Frogs, foxes and fire-breathing dragons: Meet the barking, quacking and roaring menagerie of the Bayeux Tapestry

Rampant lions take artful poses, a wolf plays a trick on a crane, and excitable dogs chase their own tails: the Bayeux Tapestry, commissioned shortly after the Battle of Hastings to convey a Norman version of the conquest of England, depicts almost as many animals as humans. Around 200 of them are horses — royal mounts, workhorses and cavalry — all stitched onto 70 metres of linen in wool dyed with woad, madder and weld. As they charge through the embroidery’s nine panels, they pass a barking, quacking, roaring menagerie of over 500 other creatures: from frogs, foxes and fire-breathing dragons to what one commentator describes as a pair of Monty Pythonesque dead parrots.

The Bayeux Tapestry and its extraordinary bestiary is currently on view at the British Museum until July 11 2027. This visit, the first in almost 1,000 years, is something of a homecoming. Though commissioned in Normandy in the 1070s, most likely for display in the Bayeux Cathedral, the tapestry was sewn on English soil. It was a decision intended, not to rub our noses in the victory of William, Duke of Normandy (William the Conqueror) over King Harold II, but to take advantage of Canterbury’s reputation for superior artisanship.

At first glance, the inclusion of this animal kingdom, much of it occupying the margins, appears to be decorative. ‘Pairs of animals in compartments were a traditional form of ornament on textiles,’ explains Gale Owen-Crocker, author of The Design of the Bayeux Tapestry (2026) and Professor Emerita of Anglo-Saxon Culture at the University of Manchester. Creatures of fur and feather, both real and fabulous, were a familiar feature of 11^th-century design. Even within the tapestry’s story, sculpted animals embellish architecture, form the figureheads of ships and are carved into the seats of claw-footed thrones.

Yet the animals frolicking in the borders offer function as well as form, appearing to comment on the central story. They are like a string of colourful emojis inserted beneath a status update, or — for those who remember them — a medieval version of the Muppets’ chattering critics Statler and Waldorf, appraising the action from their theatre balcony.

The marginalia help indicate ‘the emotions and characteristics of the persons’, says Prof Owen-Crocker. The howling dog or wolf beneath King Edward’s coffin conveys grief, she suggests, while the peacocks over William and Harold’s meeting in Rouen hint at the hubris that will contribute to Harold’s downfall. Sometimes the animals seem to play a more lighthearted role. When Harold feasts in Bosham, for example, jaws and beaks in the margins are also filled with food.

Even the smallest details were crucial to telling the story. ‘Most medieval men read pictures rather than words,’ points out Arthur C. Wright in Decoding the Bayeux Tapestry (2019): the tapestry’s Latin tituli would be lost on them. ‘The animals and birds provide the sound-track,’ he adds. ‘And they also seem at times to speak directly to the viewer, to us.’

Vignettes taken from Aesop’s fables, suggesting moral failings or foreshadowing future events, pepper the tapestry, providing a brief diversion from the main action while reinforcing its principal themes. According to R. Howard Bloch, author of Animal fables, the Bayeux Tapestry and the making of the Anglo-Norman world (2005), they reinforce this central tension between human and animalistic urges as the two claimants compete for the throne. ‘Almost all the fables stage some form of drama pitting bodily appetite against the logical faculties,’ he says.

So keen is the tapestry to moralise, Aesop’s fox and crow pop up three times — the foolish bird repeatedly dropping its prized food into the jaws of the fox as it falls for the animal’s flattery. ‘It is hard to believe that the fable of the fox and the crow was not deliberately included as an ironic commentary on the unfolding drama,’ argues Andrew Bridgeford in The Hidden History of the Bayeux Tapestry (2004). But was it Harold or William that was tricked by the cunning fox? That all depends which side you’re on, Bridgeford suggests.

A cast of obliging animals also help set the scene, offering insights into medieval rural life. Livestock and game prance in the margins and a horse churns the earth with a harrow. ‘I believe this is the earliest illustration of a horse collar that enables horses to be used for draught,’ points out Prof Owen-Crocker. There’s also seed-scattering and bird-scaring, copied from bible manuscripts. ‘Somebody is sowing the seeds of a dynasty for himself,’ she proposes, ‘and doesn’t want any interference.’

Elsewhere, the animals help immerse us in courtly life and the country pursuits of the nobility. Harold rides through the second scene bearing a falcon, with collared hounds bounding ahead, while hare and deer are chased in the margins. Such details also serve as a reminder that the Battle of Hastings took place in autumn, when hawking and hunting were in full swing, and they reinforce the central theme of pursuit and dominion. Some images are overtly violent. A bear tied to a tree and attacked with a sword may simply reference the popular pastime of bear baiting, but it’s also possible it functions much like the fables: emphasising the animal instincts of the combatants, where aggression has overtaken reason.

The unfortunate bear is one of several exotic animals lurking in the borders, sure to have delighted eagle-eyed viewers. Two Bactrian camels with dark coats hover over William in an early scene — symbols, perhaps, of international trade; while the numerous lions, tongues lolling in defence of their territory or adopting heraldic postures, are most likely emblems of royalty that interact with the central story by evoking courage and strength.

One thing that has not changed in 1,000 years is that ‘big’ denotes ‘better’. Stallions — especially the well-endowed — are used to confer status, and, as one would expect in an embroidery commissioned by the Normans, William gets the steed with the largest appendage. ‘Riding a stallion suggests masculine assertiveness, especially when accompanied by spurs and a bird of prey on the hand,’ explains Prof Owen-Crocker. When Harold’s ship is blown off course and he is captured by Guy of Ponthieu and held for ransom, his mount changes from a stallion to a gelding or mare, reflecting, she adds, his ‘temporary reduction in status and power’. Guy gets even rougher treatment for this diplomatic disaster and is mounted on a mare with ass’s ears and mane, chiming, she says, ‘with a prolonged portrayal of Guy as a fool’.

Comic interludes such as this are offset with moments when darker forces seem at play as mythical creatures descend on the tapestry, from part-human centaurs and sphinxes to two-headed dragons: figureheads for malevolent forces whose presence issues a warning. Such beasts may suggest the conflict between intellect and savagery or reflect the Norman view of Harold as a two-faced traitor who broke his oath to uphold William’s claim to the English throne; while fork-tongued wyverns spouting bile hint at the venomous rumours and lies undermining William’s authority.

But for all these formidable creatures, it’s the open-beaked birds who perhaps speak to us most directly. As they flap their striped wings between the wobbly-lined borders and crane their necks to view the action, we can almost hear their cacophony. Their reaction to the story, writes Prof Owen-Crocker in Squawk Talk (2006), is much like our own. The tapestry amuses, fascinates, delights and horrifies us ‘just like the feathered watchers in the border’, she says. ‘We are the birds; the birds are us.’