Pristers
Pristers appear three separate times in the Carta Marina, and in each place they’re causing trouble for sailors by either firing ship-sinking torrents of water out of their dual blowholes or just going ahead and making themselves comfortable on the deck. They’re whales. Very angry whales. (Baleen whales do in fact have two blowholes, though they don’t exactly look like straws.)
If you think you’re going to get away with firing a cannon at a prister, Olaus warns that its “Rampart of mighty fat” is virtually impenetrable, though the creature would startle a bit at the sound. More effective would be to pour lye in the water, in the chance you have a bunch of that just taking up space. Better yet, fire off some trumpets, apparently in case pristers hate jazz, and drop empty barrels in the water. According to another 16th century text, pristers “may play and sporte theym, because they are delited in playing with such thinges.” This is where we get the somewhat obscure proverb “like a tub thrown out to a whale,” meaning something that distracts from the issue at hand.
Whale attacks on ships have been well documented in modern times. In 1820, the vessel Essex was deliberately rammed twice and sunk by a sperm whale, and 30 years later, the Ann Alexander suffered the same fate. The Essex was in fact the inspiration for Moby-Dick, which it turns out was a pretty realistic book, though probably a bit too long.
