Site Overlay

Lunar Houses

Grid drawing in purples showing 28 small talisman symbols

This week’s Doodle Addicts prompt, and a side project that I’m working on, had me inspired to do this illustration of the weird, wonderful medieval talismanic images associated with the twenty eight Mansions of the Moon, or Lunar Stations. The symbols come from a medieval book on astrology and talismanic (protective) magic originally in Arabic, but came to be known in Latin (kind of adorably) as the Picatrix. Like all such pieces of medieval obscurity, the symbols are like a delicious and weird potpourri of astrological folklore.

Here is a rundown of the talismanic images, because how could I post them without a key?

  1. A warrior with a spear, his head wrapped
  2. A king, crowned
  3. A woman with her right arm over her head
  4. A knight riding forth, holding aloft a serpent in his right hand
  5. A head, disembodied, not dead
  6. Two identical people, tied together
  7. A man in robes, his hands extended in prayer
  8. An eagle with the face of a man
  9. A eunuch, covering his eyes (a wounded man)
  10. The head of a lion
  11. A man with a lance astride a lion
  12. A man battling a dragon
  13. A man and a woman, tied together
  14. A dog with its tail in its mouth
  15. A man seated, reading scrolls
  16. A man enthroned, holding scales
  17. A monkey with its arms raised above its head
  18. An asp with a tail held over its head
  19. A woman, weeping
  20. A centaur armed with bow and arrow
  21. A man with two faces, one gazing right, the other left
  22. A helmeted man with wings on his feet
  23. A cat with the head of a dog
  24. A woman holding a child to nurse
  25. A man planting trees
  26. A woman washing her hair in a basin
  27. A winged man holding a cup to his mouth
  28. A fish with a multicolored spine