Bear convicted for 'stealing' honey

[Mulder]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7295559.stm

[dashwood]

didn't the good people of hartlypool once convict and hang a monkey for being a spanish spy. and nero (i think) married his faverate hourse, so our love affair with annimals continues

[bobdezon]

a french monkey washed ashore, they thought it was a frenchman and hung it. Caligula said his horse "incitatus" would be a consul.

[Fiona]

They all read the Sun in Hartlepool in those days?

[dashwood]

fiona, thats a horrible thing to say

[brodski]

a french monkey washed ashore, they thought it was a frenchman and hung it.

It's a myth, but it made a good folksong.

Singing...

Old folks and young folks, everyone and each,
Come and see the Frenchie who's landed on the beach,
He's got long arms, a great long tail, he's covered all in hair,
We think that he's a spy so we'll hang him in the square.

[bobdezon]

I have no idea if its a myth, or not. Various sources suggest it is not.

[brodski]

I have no idea if its a myth, or not. Various sources suggest it is not.

Really? So we are to believe that the residents of a town that had been a major port for almost 1000 years where unfamiliar with what French people and monkeys looked like?
And they just happened to commit this act of simian execution in a style which aped a popular folksong of the time (making humorous reference to Scottish maritime and salvage law)?

There is zero credible evidence what so ever that the monkey hanging story is true, and a wealth of evidence that it is a complete fabrication, almost certainly a slander based on local rivaly.

Which sources are you relying on?

[bobdezon]

Really? So we are to believe that the residents of a town that had been a major port for almost 1000 years where unfamiliar with what French people and monkeys looked like?
And they just happened to commit this act of simian execution in a style which aped a popular folksong of the time (making humorous reference to Scottish maritime and salvage law)?

There is zero credible evidence what so ever that the monkey hanging story is true, and a wealth of evidence that it is a complete fabrication, almost certainly a slander based on local rivaly.

Which sources are you relying on?

Like I said I have no idea if its a myth, every source I have checked (and to be fair there is not much available historically) seems to tell the same or variation of the original tale. It is not so difficult to believe there could be a grain of truth to it though, wheather it originated in hartlepool or not is a matter for historians. Historically animals have been tried for crimes before.

In 1386 a pig accused of murdering an infant was tried and convicted by a court in Falaise, France. The pig was hanged at the gallows by the village hangman. Her six piglets were charged with being accessories to the crime but were acquitted "on account of their youth and their mother's bad example

"The Law Is an Ass: Reading E. P. Evans' The Medieval Prosecution and Capital Punishment of Animals" (Society & Animals: Journal of Human-Animal Studies, published by the organization Psychologists for the Ethical Treatment of Animals)

A source I have checked is

http://www.thisishartlepool.co.uk/hi...poolmonkey.asp

I know what you mean about it potentially being an urban legend though, I did read about the scottish version also.

Historians have also pointed to the prior existence of a Scottish folk song called "And the Boddamers hung the Monkey-O". It describes how a monkey survived a shipwreck off the village of Boddam near Peterhead in Aberdeenshire. Because the villagers could only claim salvage rights if there were no survivors from the wreck, they allegedly hanged the monkey

Like I said, I have no idea if its a myth or not.