KNIFE FALLS FROM SHIP TO KITCHEN TABLE
In the year 1210, during the reign of King John "Lackland" of England, Gervase of Tilbury—described alternately as a traveling monk and a canon lawyer—began writing his famous Otia Imperialia, a very early Latin encyclopedia of wonders for the instruction and entertainment of his patron Otto IV, the Holy Roman emperor. The book was divided into three sections: history, geography, and physics. From it comes the following incident:
A sailor from Bristol set out from the thriving merchant port to sail for Ireland and then far off ports, leaving his wife and children behind. During the lengthy voyage, the sailor one day sat down for a meal with his crewmates and then went to the side of the ship to wash his knife.
Whilst leaning over, the blade slipped from his hand into the water. At exactly that moment, in Bristol, the wife was sitting at her kitchen table when the same knife fell through a dormer window and stuck into the surface in front of her. Recognizing the knife as her husband's, she set it aside until he returned from his journey. They confirmed that the incidents occurred simultaneously.
From 1956, again in the Gloucestershire area, comes the following report:
Mr. G, a linesman who worked for Midland Electricity, was erecting some power lines in a field four miles from town. Lunch time arrived and when he pulled out his bread and cheese he was dismayed to discover he had forgotten to pack a knife. "He bent down, and there, on the grass in the field lay a fine new table-knife which certainly had not been there when he came into the field." Mr. G took the knife home where it remained for many years. The utensil vanished mysteriously when he died.
Text from Almanac of the Infamous, the Incredible, and the Ignored by Juanita Rose Violini, published by Weiser Books, 2009
