The Piscatorial Presentation of the Oceanographic Oddities

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n Although the term is stillnin use, to call someone who is odd, eccentric or peculiar a ‘strange fish’nis not as common as it once was. The expression reached its peak in Elizabethanntimes, when strange fish were regularly exhibited throughout the country. Shakespearenalludes to the phenomena twice, in The Tempest and A Winter’s Tale.nWhen Trinculo encounters Caliban, he says,

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n“What have we here? a man or anfish? dead or alive? A fish: he smells like a fish; a very ancient andnfish-like smell; a kind of not of the newest Poor-John. A strange fish! Were Inin England now, as once I was, and had but this fish painted, not a holidaynfool there but would give a piece of silver: there would this monster make anman; any strange beast there makes a man: when they will not give a doit tonrelieve a lame beggar, they will lay out ten to see a dead Indian. Legged likena man! and his fins like arms!”

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nThe Tempest Act 2 Scene 2.

Shagreen Ray

nAnd Autolycus, talking of songs,nsays

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n“Here’s another ballad of anfish, that appeared upon the coast, on Wednesday the fourscore of April, fortynthousand fathom above water, and sung this ballad against the hard hearts ofnmaids: it was thought she was a woman, and was turned into a cold fish for shenwould not exchange flesh with one that loved her: the ballad is very pitifulnand as true.”

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n The Winter’s Tale Act 4 Scene 4

nTown dwellers in particular wouldnpay their penny to see all sorts of marine oddities and fleshy monsters. Andnthere were many to see. Old Henry Peacham, that ‘compleat gentleman’, lists,namongst other things,

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n“The White Hall whale-bones, the silver Bason i’ Chester;
nThe live-caught Dog-fish, the Wolfe and Harry the Lyon,
nHunks of the Beare-garden, to be feared, if he be nigh on.”

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Monk Fish

nAnother playwright, Jasper Mayne,nin his 1639 The City Match, also alludes to the practice,

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n“Faith, I do grant

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nThis is the strangest fish.nYon I have hung

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nHis other picture in thenfields, where some

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nSay ’tis an o’ergrownnporpoise; others say,

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n‘Tis the fish caught innCheshire; one, to whom

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nThe rest agree, said ’twas anmermaid.”

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nThere is much fun to follow, whenna man is dressed as a great fish and exhibited. The play was first performed atnWhitehall, before King Charles I. In 1568, Timothy Granger described,

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n“A moste true and marvellousnstraunge wonder the lyke hath seldom been seene of xvii Monstrous fishes takennin Suffolke at Downam Brydge, within a myle of Ipswiche, the xi daye of Octobernin the yeare of our Lorde God 1568.”

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A Monstrous Fish

nAn account is entered innRegisters of the Stationers’ Company of 1595 of,

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n“A strange and hughe fishendryven on the Sandes at Outhorne in Holdernes, in Februarye,”

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nand in 1604, the books of thensame Company record,

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n“A strange reporte of anmonstrous fish that appeared in the form of a woman from her waist upward,nseene in the sea.”

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Another Strange Fish

nIn 1704, a broadsheet describednmany strange prognostications and omens, including that,

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n“…in Orford in Sussex, certainnFisher-men drew up in their Net a Hairy Creature out of the Sea, in allnProportions like a Man, which was exposed to the Sight of Thousands, livingnupon Flesh, but in the end stole from his Keepers and got to sea again,”

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nbefore describing a porpoise,ncaught and displayed at Spittle-Fields, which had ventured up-river, seeminglynto escape storms at sea. It was described as a Sea-Hog, on account of its sizenand flesh, and was shown at the Black Swan alehouse on New Fleet Street.

The Sea-Bishop

nOnencurious exhibit was the Sea-Bishop, illustrated in Costume by JohannesnSluper, published in Antwerp in 1572, which looks suspiciously like a modifiednsquid. Apparently, the Bishop was brought before the King, who perceived thatnhe wished to return to his own habitat, so he was carried back to the sea, intonwhich he cast himself.

The Sea-Monk

nIn the same work is also the Sea-Monk, another wonder ofnthe deep, as if there are entire orders of clergy beneath the waves. As late asnthe 1860s, people paid to see the marvels – a ‘talking fish’ was displayed innprovincial England, which, it turns out, was a sea-lion communicating with itsnnatural cry.