Beached Whales

A recent Wall Street Journal blog post discusses what beached the London Whale.  Charles Forelle’s post indicates that trader Bruno Iksil had been placing bets on a credit index maintained by Markit called  “CDX.NA.IG.9″.  In an earlier time, diarist John Evelyn recorded the beaching of an actual whale in the Thames:

3d June, 1658. A large whale was taken between my

land abutting on the Thames and Greenwich, which

drew an infinite concourse to see it, by water, horse,

coach, and on foot, from London, and all parts. It

appeared first below Greenwich at low water, for at high

water it would have destroyed all the boats, but lying

now in shallow water encompassed with boats, after a

long conflict, it was killed with a harping iron, struck

in the head, out of which spouted blood and water

by two tunnels; and after a horrid groan, it ran quite

on shore, and died. Its length was fifty-eight feet,

height sixteen; black skinned, like coach leather; very

small eyes, great tail, only two small fins, a peaked

snout and a mouth so wide, that divers men might have

stood upright in it; no teeth, but sucked the slime only

as through a grate of that bone which we call whale-

bone; the throat yet so narrow, as would not have ad-

mitted the least of fishes. The extremes of the cetaceous

bones hang downward from the upper jaw, and are hairy

toward the ends and bottom within side: all of it pro-

digious; but in nothing more wonderful than that an

animal of so great a bulk should be nourished only bv

slime through those grates.

Often when one whale is beached, others follow.  Or so says Walter Scott.  Scott mentions seeing hundreds of whales while on his trip with Robert Stevenson to inspect the Northern Lights in 1814.  The following entry (August 1814) is found in Lockhart’s “Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott…”:

‘The few friends who may see this journal are much indebted for these pathetic remarks to the situation under which they are recorded…The worst is that this struggle carries us past a most curious spectacle, being no less than the carcasses of two hundred and sixty-five whales, which have been driven ashore in Taftsness Bay, now lying close under us.  With all the inclination in the world, it is impossible to stand in close enough to verify this massacre of Leviathans with our own eyes, as we do not care to run the risk of being drawn ashore ourselves among the party.  In fact this species of spectacle has been of late years very common among the isles.  Mr Stevenson saw upwards of one hundred and fifty whales lying upon the shore in a bay at Unst, in his northward trip.  They are not large, but are decided whales, measuring perhaps from fifteen to twenty-five feet.  They are easily mastered, for the first that is wounded among the sounds ans straits so common in the isles, usually runs ashore.  The rest follow the blood, and urged on by the boats behind, run ashore also.  A cut with one of the long whaling knives under the back-fin, is usually fatal to these huge animals.   The two hundred and sixty-five whales now lying within two or three miles of us were driven ashore by seven boats only.’

Nikolai Mikhailovich Karamzin

Russian author Nikolai Mikhailovich Karamzin, died this day, June 3^rd, in 1826.  He lived roughly the same lifespan as Sir Walter Scott, beginning and ending about five years earlier.  Karamzin wrote histories, and scholars see an influence on Karamzin from Scott’s work.

One of Karamzin’s essays is included in “The Great Events by Famous Historians”, the start of which is below:

COSSACK CONQUEST OF SIBERIA

A.D. 1581

NIKOLAI M. KARAMZIN

Siberia, the northern home of the Tartars, was little known, even to the Russians, until the latter part of the sixteenth century. The Cossack conquest of the western portion of the region now called Siberia opened that vast territory to Muscovite occupation, and gradually it has become known to the world as part of the Russian empire.

Nothing certain is known of the origin of the Cossack tribes, and no final agreement has been reached as to the derivation of their name. According to later supposition, their nucleus was a body of refugees from the ancient Russian lands invaded by Tartars in the thirteenth century. Some of those refugees settled between the embouchures of the Ural River, others near the mouth of the Don. Driven by invasion to form themselves into a military organization, the Cossacks of the Don became a formidable confederacy. Since 1549 they have been under the protection of Russia, and have rendered great service to the empire.

Although they have always, since the time of Ivan IV, called the "Terrible" (1547-1584), furnished valorous soldiers to Russia, the Cossacks of the Don have often rebelled and disowned her authority. Russian troops have frequently been ordered to exterminate them.

During the last years of Ivan IV these Cossacks entered upon that eastern conquest which led to Russian expansion into Asia. Karamzin, the Russian historian, is the most eminent authority on this subject…

The Weaver Poet

Robert Tannahill, the weaver poet, was born in Paisley on June 3, 1774.  Tannahill's nickname derives from his being apprenticed at age 12 to his father, a silk weaver.  Tannahill was contemporary with Burns and Scott.  According to Rampant Scotland, Tanahill established a Burns club in Paisley (1803), and among his guests there was Walter Scott's friend James Hogg.

Tannahill shares space in statue form in the Wallace Monument at Stirling with Robert Burns and Walter Scott.

The Braes of Balquhidder (Wild Mountain Thyme)
(Robert Tannahill)

Will ye go, lassie, go, to the braes o' Balquhidder
Where the blueberries grow, 'mang the bonnie bloomin' heather;
Where the deer and the ram, lightly bounding together,
Sport 'he lang summer day 'mang the braes o' Balquhidder
Will ye go, lassie, go,
To the braes o' Balquhidder!
Where the blueberries grow,
'Mang the bonnie bloomin' heather


I will twine thee a bower by the clear siller fountain
An' I'll cover it o'er wi' the flowers o' the mountain;
I will range through the wilds, an' the deep glens sae dreary.
An' return wi' their spoils to the bower o' my dearie

When the rude wintry win' idly raves round our dwellin',
An' the roar o' the linn on the night-breeze is swellin'
Sae merrily we'll sing as the storm rattles o'er us,
Till the dear sheeling ring wi' the light liltin' chorus.


Now the summer is in prime, wi' the flowers richly bloomin'
An' the wild mountain thyme a' the moorlands perfumin'
To our dear native scenes let us journey together
Where glad innocence reigns 'mang the braes of Balquhidder