Fastitocalon by Jorge Luis Borges — Read

The Middle Ages attributed to the Holy Ghost the composition of two books. The first was, as is well known, the Bible; the second, the whole world, whose creatures had locked up in them moral teachings. In order to explain these teachings, Physiologi, or Bestiaries, were compiled in which accounts of birds and beasts and fishes were laid over with allegorical applications. Out of an Anglo-Saxon bestiary, we take the following text, translated by R. K. Gordon:

Now by my wit I will also speak in a poem, a song, about a kind of fish, about the mighty whale. He to our sorrow is often found dangerous and fierce to all seafaring men. The name Fastitocalon is given him, the floater on ocean streams. His form is like a roughstone, as if the greatest of seaweeds, girt by sand-banks, were heaving by the water's shore, so that seafarers suppose they behold some island with their eyes; and then they fasten the highprowed ships with cables to the false land, tie the sea steeds at the water's edge, and then undaunted go up into that island. The ships remain fast by the shore, encompassed by water. Then, wearied out, the sailors encamp, look not for danger. On the island they kindle fire, build a great blaze; the men, worn out, are in gladness, longing for rest. When he, skilled in treachery, feels that the voyagers are set firmly upon him, are encamped, rejoicing in the clear weather, then suddenly the ocean creature sinks down with his prey into the salt wave, seeks the depths, and then delivers the ships and the men to drown in the hall of death.