More about mermaid

[Jorge_Stolfi]

If you look at a whole f79v then the woman eaten by a fish ... Hey, she is one of the monsters   And being eaten by a fish is a clear parallel to prophet Jonah. Jonah being 3 days in the belly of the fish is often compered to Jesus being 3 days in the Hell.

Speaking of which, I wonder how often, in the "telephone game" of Medieval art copying, a mermaid was turned into a woman being eaten by a fish, and vice-versa?  

Would a junior monk from the Simpletonian Order have known about the mermaid myth?  

Would a senior monk from the Smartaleckian Order have recognized a fish-eating-woman picture as a bungled mermaid, and corrected it?  

Could a lay Catholic scribe who knew the Bible only from the readings at a few scattered Masses have been baffled by a picture of Jonah being spit out by the Fish?

All the best, --stolfi