The BISHOP-FISH and the MERMONK

Seas have (as well as skies) Sun, Moon, and Stars;
(As well as ayre) Swallows, and Rooks, and Stares;
(As well as earth) Vines, Roses, Nettles, Millions,
Pinks, Gilliflowers, Mushrooms, and many millions
of other Plants lants (more rare and strange than these)
As very fishes living in the Seas.
And also Rams, Calfs, Horses, Hares, and Hogs,
Wolves, Lions, Urchins, Elephants and Dogs,
Yea, Men and Mayds; and (which I more admire)
The mytred Bishop and the cowled Fryer;
Whereof, examples, (but a few years since)
Were shew'n the Norways, and Polonian Prince.

--Guillaume de Salluste Du Bartas

[Excerpted from Animal Symbolism in Ecclesiastical Architecture by Edward Payson Evans. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1896]

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Not only the outlying and unexplored regions of the earth, but the sea also was prolific of wonders, the most remarkable of which was the so called bishop-fish (Episcopus marinus) or sea-bishop (Meerbischof), a specimen of which is said to have been caught in the Baltic in 1433. It had a mitre on its head, a crosier in its hand, and wore a dalmatica. The king of Poland wished to confine it in a tower, but it stubbornly resisted this attempt on its freedom, and by mute gestures entreated its fellow-prelates, the bishops of the realm, to whom it showed special reverence, to let it return to its native element. This request was finally granted, and, in token of joy and gratitude, it made the sign of the cross, and gave the episcopal benediction with its fin, as it disappeared under the waves. Engravings of this marine marvel were published in Gessner’s Fischbuch in 1575, in Schott’s Physica Curiosa, and in other works of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. In 1531, according to Dutch chroniclers, another bishop-fish was taken in the German Ocean, and sent to the king of Poland, but it obstinately refused to eat anything, and died on the third day of its captivity. Gessner describes also the merman (Homus marinus) and the mermonk (Monachus marinus), said to have been taken in the Baltic, the British Channel, in the Red Sea, and on the coast of Dalmatia.

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