What grows like a fungus on a piece of driftwood, gestates underwater inside a barnacle, drops off like a rotten apple, and flies away? What else, but a barnacle goose! Or so it was once thought.
In truth, these waterfowl, who were seen neither nesting nor laying eggs because they did so in the Arctic, come into the world the same way other geese do.
But because these birds of once questionable origin were thought to have spent their early lives underwater, some 13th century Irish bishops figured they could be classified as fish, and therefore fair game when it came to the Lenten menu.
However, during the Fourth Lateran Council, between condemning Joachim Fiore as a heretic and forbidding priests from engaging in duels, Pope Innocent III expressly stated that since it walked like a duck and talked like a duck, the same fast requirements applied to it as did to the duck. The clerics subsequently altered their behavior, and apologized for running afowl of the papacy.
So if you're looking to skirt ecclesial law by eating something other than fish that still counts as a fish, I'm afraid you'll just have to get the Dread Pirate Roberts to slaughter you a capybara.
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