How the Whale Got His Throat by Rudyard Kipling

4.8

Part I

There was once a Whale in the sea, and he ate fishes. He ate big fishes and little fishes, good fishes and bad fishes. All the fishes which he could find in all the sea he ate with his mouth—so! Soon there was only one small fish in all the sea, and it was a small Clever Fish. It swam a little behind the Whale’s right ear, so that the Whale could not catch it. Then the Whale stood up on his tail and said, “I want to eat.” And the small Clever Fish said:

“Whale, Whale, have you eaten Man?”

“No,” said the Whale. “What is it like?”

“Nice,” said the small Clever Fish.

“Then bring me some,” said the Whale, and he beat the sea with his tail.

“No,” said the Clever Fish, “I can’t do that, but if you swim to the middle of the sea, you will find a Man there. He is sitting on a raft, in the middle of the sea, and has nothing on but a pair of blue trousers, a pair of suspenders and a knife in his pocket. He is a shipwrecked Sailor who, I must tell you, is very, very clever.”

Part II

So the Whale swam and swam to the middle of the sea as quickly as he could swim; and there, on a raft, in the middle of the sea, with nothing on him but a pair of blue trousers, a pair of suspenders and a knife in his pocket, he found the shipwrecked Sailor.

Then the Whale opened his mouth back and back, till it touched his tail, and swallowed the shipwrecked Sailor, and the raft on which he sat, and his blue trousers, and the suspenders, and the knife in his pocket.

When the shipwrecked Sailor found that he was in the Whale, he began to jump up and down in the dark. He jumped for a long, long time. The Whale was very unhappy. So he said to the Clever Fish, “This Man jumps very much and I have got the hiccups. What shall I do?”

“Tell him to come out,” said the Clever Fish.

Part III

So the Whale said to the shipwrecked Sailor, “Don’t jump so much and come out. I have got the hiccups.”

“No, no,” said the Sailor. “Not so quick. Take me back to England, and I shall think about it.” And he began to jump again.

So the Whale swam and swam and swam for many days and at last he saw England. He swam up to the shore and opened his mouth wide and wide and wide, and the Sailor walked out of his mouth. But before that, he took his knife and cut up the raft into pieces. With the pieces of the raft and his suspenders the Sailor made a grating, which he put into the Whale’s throat. After that he came out on the shore and went home to his old mother and told her all about his adventures. Soon he married and lived a happy life for a long time.

But the poor Whale who had the grating in his throat could not eat anything big now. He could only swallow very, very small fishes; and that is why whales never eat men or boys or little girls.