Fish-man

However, five years later, in 1679, while some fishers were seafaring in the bay of Cadiz, in southern Spain, they noticed that a strange-looking creature had become entangled with their fishing nets, and was trying to fight its way out. Although they tried to capture it, the creature was able to set itself free. During the following weeks, several local fishermen reported having seen the creature, until in the end they were able to capture it by tricking it with loaves of bread. When they got the creature on board, they found that it had indeed a human shape: it looked like a young man, of white skin and thin red hair. However, he also showed some fish-like signs, such as a strip of scales that went down from his throat to his stomach, another one that covered his spine, and what seemingly were gills around his neck.

Thinking of it as some kind of monster, the fishermen took the creature to the convent of Saint Francis nearby, where the creature was allegedly exorcised and then interrogated in several languages without any success. After several days of questioning, the creature finally articulated a word, "Liérganes", the meaning of which nobody knew. This extraordinary event soon spread all around the Cadiz bay area, and nobody was able to recognise the meaning of Liérganes until a sailor from northern Spain who happened to be in the port of Cadiz commented that close to his home town there was a small village called Liérganes. Domingo de la Cantolla, secretary of the

A friar in the convent where the creature was being kept postulated that the fish-man could perhaps be Francisco de la Vega, so he asked and was granted permission to take the creature with him to Liérganes. Allegedly, when they were close to Liérganes, the friar let the fish-man free and followed him. The creature was able to guide him directly to Liérganes, and not only that, he took him directly to the house of María del Casar, who recognised him as her late son Francisco.

The fish-man was then left to live with his family, and he kept a tranquil yet odd lifestyle: he would always walk barefoot, and unless he was given clothes, he would rather walk around nude. He never really talked; at most he would sometimes mutter words such as tobacco, bread or wine, but without any link to the desire of smoking, eating or drinking. When he ate, he did it with avidity, but then he was able not to eat for a week at a time. He was easygoing and even obliging, and whichever simple task he was asked to do, he would do it promptly but without enthusiasm. After nine years living in such a fashion, he went to the sea to swim and was never seen again.^[3]

Controversy regarding Feijoo's claim

In his tale of the legend, Feijoo offers a great deal of details, dates and names. He claims that when he first heard about the fish-man's story, he could not believe it, but after having confronted all the testimonies and documents on the case that had survived, as well as interviewing several people who had lived when the fish-man had purportedly appeared (Feijoo wrote around 1720, so many people living in 1674 could have told him the tale). He finally concluded that, as far as the facts were concerned, a fish-man had appeared in Cadiz, had been taken to Liérganes, and lived there for some time before disappearing again. He quoted several sources of which, being educated people, he seemed confident enough, including the Marquis of Valbuena (a finely educated nobleman from Santander), don Gaspar Melchor de la Riba Agüero (a knight from the

The fame of Feijoo as an extremely rigorous writer who bitterly criticized superstition and frauds was such that it has been argued that the story could somehow be true, as it seems unlikely Feijoo would have backed it without having good reasons to do so. Still, stories about fish-men being captured were not unheard of in Europe, nor in Spain, where writers such as Joviano Potano, Alejandro de Alejandro and Pedro Mexía had already written about similar stories and in the second part of the Lazarillo de Tormes stories where the grown Lazaro is caught by fishermen after almost drowning in a storm and who exhibit him as a sea monster throughout Spain until he escapes. Apparently, Feijoo somehow believed in the existence of fish-men, as he later further extended his views offering a set of scientific arguments backing his claim.

See also

• List of people who disappeared mysteriously at sea

References

Further reading

• Feijoo, B.J., (1726–1739) "Teatro Crítico Universal". [1]
• Marañón, G. (1934), "Las ideas biológicas del padre Feijoo", Madrid: Espasa-Calpe. 335pp.