In the early 19th century, a sperm whale was beached at Cresswell, Northumberland. What follows is an imaginative reconstruction of how locals reacted, and how King George IV capitalised on the situation.Its true. Every word of it. Well, some.
1822 was a funny old year in Geordieland. Mind you, truth to tell, every year in Geordieland is funny as you can't get a Geordie passport unless you're an incurable eccentric. Being a nation of eccentrics, then, it’s a pretty safe bet that any year between 1,083BC (when our sovereignty was formed) and the present is going to be a bloody peculiar one.
Anyway, I digress. Back to 1822. On the morning of Thursday August 8, a Large Thing shuggied it's way up onto the coast at Cresswell in Northumberland.
"Look!" said a local Calamian deer* farmer. "There's a Large Thing!"
And so it was.
Anyhoo, the farmer's wife went and got a tape measure from B&Q, came back and measured it.
"Bloody hell!" she exclaimed, "Its sixty-eight feet from the tip of the tail bit to the end of the head bit!"
And so it was.
Now after much deliberation and argument, it was decided that the Large Thing was actually a "spermaceti whale".
"That's funny", said the farmer's wife's husband, "Them Large Things are only supposed to live in the South Seas, which are so called because they are seas and in the south. What, pray, is it doing here in Cresswell?"
"Maybe we moved during the night", said the farmer's wife.
"No", replied her spouse. "I can still see the top of the tall, pointy stone thing over there".
"You mean the church steeple?"
"Whatever. Stop being a smart arse. Anyway, we haven't moved. The Large Thing, which I will henceforth call a spermaceti whale, dearest, must have got lost".
"That's a shame. How's it going to get home, then?"
Their discourse was interrupted by another farmer who tilled the land adjacent to that owned by the first one. His farm, for the record, was called The Next One Along.
And so it was.
"Here, what are we going to do about this Large Thing, then?"
"You mean the spermaceti whale over there?"
"Whatever. Stop being a smart arse. Can you see the head bit? Its on my land, that bit is".
"But the bit at the other end, the tail bit, is on my land".
"Exackerly. So who does it belong to, then?"
"Me".
"But I've got the head bit, which is where the important things are, so it must be mine".
"No; the tail bit is where the bum is, and a spermaceti whale can't live long without a bum. Its mine".
Anyway, they couldn't agree, and both proceeded to poke a hole in the Large Thing and drain the oil out of it. One hole was at one end, and the other hole was at the other end away from the first one. According to official records, both farmers drew out a grand total of 9 tons and 158 gallons of oil from the Large Thing. The only thing was, being greedy bastards, they couldn't agree who it belonged to and they weren't prepared to half it.
Now it turned out that the King, known as George IV, on account of his being the fourth one called George, got to hear about it.
"What's this about a Large Thing at Cresswell up in Northumberland?" he asked his valet.
"It’s a spermaceti whale, Your Majesty".
"Whatever. Stop being a smart arse. Anyway, what's the crack about it?"
"Its up on the beach, not far from the tall pointy stone thing. Half of it is on the farm called The First One, and the other half is on the farm called The Next One Along, on account of it being the next one along".
"What, its in two halves?"
"No, it's in one half, but they're arguing about who owns it."
"Well that's easy sorted. It belongs to me, because I'm the King".
"And what about the oil, Your Highness?"
"What oil?"
"They got loads of oil out of it. It's all in buckets. And tankards. And chamber pots".
"How are we off for oil here, then? You know, for the lamps and that."
"Well it never comes in wrong, Your Worshipful Angelicness".
"Right then. Get the lads up to Cresswell with one of those Royal Decree thingies and a load of buckets and tell them I want the oil. And I want all of it. If they try and scam so much as a thimbleful I'll double their taxes. In any event, if they get really bolshy I might just revive that old prima nocte thing, where the King can bonk a woman on the first night of her marriage before her hubby. Edward did that, you know, up in Scotland ages ago".
"And how did that go down, Sire?"
"Like an effing lead balloon, mate. Plus, he got the pox."
And so it came to pass that the oil sucked out of the Large Thing at Cresswell was given to King George, who had a Very Small Thing in his codpiece.
But that's another story.
The moral of the tale is that if you end up arguing with the bloke next door about spermaceti whales, don't.
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* There were no Calamian deer in England in 1822. I just invented this to sex it up a bit.
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