THE WHALE OF JONAH.

Eichhorn (Einleitung in das Alte Testament, iii. 249.) in a note refers to a passage of Müller's translations of Linnæus, narrating the following remarkable accident:—

"In the year 1758, a seaman, in consequence of stormy weather, unluckily fell overboard from a frigate into the Mediterranean. A seal (Seehund, not Hai, a shark) immediately took the man, swimming and crying for help, into it wide jaws. Other seamen sprang into a boat to help their swimming comrade; and their captain, noticing the accident, had the presence of mind to direct a gun to be fired from the deck at the fish, whereby he was fortunately so far struck (so getroffen wurde) that he spit out directly the seaman previously seized in his jaws, who was taken into the boat alive, and apparently little hurt.

"The seal was taken by harpoons and ropes, and hauled into the frigate, and hung to dry in the cross-trees (quære). The captain gave the fish to the seaman who, by God's providence, had been so wonderfully preserved; and he made the circuit of Europe with it as an exhibition, and from France it came to Erlangen, Nuremburg, and other places, where it was openly shown. The fish was twenty feet long, with fins nine feet broad, and weighed 3,924 lbs., and is illustrated in tab. 9. fig. 5.; from all which it is very probably concluded, that this kind was the true Jonas-fish."

Bochart concurs in this opinion.

Herman de Hardt (Programma de rebus Jonæ, Helmst. 1719) considers that Jonah stopt at a tavern bearing the sign of the whale.

Lesz (Vermischte Schriften, Th. i. S. 16.) thinks that a ship with a figure-head (Zeichen) of a whale took Jonah on board, and in three days put him ashore; from which it was reported that the ship-whale had vomited (discharged) him.

Eichhorn has noticed the above in his Introduction to the Old Testament (iii. 250.).

An anonymous writer says that dag means a fish-boat; and that the word which is translated whale, should have been preserver; a criticism inconsistent with itself, and void of authority.

The above four instances are the only hypotheses at variance with the received text and interpretation worthy of notice: if indeed the case of the shark can be deemed at all at variance, as the term κῆτος was used to designate many different fishes.

Jebb (Sacred Literature, p. 178.) says that the whale's stomach is not a safe and practicable asylum; but—

"The throat is large, and provided with a bag or intestine so considerable in size that whales frequently take into it two of their young, when weak, especially during a tempest. In this vessel there are two vents, which serve for inspiration and expiration; there, in all probability, Jonas was preserved."

John Hunter compares the whale's tongue to a feather bed; and says that the baleen (whalebone) and tongue together fill up the whole space of the jaws.

Josephus describes the fish of Jonah as a κῆτος, and fixes on the Euxine for the locality as an on dit (ὁ λόγος). The same word in reference to the same event is used by Epiphanius, Cedrenus, Zanarus, and Nicephorus.

The Arabic version has the word حُوْتا (choono), translated in Walton's Polyglott cetus; but the word, according to Castell, means "a tavern," or "merchants' office." This may have led to Herman de Hardt's whim.

The Targum of Jonathan, and the Syriac of Jonah, have both the identical word which was most probably used by our Lord, Noono, fish, the root signifying to be prolific, for which fishes are eminently remarkable. Dag, the Hebrew word, has the same original signification.

The word used by our Lord, in adverting to His descent to Hades, was most probably that of the Syriac version,

[Syriac](noono), which means fish in Chaldee and Arabic, as well as in Syriac; and corresponds to the Hebrew word דַג, (dag), fish, in Jonah i. 17., ii. 1., 10. The Greek of Matthew xii. 40., instead of ἰχθὺς, has κῆτος, a whale. The Septuagint has the same word κῆτος for (1) dag in Jonah, as well as for (2) leviathan in Job iii. 8., and for (3) tanninim in Genesis i. 21. The error appears to be in the Septuagint of Jonah, where the particular fish, the whale, is mentioned instead of the general term fish. Possibly the disciples of Christ knew that the fish was a κῆτος, and the habits of such of them as were fishermen might have familiarised them with its description or form. It is certain that the κῆτος of Aristotle, and cetus of Pliny, was one of the genus Cetacea, without gills, but with blow-holes communicating with the lungs. The disciples may also have heard the mythological story of Hercules being three days in the belly of the κῆτος, the word used by Æneas Gazæus, although Lycophron describes the animal as a shark, κάρχαρος κύων.

"Τριεσπέρου λέοντος, ὅν ποτε γνάθοις

Τρίτωνος ἠμάλαψε κάρχαρος κύων."

The remarkable event recorded of Jonah occurred just about 300 years before Lycophron wrote; who, having doubtless heard the true story, thought it right to attribute it to Hercules, to whom all other marvellous feats of power, strength, and dexterity were appropriated by the mythologists.

T. J. BUCKTON.

Lichfield.

ST. TRUNNIAN.
(Vol. iii., pp. 187. 252.)

Your "NOTES AND QUERIES" form the best specimen of a Conversations-Lexicon that I have yet met with; and I regret that it was not in existence some years ago, having long felt the want of some such special and ready medium of communication.

In the old enclosures to the west of the town of Barton we had a spring of clear water called St. Trunnian's Spring; and in our open field we had an old thorn tree called St. Trunnian's Tree,—names that imply a familiar acquaintance with St. Trunnian here; but I have no indication to show who St. Trunnian was. I am happy, however, to find that your indefatigable correspondent DR. RIMBAULT, like myself, has had his attention called to the same unsatisfied Query.

Paulinus, the first Bishop of York, was the first who preached Christianity in Lindsey; yet St. Chad was the patron saint of Barton and its immediate neighbourhood, and at times I have fancied that St. Trunnian might have been one of his coadjutors; at other times I have thought he may have been some sainted person, posted here with the allied force under Anlaff, previous to the great battle of Brunannburg, which was fought in the adjoining parish in the time of Athelstan: but I never could meet with any conclusive notice, of St. Trunnian, or any particular account of him. Some years ago I was dining with a clerical friend in London, and then made known my anxiety, when he at once referred to the quotation made by DR. RIMBAULT from Appius and Virginia, as in Vol. iii., p. 187.; and my friend has since referred me to Heywoods's play of The Four P's (Collier's edition of Dodsley's Old Plays, vol. i. p. 55.), where the Palmer is introduced narrating his pilgrimage:

"At Saynt Toncumber and Saynt Tronion,

At Saynt Bothulph and Saynt Ann of Buckston;"

inferring a locality for St. Tronion as well as St. Botulph, in Lincolnshire: and subsequently my friend notes that—

"Mr. Stephens, in a letter to the printer of the St. James's Chronicle, points out the following mention of St. Tronion in Geoffrey Fenton's Tragical Discourses, 4to., 1567, fol. 114. b.:—'He (referring to some one in his narrative not named) returned in Haste to his Lodgynge, where he attended the approche of his Hower of appointment wyth no lesse Devocyon than the papystes in France perform their ydolatrous Pilgrimage to the ydol Saynt Tronyon upon the Mount Avyon besides Roan.'"

Should these minutes lead to further information, it will give me great pleasure, as I am anxious to elucidate, as far as I can, the antiquities of my native place.

Mr. Jaques lives at a place called St. Trinnians, near to Richmond in Yorkshire; but I have not the History of Richmondshire to refer to, so as to see whether any notice of our saint is there taken under this evident variation of the same appellation.

WM. S. HESLEDEN.

Barton-upon-Humber, Aug. 29. 1851.