Tycho Brahe’s Drunken Pet Moose
Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe already wore a brass prosthetic nose and hosted alchemists on his island observatory, but his strangest companion was a tame, beer-loving moose. The towering ungulate roamed Brahe’s mansion like an overgrown hound, delighting dinner guests by draining flagons of ale. At one banquet, Brahe loaned the moose to a noble friend; the animal promptly staggered down a staircase, broke its legs, and died—apparently of intoxication.
Rather than grief, Brahe’s letters express scientific curiosity: he logged the moose’s “appetite for malted spirits” as if cataloging star magnitudes. Some historians think the domesticated deer was actually an elk, but the tale’s lesson is clear—mix seventeenth-century aristocrats, cutting-edge astronomy, and unlimited booze, and you’ll get headlines worthy of TMZ. Forget “party like a rock star.” Brahe literally partied like a drunk moose.
