Man or Fish?

In about 1161, in the reign of King Henry 2^nd, some English fisherman from Suffolk caught a naked ‘wild man’ in their nets and brought him to Barthlomew de Glanville, who was governor of Orford Castle.

                According to Ralph of Coggeshall, the abbot of the local monastery, the creature was so at home in the sea that they could not decide If he was a man or a fish. But since he was not fish-tailed, was rather bald-headed, and had the body of a man, a beard and a very hairy chest, they thought he might be an evil spirit in the body of a drowned sailor.

                He ate whatever food they gave him, but liked his fish raw. Although the soldiers at the castle tortured him, the man could not or would not speak. At first they guarded him carefully, although once, when they fenced off part of the sea with fishing nets so that he could swim, he broke through the nets and swam away. But after gamboling in the nets and swam away. But after gamboling in the waves for a while he returned and stayed for two more months, before eventually escaping into the sea, never to return.

                Because this circumstantial account is unlike other reports of mermen, the abbot’s story probably records the discovery of a wild boy, and not a merman.