Background/Story
“Tobias Riding a Fish” is the title given by Elizabeth Hughes in her Big Book of Buttons, on plate 247, #23, page 778 of the two-volume set. Is he going anywhere, riding on that fish?
This is a biblical story from the Book of Tobit in the Old Testament.
A version is found on biblegateway.com, and it goes like this:
Tobias had gone down to wash his feet in the river, when suddenly a huge fish jumped up out of the water and tried to swallow one of his feet. Tobias let out a yell, 3 and the angel called to him,
Grab that fish! Don’t let it get away.
Then Tobias grabbed the fish and dragged it up on the bank.
The archangel Rafael said that the fish is medicinal, so the fish became food. Depicted on the button, Tobias is riding on it to subdue it. Does this button fits under the transportation class subtitled “improbable”? Probably not.
Back marked EINGETRAGEN.
