Black Iron’s Glory

Chapter 81 Cetaceans and Traditions

Every winter, Captain O'Trooney returns from whaling in the open sea on the Red Sea Shark, a rare carnival in White Deer Town. Although only students take annual holidays, it is also a cat winter day for most townspeople. Heavy snowy weather makes it difficult to find a job, let alone go far away, so basically people who have nothing to do like to stay in the pub for a day of drinking and bragging...

So the Red Sea shark, the ocean fishing boat, returns to whale hunting as the crowd's favorite watching activity, just like the Niros crocodile they were watching Claude hunt, the mountains and seas on the road by the pier, it's incredible. Smart hawkers push their trolleys around the crowd and call them melon barbecues or something...

Claude and Vikro squeezed in front of the dock door, almost all of them sweating. Fortunately, Uncle Pegg, guarding the gate, was in front of the door and saw the two of them hurrying to open a small seam and let them enter the pier.

The Red Sea Shark pelagic fishing boat is also parked next to the lakeside ice, about a hundred yards from the pier. There are a few people on the ice with iron crows in their hands knocking on the ice.

“What are they doing? Do you want to cut open the ice so the boat can dock at the pier?” Claude asked Uncle Pegg.

Last winter's annual holiday, the body's original owner, Claude Jr., and his three partners, dug holes in ice like the lake, and accidentally slipped into the water. Fortunately, the three partners reached out and grabbed his clothes in time and pulled him up. But little Claude also lay ill for six months and was robbed of his body by the passers-by...

“No, fishing boats should not be allowed to dock at the docks in winter, which would cause significant harm to fishing boats by freezing them inside because of the freezing of lakes. Uncle Pegg replied:" Fishing boats can only park outside the ice and move towards the centre of the lake as the ice expands to prevent freezing. Now they're testing the thickness of the ice to see if they can withstand the weight of a whale. ”

Whales... Claude turns around and looks at the two whales dragging behind the Red Sea Shark. Needless to say, it is clear from the surface that the bodies of these two whales appear to be longer than those of pelagic fishing vessels, and it is conceivable how big they are. Claude also found that it seemed that the world's whales differed from what he had seen in his previous life. Although they all look gray and blue, the two whales seem to have long horns on their heads, their heads protruding a large chunk, except that the long horns have been removed and their heads protruding where only a large cave remains.

The unicorn whale, Claude, remembers the whale picture depicted in the biology book. The textbook depicts seventeen discovered whale species, large and small. Unicorn whales are not big compared to other whales and are more like underage children around a strong man than ocean blue giant whales. But the picture is far less shocking than what I witnessed in real life. You can imagine how huge the biggest big blue whale in the book is...

“With these two unicorn whales, the Ericksons have had a good harvest this year…” said Villicro, who is next to him, with some envy.

Unicorn whales are described in great detail in biological textbooks, and unicorn whales are already one of the more common edible whales in comparison to other different species of whales. It is said that in the dark ages, a magician led fishermen out to hunt for whales in order to obtain alchemy test materials, while using whale meat to compensate for the famine caused by natural disasters in the enclosure…

Legend has it that the unicorn of a unicorn whale's head is the magic material a magician needs to test for alchemy. Although none of the books prove it, now that magicians have been expelled from the Farea continent, folk have been spreading rumours that unicorns can revive male winds, so much so that unicorns have become a hot rare drug on the market that every whale hunter captain who catches unicorns can earn a fortune with them.

“Uncle Peg, did you just say that those people were testing the thickness of the ice to drag those unicorn whales ashore?” Claude asked.

Uncle Pegg shook his head: "No, it was going to break those two whales down directly on the ice without having to drag them to shore. Only one in previous years, lucky this year, caught two, those who are happy to see the buzz, they can buy a few kilos of whale meat for a very cheap price to go back and taste fresh. ”

Well, it turns out that the Ericsson family still has this tradition, and his father Captain Autruni brings back one or two captured whales every year and opens them directly at the pier, offering spectators very cheap fresh whale meat, which is one of those audience benefits. No wonder there are so many people watching the buzz. There were some strange things about Claude. Why do so many of the audiences carry an empty basket? Hurry up, it's for whale meat later...

“Vero, Claude...” Eriksson appeared on the fishing boat, and he saw Claude and Veriksson, very excited to take off their leather hats and wave at them, yelling their names out loud.

Claude and Velricolo waved at him too, meaning they heard it and didn't have to yell like that. Then they saw Ericsson grabbing a cable that drooped beneath the boat and sliding to the ice like an agile monkey, standing up and clapping his ass and running ashore.

“Hey, Claude, Vero, I miss you guys so much.” Ericsson rushed over and gave Claude and Verricolo a tight hug, then looked around and was a little disappointed: “Boa didn't come? ”

“He can't come.” Claude said, then told him that Bok Al was coming to his aunt's house this year for New Year's Eve before returning to White Deer Town in January.

Vericulo carefully weighed him and finally relieved himself and gave him a hug: “Congratulations on coming back safely. I'm so glad you didn't have anything missing...”

That's the truth, going out to sea and hunting whales these winters is a very dangerous thing. It's normal for a rookie to break a finger or something for the first time aboard the ship. This is the cold weather, not paying attention to the warmth and freezing, and the second is that climbing masts and rope nets is a dangerous livelihood when you're on a boat or hunting a whale, and accidentally you get hurt by these wires that freeze hard. In fact, breaking a finger is not a big deal, the serious thing is missing an arm or breaking a leg after a trip home...

Ericsson punched Vericulo in the chest: “You underestimate me too much to think about who I am, the greatest future captain of White Deer Town, Ericsson! ”

“By the way, Claude, Vero, I'm telling you, this sailing really opened my eyes. You can't imagine how calm the storm waters will be in the winter. Early in the morning, the sun jumped from the eastern sea level, glittering with gold. If I hadn't looked around, I wondered if I was sailing on Lake Beringa. Honestly, it was a beautiful moment, very spectacular...”

Eriksson danced to Claude and Veriksson to tell the story of his adventure over the past month of drifting and hunting whales at sea, which began rampantly an hour ago and stopped until Claude handed him a glass of water.

“Thank you, I'm thirsty...” Eriksson drank the cup with a sip, and it became clear that sometime after Claude and Verricolo had entered Uncle Pegg's cabin, Claude handed him the cup as well.

“Of course you'll be thirsty," Claude looked at him helplessly: "You sprayed me and Vero all over the mouth. From getting off the boat until now, I really doubt if you are mute on the boat and nobody is talking...”

“Oh, well, wasn't I glad to see you guys, so I said a few more words...” Eriksson explains with a smile.

By that time, a whale had been dragged on top of the ice, several sailors were ripping the whale open with a big axe and a big saw for the saw tree, and others were dragged to the pier with a sled carrying a large chunk of whale meat. Uncle Pegg and Eriksson's father, Captain O'Truney, as well as several other sailors, have put a few logs table by the dock gate with a piece of split whale meat on it.

The audience outside the dock gate also lined up in an orderly fashion and threw the money into a large wooden box by the log table and took a piece of whale meat back from the table.

“How do you sell whale meat?” Claude asked.

“This is cheap, five pounds a sonar.” Erickson replied.

It's really cheap, two finnies a pound, that's 20 cents a pound, 15 cents a pound. Claude was at home on vacation in the near future, and his mother often asked him to go to the open market to buy groceries, and he knew a lot about prices in White Deer Town.

Now the beef is one pound of Sooner's four finnies, one pound of lamb is one pound of Sooner's eight finnies, one pound of pork is five finnies and one pound of wild pork is eight finnies. The long tail knife fish is six finnies a kilo, the other lake fish are not famous basically four finnies to eight finnies a kilo.

For Mr. Morsan's salary of one riazo a day, only five or six sonars would allow the family to eat three meals a day. But for the townsfolk who only earned one or two silver tares in January, it's good to have beef and lamb once or twice a week, and they prefer to buy cheap lake fish.

According to those experts, unicorn whales have the same quality of meat as beef, both nutritious and flavorful. So buying a kilo of whale meat for only two finnies is very affordable for the residents of White Deer Town. Even the poorest people, as long as they work hard to earn two finnies, are easy, so it's not hard to eat whale meat.

Erickson's father, Captain O'Trooney, had manipulated the knife himself and split a piece of whale meat on the log table in front of the dock gate. Uncle Pegg stood beside him, weighing the whales simply and handing them over to those who paid for them.

A lot of people threw a sonar in a big wooden box, then took a five-pound piece of whale meat and said a few compliments to Captain Autruni before leaving.

Captain O'Trooney laughed and listened to words of gratitude as he quickly split a piece of whale with a knife in his hand.

Vericulo pushed Twicklord, pointing again to the whale meat split under Captain O'Truney's knife. Claude just noticed that these whale meat chunks that Eriksson's father split were almost exactly the same size, and that Uncle Pegg weighed roughly the same: “Five pounds a tael, hold it...”

And it's not surprising that Eriksson said, "What's so surprising is that after 20 years of fish splitting on a boat, you've been practicing well. I'll split it like this in the future...”

“Why didn't your father cut all five pounds and the people who bought it took one and they bought a few more?” Claude is a little strange, it's cold and snowy right now, and these whale meat chunks can be bought back for a while. How come people didn't ask for a few extra bucks? Especially so cheap...

“They don't dare...” Erickson said proudly. It turns out that this annual winter whale catching drag back to split meat is an old tradition of the Ottruni family. Originally Alexon's grandfather, he was also the old captain of a whaling boat, and there was no Red Sea Shark, but a smaller whaling boat. Every time a whale goes out to sea, it's like a life and death adventure, and a handful of sailors are killed or injured to catch whales.

Erickson's grandfather dragged a whale home every time, and all he wanted was to distribute the whale meat to the families of the dead and wounded sailors in order to give them a good year. Only excess whale meat is sold to the poor in town at very low prices.

With Alexon's father, the Red Sea Shark Ocean fishing vessel, whaling is no longer so dangerous. And the relatives of the elderly dead and wounded sailors have grown up, and if they are given whale meat for free, it becomes like mercy, and some self-respecting people refuse to accept it, they would rather buy it at the expense of the rest of the poor.

So the old Ericsson tradition changed, and free meat splitting became cheap meat selling. It's not that nobody wants to buy more, it's that people want to wholesale whale meat for profit, but Captain O'Trooney refused them all. A family can only buy five pounds, which is quantitative. And the old sailors at the pier door knew exactly who bought who didn't, so no one would think about asking for cheap at this time in the Ottruni tradition.