We’re traveling this week so we’ve availed Robert Ripley’s Giant Book of Believe it or Not a couple of times. Here’s another one.
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In 1626, a fishmonger in Cambridge, England pulled out a book that was bound in sailcloth from the belly of a large fish that was just caught and killed. The book was still legible, and after it was perused, it turned out to be a theological treatise written about a hundred years earlier by John Frith.
In 1533, John Frith was considered a heretic and was burned at the stake because of his controversial writings. John Frith had written the book while he was imprisoned in a cellar in Oxford which was actually used to store dead fish. The stench inside this cellar was so rancid that many other prisoners had died from it. The book was reprinted in 1627 as Vox Piscis, which literally means, “Voice of the Fish”.
So what is an oddity? LOL!
The fish will never tell!
Wow, that is really interesting. How did it get in a fish, I wonder?
Interesting that the day we mention Ripley's Believe it or Not, Huffington Post reports that Ripley's is running out of oddities. We're not.
Rob
Interesting story, Ray. Who changed the name??
It just goes to prove that you can't stop the written word.
Vox Piscis is very similar to Vox Maris, Voice of the Sea, original motto of the USS Mount Whitney until someone decided to change it. One the members of of my department submitted it in a contest.
Ray
ok – so now every time i eat fish, i'll wonder what little treasures might have been in it's tummy – and what the little fish might be trying to tell me! what a fantastic story!!!