How the Walrus got its Tusks

When I was younger, the school library did little to harbour my amusement; certainly, there were the few story books that were ignored and discoloured, probably noted as too ‘kiddy’ for most of us growing boys to read, but as far as I remembered the shelves of my humble primary school seemed to have a preference for housing rows and rows of fraying text-books and antique copies of the Encyclopaedia Britannica.


Where it did amuse me was the select few illustrated story books that made the small selection at the ‘storybooks section’, and they were the type of story books that went, “How did the Tiger get his Stripes” or “How Cat and Dog were Enemies.” Stories told in the manner of folklores (for all they are, which they are), which made them sound old and typical, but in the way of its age they managed to sound true.


I don’t refer to true as in unanimous, unwavering truth; I refer to it as the way stories seem to grow from, and as a way for them to seem real; in a sense they are what they are, because these stories started it. Without them we really can’t seem to think how Tiger got his stripes, be it accidental or biologically so, and that he uses them to his advantages.


One such stories was How the Walrus got its Tusks, which many other retellings prefer to title it as:



The Walrus and the Steamboat.


In the olden days walruses were just as fat and in love to both sea and shore, but they were also smarter and considerably more civilised. They were also true gentlemen, too, though never really great ladies, which one would liken to having all that blubber and moustache. They were also very rich; wealthiest of all creatures that set their home both on shore and water, and above all they love food just as much as monkeys live to chatter, or as passionate as lovebirds towards love.


They also didn’t have tusks, back then. They could’ve had them if they wanted, but they were very unsightly things, and in no manner useful or productive (unless, as one walrus mused to the other during a particular party, if you really want to scratch yourself in the belly and didn’t have the flippers to do so. No one laughed, and the water was colder that night.)


Walruses were rich because they ate oysters. And clams. And fishes and seaweed, too, but nothing better than something with a persistent shell and soft, juicy insides. They were rich because oysters produce that rare pearl every now and then (not so rare if you dedicate your life gathering them to last a lifetime), and subsequently the shells also fetch a fine price among humans (humans, they buy anything).


Life was pretty good, as it is pretty good for most creatures, back when the earth was younger and people don’t wipe each other off because of small matters like land. Good times.
Our walrus in our tale, whose name was… well, whose name was just like any other walrus, and this we shall then call him Walrus, who found himself lumbering up the rocky beach at night hoping to bask under the moon. He wasn’t disappointed, as the moon was bright and the surrounding stars managed to match in a unison of shimmers.


It was then when he chanced upon a scent. So exquisite it was, what with it being like a symphony of smells and tangs and various other aromas, that he couldn’t help but made his way towards the source of it, which was further down shore, up the beach and on the snow.


He came upon a man dressed in thin, patchy clothes and a broad hat made of dried leafs, which told Walrus that he was a fisherman and also that he was strangely immune to the cold. In front of the man was a circular pot of some sort, a peculiar thing coated in gold that Walrus had never seen the likes of.


It was from that curious object from which the scent wafted from, together with thick steam that curled gently towards the moon. Closer as he was, and stronger the smell, Walrus started to feel his mouth water, and curiosity got the better of him.


“Good evening,” said Walrus, polite and courteous (for walruses were gentlemen.).


The fisherman looked at the creature with a curious eye.


“Why good evening, sir Walrus! Not often do I see your kind so far up shore,” said the man, which we should call Fisherman for ease’s sake.



“The moon is full and the winds fresh,” said Walrus, glad that Fisherman is friendly. “So much that I prefer the land over the warm sea.”


“Aye, nothing but the moon and breeze to turn the night into a venerable one.”


Fisherman gently stirred the contents of the pot. The steam danced and teased at Walrus.


“Pray tell, kind Fisherman,” said Walrus. “What is that curious object by which you are using?”


“This?” said Fisherman, a glint in his eye. “This is what the people call a Hot Pot, or what others also call a Steamboat.”


“A Steamboat,” said Walrus. He was already amazed. “I see the steam, but it certainly doesn’t look like a boat, or any of that kind for any matter.”


Fisherman chuckled. “Aye,” he said. “The same way they can call a sparrow Sparrow, or a tiger Tiger, when all in the same they were birds and cats. The name is just the name; words and nothing else.”


Fisherman smiled at Walrus, and it was a kindly smile which made Walrus (rather old as he was, being close to approaching his elderly days) felt young and unknowing.


“So what does the Steamboat do?” asked Walrus, though he realised he knew the answer the first time he chanced upon the smell.


“It cooks our food, faster and quicker, and so that we can dine while we cook altogether.”


True enough, Walrus saw that there were fish and crabs and shrimps, tossed around by boiling bubbles.


“A cooking device,” echoed Walrus. Then he noticed something. “But sir, unless I am very much mistaken; a strong fire is need to make fire strong enough to boil the water fast, but I see that there is no wood and yet the fire roars so despite the winds and the cold.”


“Ah,” Fisherman said. “This is a special Steamboat.”


Saying that, Fisherman reached down and seized a fistful of snow, which he then fed into the fire. The flames licked and crackled and roared higher.


Walrus was astounded. “Amazing! A magical Steamboat, which uses ice as fire!”


At this moment, Walrus was already bent on owning such a remarkable object, and was ready to pay any sum for it. He thought of what it could do, and the smell that it exhumes -- so sweetly and immensely alluring. And he needn’t worry about fire, or wood, or cold winds and snow. And cooked fish! No, better, cooked oysters. Walruses were not taken towards eating cooked food, but the scent and steam was swirling in Walrus’s head, making dances and teases, and it was all that he needed to know that cooked oysters would taste majestic.


He lumbered closer to Fisherman, and said; “It might seem sudden of me to ask -- but I am very well wishful to procure such an interesting object. Would you tell me where I can find one?”


“Alas,” said Fisherman. “This is a rare item, only as much as the gods or sorcerers wanted to make them, and the few that fall in the hands of men travel across oceans and continents. I was given this by a travelling sailor whom I rescued from a shipwreck.”


Walrus was disappointed, but he was rich, and the rich will always find other means to procure the things they have set their eyes on, so long as they can pay for it -- which they perpetually think they can.


Walrus cleared his throat, and asked if Fisherman can sell the Steamboat to him.


Fisherman was contemplative. “Now, I would sell it to you… but it is indeed valuable to me; it cooks my food and keeps me warm, and I needn’t worry too much about supplies when I go to the sea to fish.”


“I can pay you any amount. I wish to have that steamboat.”


And Fisherman, he thought; he thought that if Walrus could pay him any large amount for the Steamboat, then he wouldn’t have to fish for a living any longer, and thus wouldn’t need the Steamboat. He imagined the south where the beaches were sands and the Summers forever, albeit a little humid.


He thought and thought it through, and finally he agrees.


“Aye, I’ll sell the Steamboat to you, for 50 pink pearls.”


Walrus hesitated. 50 pink pearls was a lot, even during those day, and pink pearls were thrice the value of the regular pearl and that saying, pretty much thrice the more beautiful.


Walrus had had 50 pink pearls, but that was the bulk of his treasure. It could set him back a decade in wealth and probably exclude him from the gentlemen’s club.


“50 pink pearls it is,” said Walrus. “Can you wait while I go and fetch it from my treasury?”


“Certainly. I’ll be here until sunrise.”


And with that Walrus lumbered back into the sea and swam for his underwater treasury, where he took 50 pink pearls, sweep them into an old pouch he managed to find at the sea years ago, and took it back to Fisherman.


When Walrus got back, Fisherman had already finished his meal and had even washed the Steamboat, to be given to Walrus in a more appropriately civil manner.


“When you feed the ice underneath the Steamboat for the fire,” said Fisherman, after he had counted and happily juggled the pouch of precious pearls and was making to leave. “You have to blow at it like you are to blow at firewood to get the fire started. After the tenth blow, the fire will ignite.”


Fisherman then left, leaving Walrus to content himself with the purchase of such an invaluable object, and throughout the course of time away from this tale managed to obtain himself a house by some tropical island, where he spent most of his days at the beach looking at the water nymphs and fishing with a pole.


And Walrus, with the Steamboat at his grasp, immediately took it to his home where he set to feast himself with cooked fish and cooked oysters.


He propped the Steamboat carefully on a low rock, surrounded by small mounts of snow he had gathered beforehand, and then set to place snow into the pot (to be melted into soup, for the sea water is too salty).


He then stuffed the remaining snow under the Steamboat, took a few breaths and then blew into the snow -- one, two, puff. And he blew and blew and then at the tenth breath, as though by magic (for indeed it was magic, what else could it be?) the fire flickered and spat, settling into a considerably hot roar.


Walrus, so immensely delighted by this, began to drop some leaves and herbs Fisherman gave to him for the soup, and then some salt, and then some fish heads to sweeten the broth, and by several minutes in which the water boiled, had himself a soup that smelled just like the one he scented upon a few hours back.


Now Walrus was very elated and pleased, and wasted no time in plonking down several oysters into the boiling soup. He waited for 15 minutes, like Fisherman had advised in cooking oysters, and when the time was up he bent down the pot to grab some oysters out with his mouth.


He scalded himself. And burned some whiskers too.


Walrus was now appalled; it didn’t occur to him that he would be facing trouble in extracting his food from the pot. Fisherman had used a pair of sticks to tweak it out.


Walrus considered his options. He could pour the soup onto the ground -- perhaps a well aimed flick of his tail would do it, but it would be such a waste. He could wait for the fire to die out, for the soup to cool enough, before taking the oysters out to eat. Though, surely, it would beat the purpose of a Steamboat. Cooked food is all about being hot, steamy, warming the throat and stomach as it goes down, where it would dwell and make itself comfortable like a warm fire on winter’s night.


Fish it out, thought Walrus. Use something to take it out.


So he lumbered out to the snow and found himself some ice stalactites, and with it in his mouth he trick to pick the oysters out, but the pick soon melted in the soup and Walrus got a singed chin for his trouble. One would be hard pressed to find sticks in the Arctic, which Walrus knew enough to start hunting for some, so there was nothing for him to do but wait in despair for the fire to die and for the soup to cool before he managed to remove the oysters from the Steamboat, and by then it was already cold.


But Walrus wouldn’t give things up so easily. Every night he would restart the fire, cook the soup and placed several oysters in, and every night he would try different methods to extract the oysters. One night he would try some sharp rocks, and on another he would think of ladling it out with a flat plank, but everything was pretty much futile, for Walrus was clumsy with his mouth, and his flippers were useless in managing objects.


So he tried and he tried. He tried some more, until his herbs run out, until the objects he could utilise around him ran out, and he sought to purchase them elsewhere. Night after night he poured over his ideas, bent on eating that piping hot cooked oyster. Soon his money went out, and his friends left him, and later everything left him to his own obsession on the golden Steamboat.



He forgot to groom himself. He forgot his speech, his manners -- politeness and courtesy now a distant entity in itself, slowly forgotten. And, after a full year of futility, forgot everything about what being a walrus was, except for an unhealthy craving for cooked oysters.


It was at the end of that full year in which Walrus, now ragged and rough, no more the gentlemanly walrus we told of at the start, realised that he had a pair of fully grown tusks. Three feet long each, he would’ve been a detested specimen amongst the prim-and-proper crowd he was once a part of. That night, at the end of that full year, was the time when Walrus realised that he could used his tusks to extract the cooked oysters.


That night he cooked the same soup he cooked every night, in a Steamboat which fire is fueled by ice, placed the several oysters into it and waited 15 minutes. When the time came he plunged his tusks into the soup and flicked an oyster out. He watched at the silent curls of steam emanating from the piping oyster, drooling, knowing he had spent a full year for this very moment.


He ate the oyster.


He didn’t like the taste.


- The End -

*****************

Of course, as stories of such that was ever told, somehow one change in a singular walrus affected the change of his entire species, and in time to the time that is now, every walrus is as such -- wild, clumsy and with tusks that do their bidding.

You will probably realise that none of this made sense, but that is the way it is. To start with the least, illogical, sometimes preposterous means for animals to turn into what they are today is perhaps all too common.

Most times I laud at it. Sometimes I laugh and shun it, though somehow, and always somehow, it would make no sense, yet it would feel like the truth.

Sometimes stories don’t need to make sense. They just need to happen.

- Wallace J.Y Reidding-