a tail of a whale
Have you forgotten about the poor old brute's short visit to our filthy river? Only hours before it died I was just about to cross Battersea Bridge where thousands leaned against the bridge struggling to spot the whale. At first I had no idea what the fuss was all about, but seconds later I too jumped off the car to join the crowd. I asked a nearby motorbike man in black, hoping he would point me to the right direction, but of course with his sunglasses on he could not see anything, and then off he went. I asked another man who was holding a digital camera, at this precise moment a barge was travelling slowly in the Thames. 'Look at the yellow boat', he says, and there I luckily caught a fleeting glimpse of the whale's fin, the rest of its huge body was covered up. This sort of thing does not happen every day, in fact I was told not in 300+ years. The incident reminded me of a brief reference in Jonson's Volpone (1607) when Peregrine updates the English expat of an extraordinary sight in London:
'The verie day
(Let me be sure) that I put forth from London,
There was a whale discouer'd, in the riuer,
As high as Woolwich, that had waited there
(Few know how manie mon'ths) for the subuersion
Of the Stode-Fleet'.
Subsequent pamphlets and eyewitness accounts follow. After all who would want to hide the excitement of seeing an enormous creature? But are these reports truthful? Facts get distorted, its size is exaggerated to make the sea monster appear more fightful and humans brave. For an interesting study of early modern whales, do visit my supervisor's weblog (!)