[imagesource: Wikimedia Commons]

Bloodsucking parasite pie, oil from waxy lumps found in whale intestines, an ermine fur cloak, and the stolen Koh-i-Noor diamond are some of the odd traditional bits included in a typical coronation ceremony.

The word has been thrown around willy-nilly, so in case you need a quick memory jog, a coronation is the act of placement or bestowal of a crown upon a monarch’s head.

When this happens for King Charles III in May, with or without his royal-adjacent son Prince Harry and his wife Meghan Markle, it seems he will be opting for more modern takes on these age-old traditions, except perhaps, for the bloodsucking parasite pie.

There’s some explaining to do, I know.

IFLScience notes that tradition dictates King Charles may need to be served a bloodsucking parasite pie that’s rumoured to have killed one of his predecessors:

The dish is made of lampreys, an ancient species of jawless fish that spend their days as a parasite, sucking on the blood and various other fluids of their host fish. The parasites have teeth lining the inside of their wide, circle-shaped mouth.

Yum:

Don’t mind the teeth, we’re just migrating.

Using its jawless mouth as a big suction cup, Pacific lamprey can migrate from oceans to freshwater breeding grounds, like this group seen at Bonneville Dam on the Columbia River earlier this summer. @USFWS video: Brent Lawrence pic.twitter.com/UwjX5WO9Tv

— USFWS Pacific (@USFWSPacific) September 19, 2022

For a long time, lampreys have been seen as a delicacy and were considered fit to serve a king – or Queen, although, Queen Elizabeth II didn’t eat hers at her coronation for security reasons.

A good thing considering how King Henry I apparently died from eating lampreys after being expressly told not to by his doctor because they kept making him ill.

It is up to King Charles to follow up on the tradition at his coronation, but whether he’ll actually eat it is the question.

Then, IFLScience also notes an animal-friendly break from tradition, which means King Charles won’t be smeared in the intestinal wax of sperm whales or civet secretions at his coronation, after all.

It is typical for the monarch to be anointed with holy oils during their coronation ceremony, and they are often made from a rather odd mix of ingredients:

Previous coronations have used oil secreted from the glands of civets and other small mammals, as well as oil from waxy lumps found in whale intestines known as ambergris, taken from a sperm whale.

However, this time round, the chrism oil, as it is known, will be made from olives harvested from the Mount of Olives at the Monastery of Mary Magdalene and the Monastery of the Ascension:

Presumably so that he isn’t just being drizzled in olive oil like a bruschetta, the oil is scented with rose, jasmine, cinnamon, neroli, orange blossom, and sesame.

Good to know.

To stick to the animal-friendly ethos and to “reflect the monarch’s role today and look towards the future, while being rooted in long-standing traditions and pageantry”, the King won’t be donning the traditional ermine fur cloak and will possibly wear a military uniform instead.

The royals have also decided not to include the Koh-i-Noor diamond in the ceremony, you know, since they stole the jewel from India in the mid-19th century and won’t give it back.

Some other odd traditions will be intact though, like how at the opening of Parliament, a hostage is taken by the monarchy until the ceremony is complete.

A search is then carried out for gunpowder under the Houses of Parliament, in case Guy Fawkes has pulled off some sort of comeback 400 years after his death.

King Charles and his wife, Queen Consort Camilla, will be crowned on May 6 at Westminster Abbey.

[source:iflscience&iflscience]