Answer the following about foreboding fish discussed in Jorge Luis Borges’s (“HOR-hay loo-eece BOR-hess’s”) The Book of Imaginary Beings, for 10 points each.
[10e] In his discussion of the island-sized fish Fastitocalon, Borges quotes from an Anglo-Saxon one of these medieval texts. These texts catalog and depict legendary creatures and assign them moral significance.
ANSWER: bestiary [or bestiaries]
[10h] Borges asserts that Arab storytellers created this monstrous fish by distorting Abrahamic stories about a giant elephant or hippo. This fish supports a bull who supports an angel who holds up the world.
ANSWER: Bahamūt [or Bahamoot or Balhūt or Lutīyā; prompt on Behemoth by asking “what is the name of the Arabic creature?”]
[10m] Borges’s section on “the fauna of” these things discusses a Cantonese superstition involving unexpectedly seeing a fish in one of them. They’re not liquid, but Nostradamus used one of these things in his divination method.
ANSWER: magic mirrors [accept looking glass or a piece of glass; accept magic mirror, scrying mirror, black mirror, or dark mirror; accept mirror world; accept scrying stone; accept jìngzi; prompt on reflective surface or reflection; prompt on a piece of obsidian]
<Mythology>