Bottle-brush tail
I have always been irritated by the ridiculous sketch of Gef [FT391:46], produced by Voirrey Irving in 1931;
I mean, how could such a ridiculous creature be a mongoose? However, in search of something to read in the lockdown, I opened The Jungle Book (1894) by Rudyard Kipling and read for the first time in 60 years about Rikki-Tikki-Tavi, who is of course a talking (to other animals) mongoose [see FT353:34-39].
To my immense surprise I came across the following: “He was rather like a little cat in his fur and his tail, but quite like a weasel in his head and his habits... He could fluff up his tail till it looked like a bottle-brush” [my emphasis]. And we see the cat’s whiskers and long eyelashes, and the bottle-brush tail! Where else is a 13-year-old girl in a remote part of the Isle of Man in 1931 going to hear about a mongoose and get an idea of what it looks like but the immensely popular children’s book, Kipling’s The Jungle Book? Though I am not sure she had ever seen a bottle-brush, which nowadays at least are cylindrical.
Roger J Morgan
By email
Christopher Josiffe responds: The artist’s impression of Gef wasn’t drawn by Voirrey Irving; Harry Price commissioned artist George Scott to produce the sketch based on descriptions supplied by the Irving family. Gef was reportedly unhappy with the finished result, declaring: “That ain’t me! Looks more like a llama!” (or, perhaps, a lama).
But Mr Morgan makes significant points regarding the Kipling quotation. “He was rather like a cat...” – some of the alleged photos of Gef from the SPR archive do resemble a small cat, and Gef was supposed to have shape-shifted into a cat on two occasions. Likewise, the Scott sketch with its bushy, squirrel-like tail does tally with Kipling’s description of Rikki-Tikk-Tavi’s ability to “fluff up his tail like a bottle-brush”. Such a tail is an unusual feature for a mongoose, but bear in mind Gef had initially described himself as a weasel, or “a ghost in the form of a weasel”. His selfidentification as a mongoose appears to have been prompted by a February 1932 letter to the Isle of Man Weekly Times, in which it was suggested that the Irvings’ mystery guest might be a mongoose, on the basis that several of these fierce, rabbit-hunting creatures had been acquired by a nearby farm, Eary Cushlin, some 20 years earlier.
Journalists and investigators visiting the Irvings’ farmhouse didn’t see a copy of
The Jungle Book on their bookshelf. Their poverty meant they owned very few books. However, while I was unable to prove that Voirrey’s school library held a copy or copies of The Jungle Book, it does seem likely that she would have come across this popular and bestselling work during her childhood. Indeed, its theme of fostered or abandoned children detected by some critics (recalling Kipling’s own childhood feelings of abandonment) may well have held some appeal for the lonely Voirrey Irving.