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billytheseal

Cardiff.

Member Since 2007

Followers 113 Following 192

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Tuesday Jun 15, 2010

Jun 14, 2010
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A little bit of whimsical Cardiff folk law.

Many years ago, in the deep and distant past, 1912 to be exact, and seal was caught in a fishing net in the Irish Sea. Not quite knowing what to do with it, it was given to the zoo in Victory Park.

People called it Billy, and it lived in the paddling pool for many, many years.

Children flocked from all over Cardiff to feed Billy.

As one Cardiffian recalled, there would be rows of children lining the railings around Billy's pond and they would call Billy, Billy until he came snorting out of the depths.

Legend has it that, when Victory Park was flooded in 1927, Billy took the opportunity to leave the pool and, if all the first hand reports are to be believed, boarded a tram and personally visited every fish shop and home in the Canton area.

Billy the Seal was even the subject of its own song, but, even though I remember singing it as a child, I can no longer remember the words, nor can anybody who I speak too. Regrettably, I must conclude the song has been lost to history.

Billy died in 1939, and his body was taken to the National Museum in Cardiff where an amazing discovery was made.

Billy wasn't a him at all, but a her.

Today you can still see Billy's skeleton in the National Museum, and a stature of her in Victory Park. You can still paddle in the same pool as Billy lived.



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