As you know, I spend an immoderate amount of time trawling Wikimedia Commons for old-timey paintings what I can crack jokes on, so I’ve seen my fair share of imperfectly-rendered animals, but this one here has taken the majority of my cakes.

WHAT IS IT.

I know what you’re thinking, it’s a Weird Cat, and that’s what I was leaning toward for a while, but it can’t be, it just can’t.

Arguments for it being a Weird Cat:

– yes okay those are definitely, kind of, cat paws (WHY ARE THERE ONLY THREE??)

– and I’ll grant you there’s a fair amount of Cattishness in the head-region of the beast

– END OF LIST

Arguments for it being definitely Not A Cat but some sort of I Don’t Know What It Is:

– NO TAIL, NOT EVEN A WISP OF A TAIL

– What is happening with its BODY??? it’s MASSIVE in proportion to its head/feet extremities. And I don’t mean it’s just a fat housecat (which I don’t imagine were super common back in the hundreds of fifteen, just on account of PEOPLE were still starving to death at the time, but honestly I don’t want to make a lot of sweeping claims about historical animal weight), there’s a serious MUSCLE LUMP on its back right behind the head? It has like, a BADGER BODY, or like one of those really muscular dogs you see pictures of sometimes

– It kind of looks like a weird, squat wolf? Is this what wolverines look like?

– I searched “weird animals Europe” but I didn’t really see anything that looked like it, if that’s helpful

So far my other guesses are: muscular rabbit, badger thing, wolverine, NOT A CAT, ????

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