Humans Marrying Animals

On a not entirely unrelated note, in the Royal Navy in days gone by, nanny goats were kept on ships to provide milk for the captain's coffee. If a sailor were accused and convicted of buggery on the nanny goat, he was subject to being hanged, and the goat was butchered and served to the mess which informed on him.

such a waste really!

Hanged! c'mon!!

I'm serious as a heart attack. I find it interesting because it punishes three offenders--the sailor who buggered the goat, the goat (who was innocent, really) and the mess that informed on him (in this context, mess means the eight men who share rations on a ship). It basically says, don't bugger the captain's goat, but if you do, by God, don't anyone inform on him, because it will make us the laughing stock of the fleet. I don't know if i can find anything online, but that is, as far as i know, a genuine situation.

From "The Printed Instructions," dated 1627: If any Person belonging to the Fleet shall commit Buggery or Sodomy, he shall be punished with Death." (Source, Sodomy and the Pirate Tradition: English Sea Rovers in the Seventeenth Century Caribbean, Barry Richard Berg, NYU Press.) The intent of this regulation was to prevent homosexuality, but beastiality came under the heading of buggery. The punishment for the goat and the mess which informed on the "buggerer" was customary, and intended to discourage informers for sake of the reputation of the ship's company. Sailors were (and may well still be) a conservative lot, and approved of (or are thought to have approved of) severe punishment, including hanging, for those caught in flagrante delicto performing a homosexual act. But in the case of beastiality, apparently, sailors were less judgmental, and would find it amusing, and a cause to heap derision on the ship in which it had occurred. A ship's captain was God on his own quarterdeck ("Jehovah has left the deck" was a common expression meaning the captain had gone below), but he could not execute a man, other than shooting him for cowardice in combat, without the sentence of a court marshall, and he could not punish officers or warrant officers at all without sentence of a court martial. If someone committed buggery with the ship's goat, and was informed on, it would require a court martial to find him guilty and condemn him, which meant the ship would have to sail to and remain in a port with at least seven Post Captains present, and all the members of the mess which informed on him would be called as witnesses. No captain wanted his ship to be put into that situation, so the customary punishment of executing the goat and serving it to the mess which had informed on him was intended to make the men keep their mouths shut.

buggering a nanny goat isnt gay.



PS, you really have way too much free time.

I hear most of them Pennsylvania farmers is gay . . .

I've got too much free time? Got a mirror?

Sure I can find a mirror for you, what are you gonna do your hair while youre posting?

Leat we dont bugger male goats, technically, we aint so gay

When asked how his date went last night, FM replied: "Not baaaaaaaaad."

Ewe two get points for effort, but none for stile.

I don't give a dam wether someone marries a rooster. Just as long as they don't cock it up for the rest of us.

For more bad ovine puns, check out the "Some guys with way too much time on their hands" thread.

I would think that getting to eat fresh meat would be a plus for guys on sea rations for weeks at a time!

You would be wrong there. Not only did the men not want to eat the meat, they felt they had been done out of the rations to which they would otherwise be entitled. The officers no longer wanted milk form a goat which had been buggered, either. Expecting sense from human beings is roughly equivalent to expecting honesty from politicians.