OTTER

5th March 2024

Photo Credit: erniedecker (Getty Images Signature), CANVA

QUOTATION

FALSTAFF: Setting thy womanhood aside, thou art a beast to say otherwise.

HOSTESS: Say, what beast, thou knave, thou?

FALSTAFF: What beast? Why, an otter.

PRINCE: An otter, Sir John. Why an otter?

FALSTAFF: Why she’s neither fish nor flesh; a man knows not where to have her.

FALSTAFF, HOSTESS, PRINCE: Henry IV, Part 1, Act 3, Scene 3

OTTER (Lutra lutra)

This reference to the Otter in Shakespeare’s works is used as an insult towards the Hostess. The phrase ‘neither fish nor flesh’ appears in texts from at least 1528 and may have had a longer oral history.

Topsell (1607) records some of the historical and contemporary views of Otters: ‘the flesh of this beast is both cold and filthy because it feedeth upon stinking fish, and therefore not fit to be eaten. Tragus writeth, that this not withstanding is dressed to be eaten in many parts of Germany’, also that ‘the hair of the skin is most soft, neither doth it leese its beauty by age: for which cause as also for that no rain can hurt it, when it is well dressed it is of great price and estimation, and is sold for seven or eight shillings.’

Otters underwent catastrophic declines in the UK in the 1950s and 1960s but numbers are slowly rising. They are assessed as Near Threatened and declining in the IUCN Global Red List.

More Information

Folger Shakespeare Library: Search Shakespeare’s Works

IUCN Global Red List: Lutra lutra

Mammal Society: Otter

Taylor A., 1943, “Neither Fish nor Flesh” and its Variations. California Folklore Quarterly, Vol.2, No. 2, pp. 129 -147 (accessed via JSTOR.org)

Topsell, E. 1607 The History of Four-footed Beasts (accessed via Archive.org)

Wildlife Trusts: Otter