The Fish That Enjoyed a Book

On 23 June 1626 a large cod from Lynn on the Norfolk coast was gutted on a market stall in the English university town of Cambridge. Its stomach, or maw, contained a book. The volume had been protected by a wrapping of sailcloth. It turned out to be a collection of religious pieces written in prison by the Protestant John Frith, who had been burnt at the stake for his convictions in 1533. Curiously, before being confined in the Tower of London Frith was detained in an Oxford fish cellar, where fellow prisoners had died from fumes given off by decaying salted fish.

Mr Mead, Fellow of Christ’s college, Cambridge, wrote in a letter now in the British Museum, London, ‘I saw all with mine own eyes, the fish, the maw, the piece of sail cloth, the book…only I saw not the opening of the fish, which not many did, being upon the fish-woman’s stall in the market, who first cut off his head, to which the maw was hanging, and seeming much stuffed with somewhat, it was searched, and all found as aforesaid. He that had his nose as near as I yester morning, would have been persuaded there was no imposture here.’

The university authorities were so taken with the event that they reprinted the work as Vox Piscis (The Voice of the Fish ) complete with a woodcut showing the fish, the book and the fish-woman’s knife.