Giant Fish in Thames

[China Doll]

Afternoon All,

Just finished reading a book called Revelation which is set in 1543. I think the author likes to base certain parts of the book on historical fact so I was curious about some 'giant fish' he mentions that appear to have become beached. I've tried googling to see if there were any beached whales or some such thing around that time but not gotten very far. I just wondered if this part of the story was a bit of creative license on the authors part or if it was based on an actual event. Any ideas?

Cheers.

[rowanwitch]

The Thames was pretty clean pre industrial revolution so it is likely small whales and dolphins were regular visitors to the tidal stretches at least as far as the port of london maybe further upstream as news didn't travel very far or very fast this may only been locally documented... There is a society that deals with such events now and they might have a small archive of historical material...

[shaneystar2]

There must be some record of this happening China because these giant fish are also mentioned in Hilary Mantels book Wolf Hall which is about Thomas Cromwell who also features in the Shardlake books .
Sansom does his research rather well so it may well have happened .
I've just finished his latest Heartstone ,where the Mary Rose sinks and he researched that well .
In Wolf Hall a scryer of some sort saw these fish as a bad omen for Henry VIII and denounced him for messing about with Anne Boleyn at the time .
She is named but the name escapes me at the moment ( I think she was nun ) so there must be a record of it somewhere .

[jno]

there have been some, though this doesn't mention 1543

http://www.timesonlin.../uk/article717346.ece

They wouldn't have got past London Bridge, which had narrow arches and consequently a heavy flow of rapids as the river squeezed through them.

[China Doll]

Yup, they were seen as a bad omen in revelation too and he talks about people selling the fish oil to the doctors because they were thought to have magical properties. I'm just interested in what sort of fish they were but the stuff I've found doesn't really say much about that specific time and I think newspapers were phamplets then.

[jno]

whales get quite a good press in the Bible - Jonah was swallowed by one for three days (actually it was just a 'great fish') before getting out again, and this was supposed to prefigure Christ rising from the tomb after three days. On the other hand, Leviathan was sometimes depicted as a whale and as the mouth of hell. So I suppose if a whale washed up you'd have trouble figuring out if it was a heavenly whale or a hellish one.

[China Doll]

Ha! Heavenly or hellish whales, I like that!

[Ankou]

if this is cj sansom ? (great author btw) then doesn't he usually have some notes at the back outlining fact and poetic licence?

[jno]

to find which is which, you could try this on it and see if it turns the other cheek

http://www.wecovet.co...008/11/20/whale_2.png

[China Doll]

Nothing in the notes Ankou, I looked.

[mike11111]

I think shaneystar2 is referring to Elizabeth Barton aka "The Nun of Kent"

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/02319b.htm

[Ankou]

will have a look, but there is evidence....

http://www.docklands2...lands_musuem_1_623901

[China Doll]

Thanks mike and Ankou!

[Ankou]

and be sure that the whaling industry in london was substantial in medieval times. particularly from greenwich where the novel asserts the siting.

[jno]

when the tide's coming in you've got the whole North Sea trying to barrel upriver, so a whale could easily find himself heading for Greenwich without necessarily wanting to. If the tide was going out he'd have to go to the whaleway station.

[jackthehat]

^...........and if he was uncertain whether freight charges could apply, he'd have to go to the whale weigh station.......................:o)

[jno]

ah yes, how do you get two whales in a Mini?

Along the M4.

[mike11111]

As Vera Lynn said in song bemoaning food shortages during WWII, "Whale meat again!"