Folklore: Execution by tying fish on head+bird

Subject: Folklore: Execution by tying fish on head+bird
From: Joybell
Date: 03 Feb 06 - 10:56 PM

So here it is. The film "The Brothers" made by Sydney and Muriel Box. 1947. Set, and at least partly filmed, on the Isle of Skye. Really silly story but good outdoor scenes. Will Fyffe wandering around playing pretty tunes on an accordion. Full of quaint folk-customs and stories. A Selkie tale at one point. Thick, (varied) Scots accents. There's a wonderfully overwrought scene where one of the brothers gets his thumb stuck in the mouth of a Conger eel. The tide's turned and there's nothing for it but to cut off his thumb. I would have stabbed the Conger eel with the knife but what would I know! He says it's a Conger eel. We don't get to see it. If Ed Wood can manage a giant mechanical octopus for his masterpiece, and then have his star, Bela Lugosi, wrap it around himself and pretend it's moving - I do wonder why Mrs and Mrs Box couldn't have found a fake eel - but back to the point.

What I wonder is??????

Can you/did Skylites (or whatever you call the inhabitants of Skye) actually execute bad people by tying a fish on the head and floaties under the armpits, letting them float out with the tide, and waiting till a passing goose pecks their brains out trying to get at the fish? (The birds in the film look like seagulls to me, and geese are grazing birds not given to swooping at fish, but that's a small point.)
A Tern or some other pointy-beaked seabird would probably do. What do you think, wise friends.
Puzzled, Joy

Subject: RE: Folklore: Execution by tying fish on head+bird
From: Celtaddict
Date: 03 Feb 06 - 11:40 PM

". . . but the gannet; the gannet could have cracked his skull. . ."
--The Birds

Subject: RE: Folklore: Execution by tying fish on head+bird
From: Joybell
Date: 04 Feb 06 - 12:14 AM

Ah yes! The gannet.
Or the common cormorant or shag (that)lays eggs inside a paper bag...
It could do it. Not a goose though, I tend to think. Cheers, Joy

Subject: RE: Folklore: Execution by tying fish on head+bird
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 04 Feb 06 - 12:58 AM

Seagulls (glaucous winged gulls) will catch bait even though it is attached to a rod via a line and a treble hook. Sadly, I've seen them do it in the Pacific Northwest of the U.S. They'll die of the hook injuries. Easy to imagine such an uncomplicated bird pursuing the fishhead, even in such an unusual situation.

SRS

Subject: RE: Folklore: Execution by tying fish on head+bird
From: Joybell
Date: 04 Feb 06 - 02:00 AM

Hello SRS. Yes granted! but did they actually execute people that way on Skye? THAT's the thing. Cheers, Joy

Subject: RE: Folklore: Execution by tying fish on head+bird
From: Charley Noble
Date: 04 Feb 06 - 02:58 PM

Ah, it's more fun to speculate and make bad puns!

Now maybe there's somethings that can be done with "tying one on" and "one good tern deserves another." Or "never leave a tern unstoned."

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: Folklore: Execution by tying fish on head+bird
From: Joybell
Date: 04 Feb 06 - 05:11 PM

Knew I could count on you Charley. This is what I was secretly hoping for.
OK so -
"We gave him quite a tern".
"His tern has come".
"He was terned out with a fish on his head."

Cheers, Joy

Subject: RE: Folklore: Execution by tying fish on head+bird
From: wysiwyg
Date: 04 Feb 06 - 05:18 PM

Well, you'd definitely have a peckerhead, there.

~S~

Subject: RE: Folklore: Execution by tying fish on head+bird
From: Cluin
Date: 04 Feb 06 - 06:18 PM

This thread has definitely taken a tern for the worse.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Execution by tying fish on head+bird
From: GUEST,Joe_F
Date: 04 Feb 06 - 09:06 PM

On the same island, I have heard, when painting their boats, they leave no stern untoned.

--- Joe Fineman    [e-mail]

||: Insurance, like its moral opposite gambling, stinks of the continual temptation and presumption of fraud. :||

Subject: RE: Folklore: Execution by tying fish on head+bird
From: GUEST
Date: 04 Feb 06 - 09:36 PM

You folks are so gull able

Subject: RE: Folklore: Execution by tying fish on head+bird
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 04 Feb 06 - 09:42 PM

There's a folksong that talks about this, it has the line

Tern tern tern. . .

Subject: RE: Folklore: Execution by tying fish on head+bird
From: Cluin
Date: 04 Feb 06 - 09:48 PM

Q.   What do you call a guy with a fish on his head and floats under his armpits, out on the waves in the ocean?

A.   Bob.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Execution by tying fish on head+bird
From: Rapparee
Date: 04 Feb 06 - 10:23 PM

Is this related to Skye diving?

Subject: RE: Folklore: Execution by tying fish on head+bird
From: Hrothgar
Date: 05 Feb 06 - 04:03 AM

Yhey only did it with buoys, not gulls.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Execution by tying fish on head+bird
From: GUEST,Mingulay
Date: 05 Feb 06 - 06:15 AM

Is execution tern - imal?

Subject: RE: Folklore: Execution by tying fish on head+bird
From: Nessie
Date: 05 Feb 06 - 06:20 AM

S-tern pun-ishment for someone gull-ible enough to commit a peccadillo

Subject: RE: Folklore: Execution by tying fish on head+bird
From: greg stephens
Date: 05 Feb 06 - 07:50 AM

Here in Stoke-on-Trent this is carried out using oatcakes, and the culprit is floated in the lake at Trentham Gardens. We are rather far from the sea, but there is a substantial local population of gulls who scavenge at the tip.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Execution by tying fish on head+bird
From: Rapparee
Date: 05 Feb 06 - 09:22 AM

Out here, they did that sort of thing a couple times back in Ye Olden Days. They'd tie the malefactor up, put floats under this arms, a couple "ripe" trout on his head, and toss him in the Portneuf River. In the first case the culprit got a nasty sprained ankle and had to limp home and in the second he splashed around a bit in the ankle-deep water, tripped over an old tire, and received some bad scrapes to both knees from the concrete trough the river runs through town in, and a passing magpie scored a direct hit in the area between the trout.

It's not done anymore.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Execution by tying fish on head+bird
From: SINSULL
Date: 05 Feb 06 - 01:02 PM

Vaguely remember something about adulturers (male) in Rome being tied in a sack with a snake, a cat,& a stone then being thrown in the water to drown...or something like that.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Execution by tying fish on head+bird
From: Grab
Date: 05 Feb 06 - 01:30 PM

As they said about the wreck of the whiskey ship, when the water was full of finest alcohol - no tern was left unstoned...

Subject: RE: Folklore: Execution by tying fish on head+bird
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 05 Feb 06 - 01:59 PM

"Are there any women here?"

"No. no."

Subject: RE: Folklore: Execution by tying fish on head+bird
From: Rapparee
Date: 05 Feb 06 - 02:57 PM

Seriously, out of a sense of morbid curiousity I've studied the various means that humans have used to torture and execute their fellows. Some of the means were quite, ah, inventive. I've never run across the method described. That's not to say that it couldn't have been tried, but I doubt that it would work as the first passing bird would have simply snatched the fish and flown away.

Seems to me like a movie idea, not something that actually happened.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Execution by tying fish on head+bird
From: Cluin
Date: 05 Feb 06 - 05:07 PM

Besides, geese don't eat fish. They're herbivores.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Execution by tying fish on head+bird
From: Joybell
Date: 05 Feb 06 - 05:11 PM

Thank you for the colourful responses. I just love old folktales like these. The sillier the better.

Rapaire, I've never confessed it anywhere before but I once came upon a book about old methods of torture that I couldn't not read. I was about 15 I think. Morbid curiosity with me too. I've never been moved to try anything I learned from it and I'm still haunted by some of the images it conjured up. Some methods of execution were just as silly as the fish-on-the-head one now I come to think of it.

But yes, a movie idea is probable. The film came from a book so it might have started there. The villagers in the film said something about the idea being a good one because it relieved them of the responsibility of doing the deed themselves. The "geese" did it.
By the way the victim was caught out dobbing everyone in to the excise men. Cheers, Joy

Subject: RE: Folklore: Execution by tying fish on head+bird
From: greg stephens
Date: 05 Feb 06 - 05:13 PM

Rapaire: if you think this wouldn't work, you've never watched a gannet fishing. They hurtle straight down on the fish at very high speed, with a large heavy beak pointing vertically down. If someone's head was under the fish...I think it might work.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Execution by tying fish on head+bird
From: Cluin
Date: 05 Feb 06 - 05:24 PM

It would also kill the bird. Kamikazee gannets? I doubt it would happen.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Execution by tying fish on head+bird
From: Rapparee
Date: 05 Feb 06 - 05:49 PM

I didn't say it wouldn't work; I said that I found it very unlikely. And yes, I've seen gannets diving.

But as for relieving the villagers of responsibility -- put him in a leaky boat out at sea with a couple crackers and a cup of water, out where people rarely go fishing. Or maroon him -- a practice of the Caribbean and a most unpleasant thing to do to another. Or...never mind. There are other ways.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Execution by tying fish on head+bird
From: Cluin
Date: 05 Feb 06 - 06:26 PM

Hell, just tie him to the rocks on the beach and let the tide drown him.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Execution by tying fish on head+bird
From: gnomad
Date: 05 Feb 06 - 07:04 PM

Don't know about the Hebridean methods, but a bit further south in the Solway estuary, where they have one of those tides that will outpace a galloping horse, it was supposedly the chosen method of execution to tie the victim to a stake embedded in the mud and let nature do its thing. Doubtless the resident gulls would enjoy the remains.

I suppose a refinement might have been to leave the victim where the tide might, or might not, just quite drown them.

Geese are herbivores, yes, but all the nice gulls love a sailor.

OK, getting my coat now.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Execution by tying fish on head+bird
From: Ned Ludd
Date: 05 Feb 06 - 07:04 PM

Gannet would be suspicious...Whassat tied to that fish then?

Subject: RE: Folklore: Execution by tying fish on head+bird
From: Joybell
Date: 06 Feb 06 - 03:52 AM

I don't think the colourful people in the movie would go for the more boring options, myself.
I'm with Ned about the cleverness of gannets. And gulls -- wouldn't they just perch on the guy's head and nibble the fish off. That's what they do when they find stranded fish on top of rocks, surely.

A tern-coat would that be gnomad?
Cheers, Joy

Subject: RE: Folklore: Execution by tying fish on head+bird
From: Paul Burke
Date: 06 Feb 06 - 04:32 AM

I'd be even more cruel- let him live. In Skye, that's worse than dying.

In Manchester they used to execute people by wrapping them in a City scarf and pushing them in front of the crowd coming out of Old Trafford when United had just lost.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Execution by tying fish on head+bird
From: GUEST,vectis at work
Date: 06 Feb 06 - 07:34 AM

They used to set them adrift in an old coracle without oars, food or water as a sacrifice to Mannanon at one time, or so I've heard.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Execution by tying fish on head+bird
From: Charley Noble
Date: 06 Feb 06 - 08:20 AM

Well, Joy, I'm glad you're pleased with the harvest from this thread and I'm proud that in a small way I have helped.

But you have raised a serious questions, with regard to archane punishment in remote communities. I mind the time when I was growing up in our fishing village on Georgetown Island on the rockbound coast of Maine. When I was deemed old enough to assimulate a hard life's lesson, I witnessed a chronic malpractioner being wrapped up in lobster warp (manila line used to haul up lobster traps), a couple of ballast stones being tied to his ankles, and a buoy attached, the whole shooting match being heaved into the cove. After a suitable period the body was hauled up, with lobsters and crabs hanging on to various parts. The "take" was then stripped off and the body was set again in the cove.

I learned my lesson and never subsequently strayed from the straight and narrow, and have led a model if modest life.

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: Folklore: Execution by tying fish on head+bird
From: Rapparee
Date: 06 Feb 06 - 09:35 AM

Isolated communities will make their own punishments when they deem it needful. They are usually closed-mouth and "close"; law enforcement can find it hard or impossible to get information. The killing of Charles Walton (Lower Quinton, 1945) is one example. Another was the shotgunning of a town bully in rural Missouri some years ago -- I don't have the information on it handy, but it received some national attention.

What I've found interesting is that truly "bad" people -- those who would kill without remorse or compunction -- would do it quickly, quietly, and never talk about it, and that they are often (in my experience) some of the nicest people you'd want to meet.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Execution by tying fish on head+bird
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 06 Feb 06 - 01:26 PM

Reminds me of the old Mexican technique of burying someone up to the neck near an anthill and smearing honey on their exposed head.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Execution by tying fish on head+bird
From: Joybell
Date: 06 Feb 06 - 04:34 PM

Inventive aren't we? I've always thought the tar and feathers idea very creative.
Charley, So glad you've learned to be good and survive. The place would be the poorer without you. I knew you'd be here sooner or later. You're right you know. It's fun throwing out a thread like this and waiting for the harvest.

A minor point but - has anyone else actually seen this film?
Cheers, Joy

Subject: RE: Folklore: Execution by tying fish on head+bird
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 06 Feb 06 - 06:21 PM

Haven't seen it, and can't find it as VHS on EBay, etc.
Perhaps never transferred to VHS.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Execution by tying fish on head+bird
From: Charley Noble
Date: 06 Feb 06 - 09:41 PM

Another story my old mentor Dennis used to tell – I think this was a story he picked up while he was sailing from island to island in the South Pacific back in the 1930's – was about a pair of missionaries who were treking into New Guinea in search of heathen to convert. They had hired a guide, who really had no intention of leading them to the various tribes of headhunters that frequented the jungles but thought it would be safe enough to wander with them in circles for a week or so. Unfortunately there was another danger lurking in the treetops that he'd forgotten about, the dreadful and deadly Foo bird.

Sure enough as they were hacking their way through the jungle there was the sound of beating wings followed by a "PLOP!" as a huge pile of Foo shit landed on the guide's head. Well, he'd been told that it was certain death to remove it and explained that to the concerned missionaries who of course thought he was foolish to believe such apparent nonesense, and as the day wore on and the Foo shit began to ripen the guide began to wonder if the missionaries might be right, After all they were educated gentlemen of the world. So at the next stream he knelt down and washed the disgusting stuff off and almost immediately keeled over dead.

Well, the two missionaries were perplexed but said a prayer over his body and prudently decided to try to make their way back out of the jungle. However, they soon heard the thundering of great wings sweeping towards them again and "Plop!" one of the missionaries ended up with a big pile of evil smelling Foo shit on his head. Well, he had seen what had happened to the guide and although he wasn't entirely convinced that removing the Foo shit had killed him he was curiously reluctant to experiment. But after several hours the smell was so vile that when they came across another stream he knelt down to wash the Foo shit off and immediately keeled over dead.

The last missionary at this point was legging it through the jungle at top speed, but not as fast as the Foo bird can fly, and sure enough another one came swooping down and in spite of the fact that the missionary was dodging back and forth, which is not easy to do on a jungle path but he was trying, he too was nailed by another big pile of Foo shit. But this last missionary persevered. He didn't wipe the Foo shit off and somehow made his way back to civilization, bought passage on the first available ship home, and with the help of a large hat managed to lead a reasonably prosperous but lonely life as a stockbroker.

The moral to this story?
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
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...
...
...
...

If the Foo shits, wear it...

Charley Ignoble

Subject: RE: Folklore: Execution by tying fish on head+bird
From: Cluin
Date: 06 Feb 06 - 09:49 PM

Charley Ignoble

Oh, you better...

Subject: RE: Folklore: Execution by tying fish on head+bird
From: Rapparee
Date: 06 Feb 06 - 09:49 PM

I was going to post some of the more inventive ways humanity has found to execute its members, but I've decided not to do so. It's bad enough knowing them, much less sharing them.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Execution by tying fish on head+bird
From: Cluin
Date: 06 Feb 06 - 09:51 PM

Impalement came to mind. If they wanted to do you a favour, they hauled hard on your heels.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Execution by tying fish on head+bird
From: Joybell
Date: 07 Feb 06 - 05:29 AM

I agree, Rapaire. Of course we could add a method of our own. Tie up the victim before Charley and subject him to a few of those jokes.

Q, we don't think the film has made it to VHS. The ABC (like CBC)seems to have got hold of a copy and we managed to tape it. Hildebrand had seen it in about 1954 on American TV.
If you'd like us to send you a copy send me a PM. We can make a DVD that you could probably play. Our pleasure. We like to share these funny old films.
Cheers, Joy

Subject: RE: Folklore: Execution by tying fish on head+bird
From: Charley Noble
Date: 07 Feb 06 - 07:58 AM

Speaking of novel ways to torture folks, I've been listening to an old tape of Capt. Kendall Morse describing his first hunting experience in his story entitled "Beginner's Luck." Now if one forced someone to listen to that story after consuming a three-lobster special at Cook's Seafood Restaurant, down on Bailey's Island, the pain would be truly excruciating.

My uncle used to tell Georgian (no, not the Georgia in the States) folk tales, all of which had macabre elements which while horrifying to my young innocent ears were incidental to the stories and mentioned quite casually. There was the one about "Three Rabbits," another about "The King of the Noise." Maybe I'll start a new thread if there is a massive appeal for details.

Of course, the Brothers Grim Fairy Tales had similar macabre elements and conclusions before they were sanitized.

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: Folklore: Execution by tying fish on head+bird
From: Charley Noble
Date: 07 Feb 06 - 08:49 PM

refresh

Subject: RE: Folklore: Execution by tying fish on head+bird
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 07 Feb 06 - 11:02 PM

The US and Canada are Zone 1 for DVDs. In case you wondered.

Those brothers were Grimm, in addition to being grim. :-/

Subject: RE: Folklore: Execution by tying fish on head+bird
From: Joybell
Date: 08 Feb 06 - 04:03 PM

Thanks, SRS. Cleverly our DVD's we make at home seem to be playable by our friends in America. It's not due to our skill I have to admit.

I was raised on the tales of the Brothers Grimm. We were thought to be tough enough to take it back then and we got them in the old translations. They are full of rough justice and clear logic and I still love their quaint language.
:-/ OH! I like that one SRS.
Cheers, Joy

Subject: RE: Folklore: Execution by tying fish on head+bird
From: Joybell
Date: 08 Feb 06 - 04:06 PM

Oh No!! The unforgivable!! A misplaced ' Sorry. Sorry. I hate that!! I never do that! DVDs! DVDs! DVDs.! I'll write it out 100 times on the blackboard. Promise.