this book in particular was a collection of fables.
The book is showing a fable (Cyrillus Fabel). And as I can read in the other pages from the link above them talking about “Affen” the german word for monkey. I will get some literature about the “Buch der natürlichen Weissheit” the next days! manticora
Seems these coins were made for quite some time.
They are from BRUNSWICK-LUNEBURG.
Some quick research on the coins and the area they are from leads me to believe that the woodwose is an old pagan god.
Apparently, the woodwose is possibly connected with the Green Man and is pre-Christian.
John Mathew’s Taliesin: The Last Celtic Shaman from 2002 might give some ideas of the origin of the woodwose.
Definitely not a long shot because pre-Christian cultures in North Europe borrowed from each other.
And for the museum: 625$
A bit hefty in my opinion.
P.S. Taler (daler in Scandinavia) is the etymological origin of the dollar.
Great article! I particularly liked the collection of pictures. That coin is too cool.
Anyway…Interesting set of woodcuts there, folks—certainly proves that “hairy creatures” were not confined to just NOW.