**Work in Progress** Leucrocotta

He will have little horns coming out of those two bezels, as well as some nasty teeth. He's basically a badger. Except, you know, for the horns.

Crocotta: half of Chapter 30

Copper with Stainless Steel Jaw

There are two creatures in Chapter 30- the full title is The Crocotta and the Leucrocotta. As the book progresses, there are quite a few chapters of this ilk; each creature will be treated as a finished entry.

From Borges- "Pliny writes (VIII 30) that the Crocotta is 'an animal which looks as though it has been produced by the coupling of the wolf and the dog, for it can break anything with its teeth...'"

So really, the Crocotta isn't imaginary at all. It is a hungry wolf. I'm under the impression that wolves already have pretty powerful jaws. Just in case, though, I gave my wolf a stainless steel jaw inset, with very sharp teeth.

**Work in Progress** Crocotta

There's his face, and the pattern for the inset for his steel jaw. The Crocotta sounds very much like a non-imaginary but very hungry wolf, to me.

The Eight Forked Serpent: Chapter 35

From Borges-
"...It was eight-headed and eight-tailed; its eyes were red as the winter cherry, and pine trees and mosses grew on its back... As it crawled, it stretched over eight valleys and eight hills..."

The story (once again written up more or less in its entirety) is of a snake who eats maidens/princesses. A hero named "Brave-Strong-Impetuous-Male" (I have got to go look up that name in its original tongue!) beats the snake by tricking it into a pen, getting it drunk, and cutting off its heads. Good job, Mr. Impetuous-Male.

I had, at the beginning, intended to have the snake heads be more abstract- just hammered flat on the ends and set with a carnelian for those red eyes. But I was seduced, and made them all with all their little forked tongues, instead. Here they are, in more detail.

The little trees have been in since the beginning. And they always looked just like this.

The snakes I wanted to be both separate entities and one beast; both landscape and creature. I went through several iterations before arriving here, at the end, with a crown that is also a mask.

Barometz: Chapter 13

Copper, Wood

From Borges-
" The vegatable Lamb of Tartary, also named Barometz and Lycopodium Barometz and Chinese lycopodium, is a plant whose shape is that of a lamb bearing a golden fleece. It stands on four or five root stalks..."

I wanted a solid lamb, and a solid lamb in copper would have been too heavy to support. So I carved him out of a bit of 2x4. Then, when I got him atop the copper stalks, he didn't look like he fit, at all, so I rubbed him with copper dust and patinated the whole thing to a nice vegetable green.

And here's a close up of the sheep-

** Work in Progress** Eight forked serpent

First attempt at forging a snake. I think it rather worked. There will be seven more of them for this piece.

The Double- Chapter 32

Copper, Mirror

If it is unclear from the photos here- The Double is only half a mask. I skipped ahead a bit, as things outside this project have gotten ridiculous, and I wanted something a little bit simpler to work on. This one I knew exactly what I wanted- what it should look like, how it would be constructed, and also, I already had all the parts. I am still putting off any mask for which I need to order parts, for financial reasons.

From Borges- "Suggested or stimulated by reflections in mirrors ans in water and by twins, the idea of the Double is common to many countries" Borges then goes on to list doubles in myth, fairytale, and literature; The doppelganger, the fetch, the wraith; stories by Stevenson, Rosetti, Hawthorne, Dostevsky, and more; and then on to Egyptian and Hebrew mythology. In most cases the Double seems to either cause or foretell doom, though there are some remarkable exceptions.