Monday, July 25

The Voice Of The Fish Coincidence

The voice of the fish coincidenceThis is another of those classic coincidence stories that I quite like. It's all about a Mr.Mead from Christ's College in Cambridge, England

It was Midsummer Eve in 1626 and our Mr.Mead was wandering through the local market and heard a lot of noise coming from the fishmonger's stall. The crowd that had formed were looking at a book that the fishwife claimed she had found in a large codfish. This is how Mr.Meade described the incident:

I saw with mine own eyes the fish, the maw, (it's stomach), the piece of sailcloth, the book - and observed all I have written. Only I did not see the opening of the fish, which not many did, being in the fish woman's stall in the market, who first cut off its head, to which the maw was hanging, and seeming much stuffed, and all found aforesaid.

He that had his nose as near as I yester morning would have been persuaded there was no imposture here without witness. The fish came from Lynn.


The book found in the fish's stomach was handed to the educated Mr.Mead still bound in sailcloth. Though the content was a bit battered and slimy it was still readable.

The content was a theological treatise written by John Frith while imprisoned in Oxford one hundred years earlier.

On showing the package to the Cambridge University hierarchy they thought the book worthy of distribution and had this reprinted with the title Vox Pisces - "the voice of the fish." The book was embellished with an engraving showing the fish, the fishmonger's knife and how the original book appeared.

John Frith, the author, had been imprisoned in a cellar that also stored fish. The smell was so strong that many of the prisoners died of it. Frith was eventually burned at the stake in 1533 as a person holding an unorthodox opinion about religion. But his book on the subject managed to be published nearly 100 years after his death.

See also Unbelievable Classic Coincidences

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6 comments:

  1. That's amazing. Wonder how the book got into the fish and how it only came to be seen 100 years after it was written. Do cod live that long?

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  2. sounds a bit fishy to me :)

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  3. Good one! I think this one could qualify as a trickster.

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  4. This is a pretty fishy synchro for me....commented over at Trish's Synchrosecrets blog about seeing that a guy named Tom posted a comment on a blog i had visited... which to me was a sign he liked the tribute i wrote about him (Tom) on my blog...then I stopped in at Nancy's Life in the second Half and commented that something smelled fishy to me. And then I immediately came here finding your fish post...and it looks like a Tom has stopped in here on your blog as well...saying in his comment that it sounds fishy to him, and you know what...that is exactly like something my late brother in law would have said!! A synchro for me! I have a feeling the fish medicine card has a message for me today, and that my late BIL Tom is having fun dropping synchros around the web for me. You've made my day....thanks Mike

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  5. Absolutely amazing!

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  6. karena - just read your comment on Trish and Rob's blog about Tom - quite a synchro.

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