A soothing bedtime story to help you drift off tonight: Rudyard Kipling's playful, rhythmic Just So Story How the Whale Got His Throat, read slowly and gently for sleep and insomnia relief. Kipling wrote the Just So Stories specifically as bedtime tales for his own daughter, to be told "just so," word for word, until she drifted off — which makes this one of the most naturally calming stories in the whole Books at Bedtime strand, also known as Coffee Break for the Soul, from the Calming Anxiety podcast.
Narrated softly by Martin Hewlett, clinical hypnotherapist and former paramedic, this reading follows a very hungry whale, a clever little 'Stute Fish, and a shipwrecked Mariner of "infinite-resource-and-sagacity" whose jack-knife and suspenders solve rather more than anyone expects. Short, whimsical, and full of Kipling's sing-song repetition, it's an easy, unhurried listen for falling asleep, insomnia, or quieting an anxious mind at the end of the day.
First published in 1902 in the collection Just So Stories for Little Children, Rudyard Kipling's How the Whale Got His Throat is in the public domain worldwide (Kipling died in 1936); this reading is Calming Anxiety's own narration of the classic public-domain text.
The story
Transcribed from the audio, so the odd word may be off. Tap any line while it plays to keep the words in step with Martin's voice.
Books at bedtime by calming anxiety, how the whale got his throat by rudyard kippling.
In the sea, once upon a time, O my best beloved, there was a whale, and he ate fishes. He ate the starfish and the garfish, and the crab and the dab, and the place and the dates, and the skate and his mate, and the mackerel and the pecoral, and the really, truly, truly, really ill. All the fishes he could find in all the sea, he ate with his mouth, so. Till at last, there was only one small fish left in all the sea, and he was a small stoop fish, and he swam a little behind the whales right here, so as to be out of harm's way. Then, the whale stood up on his tail and said, "I'm hungry," and the small stoop fish said in a small stoop voice. "Nobal and generous cetacean, have you ever tasted man?" "No," said the whale. "What is it like?" "Nice," said the small stoop fish, "nice but nubbly." "Then fetch me some," said the whale, and he made the sea froth up with his tail. "One at a time is enough," said the stoop fish.
If you swim to latitude 15 north, longitude 40 west, that is magic, you will find sitting on a raft in the middle of the sea, with nothing on but a pair of blue canvas breeches, a pair of suspenders, you must not forget the suspenders best beloved, and a jackknife. One ship wrecked Mariner, who it is only fair to tell you is a man of infinite resource and sagacity, so the whale swam and swam to latitude 15 north, longitude 40 west, as fast as he could swim, and on a raft in the middle of the sea, with nothing to wear except a pair of blue canvas breeches, a pair of suspenders, you must particularly remember the suspenders best beloved, and a jackknife. He found one single solitary ship wrecked Mariner, trailing his toes in the water. He had his mummy's lead to paddle or else he would never have done it because he was a man of infinite resource and sagacity. Then the whale opened his mouth back and back and back to it nearly touched his tail, and he swallowed the ship wrecked Mariner, and the raft he was sitting on and his blue canvas breeches and the suspenders which he must not forget, and the jackknife.
He swallowed them all down into his warm, dark inside cupboards, and then he smacked his lips, so, and turned round three times on his tail. But as soon as the Mariner, who was a man of infinite resource and sagacity, found himself truly inside the whale's warm, dark inside cupboards, he stumped and he jumped, and he thumped and he pranced and he danced, and he banged and he clanged, and he hit and he bit, and he leaped and he creaped, and he prowled and he held, and he hopped and he dropped, and he cried and he sighed, and he crawled and he boned, and he stepped and he leaped, and he danced horn pipes where he shouldn't, and the whale felt most unhappy indeed. Have you forgotten the suspender? So he said to the stoopfish, this man is very nabbly, and besides he is making me hick off, watch lighting. "Tell him to come out," said the stoopfish, so the whale called down his own throat, to the ship-trecked Mariner, "come out and behave yourself, I have got the hickoths."
"Nay-nay," said the Mariner, "not so, but far otherwise. Take me to my nae till shore, and the white cliffs of Albion, and I'll think about it." And he began to dance more than ever. "You had better take him home," said the stoopfish to the whale, "I ought to have warned you that he is a man of infinite resource and sagacity."
So the whale swam and swam and swam, with both flippers and his tail, as hard as he could for the hickoths, and at last he saw the Mariner's nae till shore, and the white cliffs of Albion. And he rushed halfway up the beach, and opened his mouth wide, and wide and wide and said, "Change here for Winchester, Ashlot, Nashal, Keen, and stations of the Fitchberg Road." And just as he said fish, the Mariner walked out of his mouth. But while the whale had been swimming, the Mariner, who was indeed a person of infinite resource and sagacity, had taken his jack-knife, and cut up the raft into little squares, grating, all running criss-cross, and he had tied it firm with the suspenders. Now you know why we were not to forget the suspenders. And he dragged that grating good and tight in the whale's throat, and there it stuck.
Then he recited the following sloker, which, as you have not heard it, I will now proceed to relate. By means of a grating, I have stopped your eating. For the Mariner, he was also a hibernian. He had stepped out on the shingle and went home to his mother, who had given him leave to trail his toes in the water, and he had married and lived happily ever afterwards. So did the whale. But from that day on, the grating in his throat, which he could neither cough up nor swallow down, prevented him for eating anything else except very, very small fish. And that is the reason why whales nowadays never eat men or boys or little girls. The small stoopfish went and hid himself in the mud under the doour cells of the equator.
He was afraid that the whale might be angry with him. The sailor took the jack knife home. He was wearing the blue canvas preaches when he walked out on the shingle. The suspenders were left behind, you see, to tie the grating with, and that is the end of that tail. When the cabin portals are dark and green because of the seas outside, when the ship goes up with a wiggle between and the steward falls into the soup turin, and the trunks begin to slide. When nursery lies on the floor in the heap, and mommy tells you to let her sleep, and you aren't waked or washed or dressed, why then you will know if you haven't guessed your 15 hours and 40 west