Medieval children's sketches

Kids have always scribbled the equivalent of Tie Fighters and tanks in their school notebooks. One example of this is the remains of the doodles of Onfirm, a young Russian boy living in Novgorod around the 13th century:

quote:

Onfim was being taught to write, but he was obviously restless with his lessons and when he could get away with it, he intermixed his assignments with doodlings. In this first example, he started to write out the first eleven letters of the alphabet in the upper right corner, but got bored and drew a picture of himself as a grown-up warrior impaling an enemy with his spear. To remove any doubt about the identity of the warrior, he even labeled the person on the horse as "Onfim." Fantasies of becoming a mighty warrior were not the only things that Onfim thought up though. In another example, he took the piece of bark that he was practicing on, turned it over, and drew a picture of himself disguised as a wild beast (which he identified by writing "I am a wild beast" [Ia zver'] over it). The beast, with its long tongue (or fiery breath), is apparently still a friendly beast as it is carrying a sign that reads "Greetings from Onfim to Danilo" [Poklon ot Onfima ko Danile]. Danilo was probably a friend, perhaps even a schoolmate sitting next to Onfim. In still other drawings, Onfim draws warriors in armor, fierce battle scenes, and children playing around a tree. (2)

You can find an article on Onfirm's art here: http://www.goldschp.net/archive/childart.html