A rundown of the top ten strangest monsters in historic medieval European art. It was exceedingly difficult to narrow this list down to just ten.

If you don’t know anything about Medieval art, you might reasonably assume old illustrated texts featured basic depictions of historical and religious figures. But medieval art is overflowing with absurdity — particularly when it comes to depictions of myth and monsters.

Beyond the legends of dragons and unicorns you might be familiar with is a truly insane world of lesser known ancient creatures which stretch the imagination with their utter bizarreness. So today, we’re going to take a look at the top ten strangest of these monsters:

10 – Monopod 9 – Bonnacon

8 – Sea Monk

7 – Salamander

6 – Amphisbaena 5 – Shurale

4 – Snail

3 – Blemmyes

2 – Vegetable Lamb

1 – Gryllus