~Sea & River Animal Quotes~
* Carp: “To my right, some two or three feet under the water, I saw the sudden, rolling yellowish flash of the slatted belly of a water tharlarion, turning as it made its swift strike, probably a Vosk carp or marsh turtle.” Raiders of Gor
* Clam: “I said, “amber droplets, the pearls of the Vosk sorp, the polished shell of the Tamber clam, glass colored and cut in Ar for trade with ignorant southern Peoples.” Nomads of Gor
* Crayfish: “These, in turn, become food for various flatworms and numerous tiny-segmented creatures, such as isopods, which, in turn, serve as food for small, blind, white crayfish, felts and salamanders. These latter, however, do not stand at the top of the food chain. Sometimes one picks up the lelts and salamanders in the cones. It was not these that had excited the interest of the men.” Tribesmen of Gor
* Cosian Wingfish: “Now this,” Saphrar the merchant was telling me, “is the braised liver of the blue, four-spired Cosian wingfish.” This fish is a tiny, delicate fish,blue, about the size of a tarn disk when curled in one’s hand; it has three or four slender spines in its dorsal fin, which are poisonous; it is capable of hurling itself from the water and for brief distances, on it stiff pectoral fins, gliding through the air, usually to evade smaller sea-tharlarians, which seem to be immune to the poison of the spines. This fish is also at times referred to as the songfish because as a portion of it’s courtship rituals, the males and females thrust their heads from the water and utter a short whistling sound. The blue, four spired wingfish is found only in the waters of Cos. Larger varieties are found further out to sea. The small blue is regarded a great delicacy, and it’s liver a delicacy of delicacies.” Nomads of Gor
They spend much of the day in the water and, it is said, are more at ease in that element than the Cosian song fish.” Assassin of Gor
“It is also called a songfish, because, in their courtship rituals, males and females thrust their heads from the water, uttering a kind of whistle.” Raiders of Gor
“Cos is also a lofty island, even loftier than Tyros, but she has level fields to her west. Cos had many terraces, on which the Ta grapes are grown. Near her, on night, lying off her shore, silently, I heard the mating whistles of the tiny, lovely Cosian wingfish. This is a small, delicate fish; it has three or four slender spines in its dorsal fin, which are poisonous. It is called the wingfish because it can, on its stiff pectoral fins, for short distances, glide through the air, usually in an attempt to flee small sea tharlarion, who are immune to the poison of the spines. It is also called a songfish, because, in their courtship rituals, males and females thrust their heads from the water, uttering a kind of whistle. Their livers are regarded as a delicacy. I recalled I had once tried one, but had not cared for it, at a banquet in Turia, in the house of a man named Saphrar, who had been a merchant.. Saphrar, I recalled, had once been a perfumer from Tyros but, being exiled as a thief, had made his way to Port Kar, and thence had gone to Turia. I had learned on the rail of the light galley, and, in the moonlight, had listened to the mating whistles of the small fish. They seemed so small, and innocent.” Raiders of Gor
* Cuttlefish: “…and a preparation formed from a disease calculus scraped from the intestines of the rare Hunjer Long Whale, the result of the inadequate digestion of cuttlefish.” Marauders of Gor
“A man walked by carrying a long pole, from which dangled dozens of the eels of Cos.” Slave Girl of Gor
*Eel: “Many estates, particularly country estates, have pools in which fish are kept. Some of these pools contain voracious eels, of various sorts, river eels, black eels, the spotted eel, and such, which are Gorean delicacies. Needless to say a bound slave, cast into such a pool, will be eaten alive.” Magicians of Gor
-Dock Eel: He struck out toward the shore, then clambered toward it, getting his feet under “Eel” him. He screamed twice more. When he stood in about a foot of water, among pilings, near the next wharf, he struck down madly at his legs with his left hand, striking two dock eels from his calf. Then, painfully, he moved himself up the sand, staggering, holding his legs widely apart.” Rogue of Gor
“The leg seemed gouged. The dock eels, black, about four feet long, are tenacious creatures. They had not relinquished their hold on the flesh in their jaws when they had been forcibly struck away from the leg, back into the water.” Rogue of Gor,
-Banded Eel: “A pirate running for the ship missed the bow rail and fell into the water. He began to thrash and scream in the water, attacked by eels. I looked down, into the water. Below me the water was swarming with eels. The blood from my back, I realized, running down the blade and dripping into the water, had attracted them. … Then something wet and heavy, slithering, leapt upward out of the water, and splashed back. My leg felt stinging. It had not been able to fasten its jaws on me. I looked downward. Two or more heads, tapering, menacing, solid, were emerged from the water, looking up at me. Then, streaking from under the water, suddenly breaking its surface, another body, some four feet in length, about eight or ten pounds in weight, leapt upward. I felt the jaws snap and scratch against the shearing blade. Then it fell twisting back in the water. It was the blood which excited them. … If we could get to the free water I did not think the eels would pursue us far from the wharves and shore. … I knew that the fastening of those jaws, in a fair bite, could gouge ounces of flesh from a man’s body. Too I knew that the eel seldom takes its food out of the water, that such strikes, in all probability, had not been selected for. … Then almost too quickly for the Banded Eel be fully aware of it, I saw the returning shape erupting from the water. I thrust, as I could, my ankle towards it. Then I screamed in pain. The weight, thrashing and tearing, must have been some fifteen or twenty pounds. It was some seven feet in length. I threw my had back, crying out. My left ankle was clasped in the clenched jaws, with those teeth like nails.” Guardsman of Gor
-Bint Eel: “Such blood might attract the bint, a fanged, carnivorous marsh eel, or the predatory, voracious blue grunt, a small, fresh-water variety of the much larger and familiar salt-water grunt of Thassa.” Explorers of Gor
“…the marsh sharks and the carnivorous eels which frequent the lower delta, not to mention the various species of aggressive water tharlarion and the winged, monstrous, hissing, predatory UI,…” Raiders of Gor
* Grunt: “… of the much larger and familiar salt-water grunt of Thassa.” Explorers of Gor
-Blue Grunt: “Such blood might attract the bint, a fanged, carnivorous marsh eel, or the predatory, voracious blue grunt, a small, fresh-water variety of the much larger and familiar salt-water grunt of Thassa. The blue grunt is particularly dangerous during the daylight hours preceding its mating periods, when it schools. Its mating periods are synchronized with the phases of Gor’s major moon, the full moon reflecting on the surface of the water somehow triggering the mating instinct. During the daylight hours preceding such a moon, as the restless grunts school, they will tear anything edible to pieces which crosses their path. During the hours of mating, however, interestingly, one can move and swim among them untouched.” Explorers of Gor
“In it, as had been demonstrated, by the hurling of a haunch of tarsk into the waters, crowded and schooling, were thousands of blue grunt. This fish, when isolated and swimming free in a river or lake, is not particularly dangerous. For a few days prior to the fullness of the major Gorean moon, however, it begins to school. It then becomes extremely aggressive and ferocious. The haunch of tarsk hurled into the water of the moat, slung on a rope, had been devoured in a matter of Ihn. There had been a thrashing frenzy in the water and then the rope had been withdrawn, severed.The grunt, following the mating frenzy, synchronized with the full moon, would return to the lake. Given the habits of the fish I had little doubt but that this place was an ancient mating ground for them, for the grunt populations tend to return again and again to the places of their frenzy, wherever, usually in a lagoon or shallow place in a river, they may be.” Explorers of Gor
-Speckled Grunt: “I saw a great speckled grunt, four-gilled.” Explorers of Gor
-White Bellied Grunt: “Three other men of the Forkbeard attended to fishing, two with a net, sweeping it along the side of the serpent, for parsit fish, and the third, near the stem, with a hook and line, baited with vulo liver, for the white-bellied grunt, a large game fish which haunts the plankton banks to feed on parsit fish.” Marauders of Gor
* Lelt: “Lelts are often attracted to the salt rafts, largely by the vibrations in the water, picked up by their abnormally developed lateral-line protrusions, and their fernlike craneal vibration receptors, from the cones and poles. Too, though they are blind, I think either the light, or the heat, perhaps, from our lamps, draws them. The tiny, eyeless heads will thrust from the water, and the fernlike filaments at the side of the head will open and lift, orienting themselves to one or the other of the lamps. The lelt is commonly five to seven inches in length. It is white, and long-finned. It swims slowly and smoothly, its fins moving the water very little, which apparently contributes to its own concealment in a blind environment and makes it easier to detect the vibrations of its prey, any of several varieties of tiny segmented creatures, predominantly isopods. The brain of the lelt is interesting, containing an unusually developed odor-perception center and two vibration-reception centers. Its organ of balance, or hidden ‘ear,’ is also unusually large, and is connected with an unusually large balance center in its brain. Its visual center, on the other hand, is stunted and undeveloped, a remnant, a vague genetic memory of an organ long discarded in its evolution…” Tribesmen of Gor
“The gills of the lelt are located at the lower sides of its jaw, not on the sides of its head, as is common in open-water fish.” Tribesmen of Gor
* Oysters: “Other girls had prepared the repast, which, for the war camp, was sumptuous indeed, containing even oysters from the delta of the Vosk, a portion of the plunder of a tarn caravan of Ar, such delicacies having been intended for the very table of Marlenus, the Ubar of that great city itself.” Captive of Gor
* Parsit: “The slender, striped parsit fish has vast plankton banks north of the town and may there, particularly in the spring and fall be taken in great numbers; Trade to the south, of course, is largely in the furs acquired from Torvaldsland, and in the barrels of smoked, dried parsit fish.” Marauders of Gor
“… several varieties of migrating parsit, a small, narrow, usually striped fish.” Beasts of Gor
“Three other men of the Forkbeard attended to fishing, two with a net, sweeping it along the side of the serpent, for parsit fish, and the third, near the stem, with a hook and line, baited with vulo liver, for the white-bellied grunt, a large game fish which haunts the plankton banks to feed on parsit fish.” Marauders of Gor
“The men with the net drew it up. In it, twisting and flopping, silverish, striped with brown, squirmed more than a stone of parsit fish. They threw the net to the planking and, with knives, began to slice the heads and tails from the fish.” Marauders of Gor
* Pike: “If it were a school of fifteen-inch Gorean pike, for example, I might kill dozens and yet die half eaten within minutes.” Nomads of Gor
* Salamander: “Among the lelts, too, were, here and there, tiny salamanders, they, too, white and blind. Like the lefts, They were, for their size, long-bodied, were capable of long periods of dormancy and possessed a slow metabolism; they had long, stemlike legs.” Tribesman of Gor
* Sea Sleen: “The sea sleen, vicious, fanged aquatic mammals, apparently related to the land forms of sleen, are the swiftest predators to be found in Thassa; further, they are generally conceded to be the most dangerous; they tend, however, to frequent northern waters. Occasionally they have been found as far south, however, as the shores of Cos and the deep inlets of Tyros.” Slave Girl of Gor
“The red hunters lived as nomads, dependent on the migrations of various types of animals, in particular the northern tabuk and four varieties of sea sleen. Their fishing and hunting were seasonal, and depended on the animals.” Beasts of Gor
-Four Types: “Sleen, interestingly, come northward with the parsit. their own migrations synchronized with those of the parsit, which forms for them their principal prey. The four main types of sea sleen found in the polar seas are the black sleen, the brown sleen, the tusked sleen and the flat-nosed sleen.” Beasts of Gor
-Black Sea Sleen: “Her cloak, of black fur, from the black sea sleen, glossy and deep, swirled to her ankles.” Marauders of Gor
-Rogue Sea Sleen: “That, I think, is a rogue sleen,” said Imnak. “It is a broad-head, and they are rare in these waters in the fall. Too, see the gray on the muzzle and the scarring on the right side of the head, where the fur is gone?” “Yes,” I said. “I think it is a rogue,” he said. “Also, see the way he is watching you.” Beasts of Gor
-White Spotted Sea Sleen: “And behind them, in a rich swirling cloak of the fur of the white, spotted sea sleen, sword in hand, looking wildly about, was another man, one I did not know.” Raiders of Gor
* Shark: “It might be gilled, like Gorean sharks, probably descendants of Earth sharks placed experimentally in Thassa millenia ago by Priest-Kings, or it might have the gurdo, the layered, ventral membrane, shielded by porous plating, of several of the marine predators perhaps native to Gor, perhaps brought to Gor by Priest-Kings from some other, more distant world than Earth.” Nomads of Gor
“Upon occasion, and it had happened early in Se’Kara this year, the arena is flooded and a sea fight is staged, the waters for the occasion being filled with a variety of unpleasant sea life, water tharlarion, Vosk turtles, and the nine gilled Gorean shark, the latter brought in tanks on river barges up the Vosk, to be then transported in tanks on wagons across the margin of desolation to Ar for the event.” Assassin of Gor
“Rising from under the grunt swiftly was a long-bodied shark, white, nine-gilled. It tore the grunt from the line and bore it away. Other dorsal fins, of smaller sharks, trailed it, waiting. Sharks, and sometimes marine saurians, sometimes trail the ships, to secure discarded garbage and rob the lines of the fishermen.” Slave Girl of Gor
-Marsh Shark: “My leg was out of the water, but now the water seemed yellow with the flashing bodies of tiny tharlarion, and beyond them, I heard the hoarse grunting of the great marsh tharlarion, some of which grow to be more than thirty feet in length, weighing more than half a hundred men. Beyond them would be the almost eel-like, long-bodied, nine-gilled Gorean marsh sharks.” Raiders of Gor
“Not only must they fear the marsh sharks and the carnivorous eels which frequent the lower delta, not to mention the various species of aggressive water tharlarion and the winged, monstrous, hissing, predatory UI, but they must fear, perhaps most of all, men, and of these, most of all, the men of Port Kar.” Raiders of Gor
“It is dangerous to enter the water to make a tether fast because of the predators that frequent the swamp, but several men do so at a time, once man making fast the tether and the others, with him beneath the surface, protecting him with marsh spears, or pounding on metal pieces or wooden rods to drive away, or at least to disconcert and confuse, too inquisitive, undesired visitors, such as the water tharlarion or the long-bodied, nine-gilled marsh shark.” Raiders of Gor
“He could not have been more enclosed had he found himself in the jaws of the long-bodied, nine-gilled marsh shark.” Raiders of Gor.
“Beyond them would be the almost eel-like, long-bodied, nine-gilled Gorean marsh sharks.” Raiders of Gor
-Northern Shark: “Sometimes they managed to secure the northern shark, sometimes even the toothed Hunjer whale or the less common Karl whale, which was a four-fluked, baleen whale. But their life, at best, was a precarious one.” Explorers of Gor
“The red hunters lived as nomads, dependent on the migrations of various types of animals, in particular the northern tabuk and four varieties of sea sleen. Their fishing and hunting were seasonal, and depended on the animals. Sometimes they managed to secure the northern shark…” Beasts of Gor
-River Shark: “Something, with a twist of its great spine, had suddenly darted from the waters under the pier and entered the current of the Laurius. I saw the flash of a triangular, black dorsal fin. I screamed. Lana looked out, pointing after it. “A river shark,” she cried, excitedly.” Captive of Gor
“Following in the wake of the Tesephone, to pick up litter or garbage thrown overboard, were long-bodied river sharks, their bodies sinuous in the half-clear water, about a foot below the surface.” Hunters of Gor
“He turned and fled to the water. I watched. Luck was not with him. I saw the distant churning in the water, and saw, far off, the narrow head of a river shark, lifting itself, water falling from it, and the dorsal fins, black and triangular, of four others.” Hunters of Gor
“I saw a fin turn in the water and move towards us. The river shark, commonly, does not like to come into water this shallow, but it had been feeding, and it was aroused. It began to circle us. I kept the girl between us.” Hunters of Gor
-Salt Shark: “We saw the broad, blunt head, eyeless, white. Then it submerged, with a twist of the long spine and tail. The waters were still. At the top of the food chain in the pits, a descendant, dark-adapted, of the terrors of the ancient seas, stood the long-bodied, nine-gilled salt shark. The head was more than a yard in width, white pits where there might have been eyes. The raft tipped, struck by its back, as it turned and, twisting, glided away into the darkness.” Tribesmen of Gor
“Because of the saline content of the water the salt shark, when not hunting, often swims half-emerged from the fluid. Its gills, like those of the lelt, are below and at the sides of his jaws. This is a salt adaptation which conserves energy, which, otherwise, might be constantly expended in maintaining an attitude in which oxygenation can occur.” Tribesmen of Gor
“The teeth of the Old One, like that of the long-bodied sharks of Gor, and related marine species, as well as similarly evolved forms of Earth, bend rearward; each bite anchors the bitten material, which can be dislodged conveniently only in the direction of the throat… I did not know the number of its hearts or their location. These vary in Gorean sharks. Too, the heart is deep within the body. I did not think I could reach it with the blade at my disposal. But the gill tissue is delicate, like layers of petals, essential for drawing oxygen from the environment.” Tribesmen of Gor
-White Shark: “There is also, however, some danger in this, for sea sleen and the white sharks of the north occasionally attempt to tear such a girl off the oar.” Marauders of Gor
“Once he thrust away one of the white sharks of the northern waters.” Marauders of Gor
* Sorp: “There were poorly webbed, small tapestries; amulets and talismans; knotted prayer strings; papers containing praises of Priest-Kings which might be carried on one’s person; numerous ornaments of glass and cheap metal; the strung pearls of the Vosk sorp…” Assassin of Gor
“He sat upon a giant shell of the Vosk sorp, as on a sort of throne,.. ” Raiders of Gor
“…headband formed of the pearls of the Vosk sorp…”Raiders of Gor
* Toos: “I swung the transportation disk in a graceful arc to one side of the tunnel to avoid running into a crablike organism covered with overlapping plating and then swung the disk back in another sweeping arc to avoid slicing into a stalking Priest-King who lifted his antennae quizzically as we shot past. “The one who was not a Priest-King,” quickly said Mul-Al-Ka, “was a Matok and is called a Toos and lives on discarded fungus spores.” Priest Kings of Gor
* Whale:
-Baleen Whale: “Sometimes they managed to secure the northern shark, sometimes even the toothed Hunjer whale or the less common Karl whale, which was a four-fluked, baleen whale.” Beasts of Gor
“Two weeks ago, some ten to fifteen sleeps ago, by rare fortune, we had managed to harpoon a baleen whale, a bluish, white-spotted blunt fin.” Beasts of Gor
-Hunjer Whale: “That scent, I knew, a distillation of a hundred flowers, nurtured like a priceless wine, was a secret guarded by the perfumers of Ar. It contained as well the separated oil of the Thentis needle tree; an extract from the glands of the Cartius river urt; and a preparation formed from a disease calculus scraped from the intestines of the rare Hunjer Long Whale” Marauders of Gor
“The red hunters lived as nomads, dependent on the migrations of various types of animals, in particular the northern tabuk and four varieties of sea sleen. Their fishing and hunting were seasonal, and depended on the animals. Sometimes they managed to secure the northern shark, sometimes even the toothed Hunjer whale or the less common Karl whale, which was a four-fluked, baleen whale.” Beasts of Gor
“Suddenly, not more than a dozen feet from the boat, driving upward, rearing vertically, surging, expelling air in a great burst of noise, shedding icy water, in a tangle of lines and blood, burst the towering, cylindrical tonnage of the black Hunjer whale… The monster, as though it stood on its flukes, towered forty feet above us, the line like a tiny thread, billowing, leading downward to the boat… The Hunjer whale is a toothed whale.” Beasts of Gor
-Karl Whale: “Sometimes they managed to secure the northern shark, sometimes even the toothed Hunjer whale or the less common Karl whale, which was a four-fluked, baleen whale.” Beasts of Gor
“Sometimes they managed to secure the northern shark, sometimes even the toothed Hunjer whale or the less common Karl whale, which was a four-fluked, baleen whale.” Beasts of Gor
* Gurdo: “… gurdo, the layered, ventral membrane, shielded by porous plating, of several of the marine predators” Nomads of Gor
Gorean Codex 