THE LEGENDS OF BLUE FINNEY

An Interesting Fictional Saga

By Izzy Ess of Wilderness

Blue Finney Smaller-Tail sashayed into

The Three-Stream Feed-Out in the Northern Region

Of the Water Routes.  It was the Time

For Feeding and Enjoining.  In the past,

Blue Finney was successful in Enjoining

With another Smaller-Tail.  However,

Last Time was a bummer, eh?  No Smaller-

Tail had waved her Tail at him.  A Bigger-

Tail was tempting but he had not dared

To cross the lines of Courtesy.  Perhaps

The female Bigger-Tail was also all

Alone and had not dared to cross the lines,

Herself.  This year he was quite anxious to

Enjoin.  The Feeding was outstanding but

His appetite was poor.  His eye-sight was

So poor, he couldn’t tell the smaller Small-

Tails from the Whities.  Hearing was still excellent.

He heard an unfamiliar hum.

It was continuous but had an amplitude

Slow rhythmic pattern.  He investigated

And it was a large sea creature

With a spinning tail, he’d never seen

Nor heard before.  “Oh, what the hey?” he said

So softly to himself.  Approaching cautiously,

He hummed as best he could, in rhythm with

The Grey Small-Spinning-Tail, assuming it

Was female.  Quite encouraged by the rise

In peaks of amplitude, he tried to match

The loudness and the frequency of humming.

Suddenly, the humming stopped and so

Did Spinning-Tail!  He bellowed, “Help!”  It was

Too late.  A rubber sheet enveloped him

And he was lifted up on high and swung

Around until he saw that he was trapped

And dropped down through a mouth of sorts atop

Ms. Spinning-Tail.  He hit the salty water

With a mighty splash and thrashed around.

There was no exit he could see or feel.

He clicked repeatedly without detecting

Exits.  He detected three Small-Tails.

The mouth of sorts closed over and the darkness

Was complete.  The four Small-Tails gave up

And stopped their useless thrashing.  Much delicious

Krill was everywhere and Feeding was

Delightful.  An Enjoining was impossible,

Since all the Small-Tails were just males.

Despair was felt and sent to all four males.

They rubbed their bodies for assurance that

There was no danger to them at that time.

Besides the Feeding was delicious.

“So be it!” they all agreed and tried to calm

Themselves.  The humming started up again

Without revealing what its nature was,

Or who the creature could be.  And, the four

Sensed right away some movement was afoot.

At times the humming was intense and changed

Its frequency and modulations, eh?

The guess amongst the four was that the humming

Creature was afloat and heading out

To sea.  The krill was increased frequently

And was assuring, in a way, that harm

Was not forthcoming.  Panic feelings did

Subside.  The solar cycles were not seen

But guesses were they were at sea for thirteen

Days and never did the creature stop

To feed.  And, rarely, they did sense some movement

Up above by clumping sounds and vocal

Sounds of strange design.  No threats were felt

At any time.  There was some creaking that

Was strange which seemed to come from metal straining

Under pressure but the volume was

Not high and no signs of attack nor flight

Was evident.  The fright and fight were also

Absent.  Slowing was detected and

The humming was reduced in amplitude,

While modulation was continued.  Bumps

Occurred which shuddered through the water they

Were swimming in.  Then, suddenly, a light

Shone brightly in an opening above

The level of the water they were in.

They quickly swam toward the light and found

Themselves in deeper lukewarm water.  They

Sucked in some air and dove.  The ocean bottom

Was alive with life forms and a layer

Of the krill they found so sweet.  Above

Them was the humming creature which did move

Away and disappear.  Some tiny metal

Vessels hung about and some did hum

With higher frequencies.  They moved together

Southwardly, they guessed.  Quite sated, they

Moved up to check the surface and were pleasantly

Surprised.  Ice covered what was land,

They guessed.  And lo, some other Small-Tails, males

And females were about and greeted them.

They welcomed them into their group and showed

Them ice and snow in great amounts.  They dove

And indicated where the krill was most

Abundant.  The Enjoining was completely

Free of complications and was wonderful.

Blue Finney felt so wonderful,

He started humming loudly, purring-like.

The others understood the meaning and

Began to hum with him.  It was a Blue

Fin Paradise!

There was a cove that led

To palms and lakes and gardens, arboreta

And some riverbeds so full of life,

It did surprised Blue Finney.  One was fat

And funny-looking like a pig on steroids.

His deep thoughts were readable by all.

He said he always wanted to be swimming

But he sank so fast.  The Blue Fins and

The Hippopotami became involved

In demonstrating exercises for

A swim and for a walk.  Surprisingly

To everyone, it worked.  The eight explorers

Of the possibilities therein

Became a team for exploration of

The land and sea.  None of them had good vision

And they missed originally the

Huge dome that covered miles of ice and snow

And would, no doubt, have brought some tropical

Conditions to the Island Continent

Of Ice and Snow.  They came upon a hut

Of artificial alloys where some smallish

Animals would mill about and set

Up glass and rubber tubing for experiments.

All had long white coats which did open

In the front.  Some were some different sexes,

Ages and skin colours.  Eyes were blue

And brown and green.  And some had magnifying

Lenses on their faces.  All had instruments

That made some squiggly lines on white

And yellow sheets.  Some touched their lips together

Or their bodies touched from head to toes.

Some spent some time together in a room

Allowing them to bare their bodies and

Enjoin and laugh and scream and sing and make

Some instruments make music.  Sounds were pleasant

And exciting, sometimes.  Our octet

Tried humming, singing, clicking, whistling to

Accompany the music, but was unsuccessful,

While attempts were noted by

The smallish animals.  The differences

Between the males and females were unlike

Their own, but joining seemed to be quite similar,

As was the eating and eliminating.

Some burnt small devices made

Of some organic stuff.  And some were happier

And much more joyous than the others.  Some

Were always very sombre and they never

Seemed to sing or dance or listen to

The music like the others.  It seemed safe

To swim and walk with them and try to talk.  Some had

Some small machines which duplicated sounds

They sometimes made.  It was surprising to

Hear a repeat of grunts and squeaks and clicks

And roars and wales and warning snorts.  These smallish

Ones would make the tiny instruments

Show pictures and repeat their sounds and broadcast

Them.  At least once every sun cycle,

The octet would re-gather with octets

Of smallish ones and try to make communications.

Breakthroughs came about when one

Male smallish one projected pictures on

A screen that showed us images of Hippopotami

And Whales and People, naked

In a frontal view with side-by-side,

Females and males, and underneath each image

was a string of molecules, the building

Blocks of DNA.  And lo, the DNA

Of Hippopotami and Whales

Were virtually the same, whereas the DNA

Of People was significantly

Different.  And, they showed us pictures and

The DNA of Silverbacks and Chimpanzees

And People, once again, and lo,

The similarity between the Apes

And Monkeys and the People, was so striking!

Time went by and sure enough, a Person,

Name of Percy, learned to click and whistle

In Blue Finney’s language.  Both Blue Finney

And James Percy could relate the histories

Of Whales and People to each other from

The stories told to each of them in Legends,

Mainly told by elders.  Percy had

Some written books and scrolls of Legends while

Blue Finney had the Legends told to him

By older whales.  Remarkably, the histories

Did match in many aspects and they seemed

To differ only in duration, eh?

Dear reader, you, of course, are quite familiar

With the People’s Legends and their written

And recorded histories.  Most occidentals have a history that starts with Genesis.  Though Muslims, Jews and Christians differ somewhat, they say their origins are Biblical and date humanity from that.  The scientists among you have been stretching human history for many years.  There is a theory that humanity was started in dark Africa and spread throughout the world.  The usual suggestion is that the original small human may have lived in trees in Africa perhaps in fertile areas, including Nile and Congo areas.  Important populations may have lived around the Mediterranean Sea.  Egyptian, Persian, Greek and Roman Empires are examples.  The oriental peoples are quite ancient and it’s origins are not as clear.  The Land and Water routes to everywhere made possible migrations of the human race throughout the world.  Most feel that North and South Americans were either Asians or the Europeans.  I would like to offer just a thought about migrations having been the opposite.  That is, it’s possible that humanity and civilizations, possibly some 50,000 years ago began in what is now the Western Hemisphere, in South and Central areas.  Some findings up and down the Western coast of South America suggest they had technology that was amazing, even aeroplanes.  They seemed to have abilities to move huge, heavy rocks and fit them tight without cement.  The many pyramids still seen are sometimes built in mountain sides and some on mountain tops which would require advanced techniques for moving and re-shaping heavy rocks to tops of mountains.  The ancestors of Incas, Aztecs and the Mayans were advanced, no doubt.  The Mayan calendar has a 10,000 year cycle.  There are structures in Venezuela and Peru that look like airstrips and can only be conceptualized from heights of 200 miles above the level of the sea.  The Easter Island heads that look toward the Orient may also signify that humans actually came from China or Japan, New Zealand or Australia.  We may never know for sure.

Whales are mentioned on the first page of Genesis.  Apparently, God, Moses and the Holy Ghost didn’t know that whales are mammals.  Genesis mentions them as fishes under the sea when the Earth was young and land was barely formed.  The sequence in Genesis suggests that first there was a void and second there were firmaments, dividing Heaven from Earth.  Then there was light and dark, and the sun, the moon and the stars.  This doesn’t fit with The Theory of Everything, or String Theory, or the widely accepted Big Bang Theory, with definitive mathematical support.  Strings, atoms and molecules are not part of the Bible.  Be that as it may, some of the descriptions of events, such as The Flood, can be correlated with tectonic plate movement, as proposed by Jacques Cousteau and others.  And, The Deluge was part of several legends by the Hebrews and the Greeks and Romans, for example.  Personally, I like the “cross-overs,” inasmuch as, with a little stretching of the facts, one Legend can support the “facts” in another Legend.  Besides The Deluge/The Flood, I like the speculation that Esther of the Hebrew Bible, Old Testament, was actually Scheherazade of the Legend of 1001 Nights.  Both stories occurred in Persia, now Iran, and both women were very young, probably teenage, harem girls.  Also, both Esther and Scheherazade became the Queen of Persia after very bold behaviour in the presence of the King of Persia, Xerxes, in Greek, and Achascverus, in Hebrew.

Incidentally, “Xerxes,” pronounced by most English-speaking folks, sounds like “Zercksies.”  A Greek person might say “Cherches,” saying the “X,” as the Greek letter, “chi.”  It has a guttural sound for most Greeks, and should come out more like, “Herhes,” with the “H” sounding like he would clear his throat.  That makes the name Xerxes sound more like the Spanish, Jorje, or the Hungarian, Jorj, or the English, George.  This would make the powerful King of Persia be an ordinary King George.  It’s humorous enough to be true.  I believe this is an original line of thought about King Xerxes, so it may be far from the truth.

The cross-over story in the Legend of the Whales with the Legend of the Humans, may be the story of Jonah and the Whale.  Blue Finney did have a story in his legend which made eating humans quite distasteful because they induced vomiting.  That’s why Whales never eat humans, despite Melville’s Moby Dick story.  Whales and Penguins like to eat krill from the ocean floor.  Orcas, of all the Whales, are treacherous.  They will eat Penguins and helpless baby whales of other variety of whales.  In the natural order of things, Orcas number about two million, while Penguins, about two billion.  They Whale Legend includes the idea that there was originally one land mass created by rifts in the ocean floor which allowed eruptions of molten magma, one of which was so large, solidification occurred.  Cracks in the land mass allowed Continental Drift, which is still occurring.  The Legend described one Continent, or section of a continent, to “slam” into another continent and heap up the land, produceing mountain ranges.  The most dramatic were the Himalayas and the Rockies-Andes ranges.  The huge triangular continental piece, on its tectonic plate, now the Country of India, slammed into the huge continent of Eurasia and heaped up the Himalayas to the highest peaks known in the world.  The pieces of land that struck the west coasts of North and South America, are still moving north.  When they get “stuck” and then suddenly release, they cause earth quakes.  A similar situation exists with the two tectonic plates that make up New Zealand, I think.

The Whale Legend fit very well the scientific knowledge of tectonic plates and continental drifts.  The stories of the conflicts with the humans started with the whaling boats and certain Oriental populations who killed and captured whales for food and profit from sperm which produced some of the world’s most famous and expensive fragrances and perfumes.  Whales that beached themselves were often “insane,” or otherwise disabled, and could no longer provide for themselves.  The sea routes, north, south, east and west were known to all the whales by communications skills, some of which could be heard for miles, underwater.  Large metal vessels with humming motors often disturbed the whales and hampered their underwater communications.  Sometimes, a whale would become ill or disoriented.  Some of these were the whales that beached themselves.  Submarines were often dangerous because of many factors, not the least of which were underwater explosives which could deafen whales and make them very ill.  Torpedoes rarely hit a whale directly but the explosions caused by hitting ships was deafening and disorienting.  The Legend of the Whales included allegories concerning land animals which took to the seas and changed from Hippopotami to Whales.  The music of the Whales was thought to be a gift of a superior spirit.  It provided solace and pleasure for the whales no matter where they were.  It nearly matched another human legend that, “In the Beginning there was Music and the Music was a gift of the Original Creator of the Seas.”  Most Whales thought of their dreamy world as a Paradise, disturbed only by distasteful People.

THE END

© izzy sommers, md

Welland, Canada

June 27, 2013