Finding the perfect gift is a labor of love. In these stories, gift givers go above and beyond. From Asian elephants probably better left at home, to a pygmy hippopotamus whose relatives live on today around the United States. We’ve got long-forgotten sheep shearing cakes, oddly specific fanfiction, and the earliest known board game printed in the United States.

Not sure what to get a loved one this year? Find inspiration in these five stories of bizarre gift giving.

That Time Portugal’s King Gifted an Elephant to the Pope

by Devon Field

On an not-so-average day in 1514, people clambered onto rooftops and filled the streets of the small central Italian town of Tarquinia, once a powerful Etruscan city. They all hoped to get a view of “something special” headed into the town square. That something was hard to miss. Hanno, a captive Asian elephant, was being paraded toward Rome to serve as a gift for Pope Leo X.

Hanno’s arrival was met with massive crowds and a frenzy of attention. Fueled by human greed for prestige and entertainment, the journey came at the expense of Hanno’s well-being—a tale still too often the case with elephants today, Devon Field writes. At least 13 Asian elephants were brought to Portugal in the 16th century. While they were prized and paraded as symbols of the power of rulers, Europeans didn’t know how to care for the foreign animals, leading Hanno to survive just two years in Rome.

Hanno was born around 1510, likely in captivity, somewhere in southwestern India.
Hanno was born around 1510, likely in captivity, somewhere in southwestern India. Public Domain

The Yuletide Fanfiction Exchange Is a Holiday Marvel

by Elizabeth Minkel

While gift giving is customary around the winter holidays, certain fanfiction subcultures are known to take things to another level. Sometimes run like Secret Santas, other times as free-for-alls where anyone can fulfill anyone else’s request, they might be hyper-specific or genre-wide, but often they involve things that are already popular in the fandom world—think pop-culture juggernauts like the Marvel Cinematic Universe, or the manga My Hero Academia, or CW’s Supernatural. At the very least, they’re often hosted within established groups of fans: people who have already come together around something that fascinates (and/or frustrates!) them, Elizabeth Minkel writes.

America’s First Board Game Was an Idealized ‘Travellers’ Tour’ Through a Young Nation

by Matthew Wynn Sivils

Games have always been a popular present. One, called “The Travellers’ Tour Through the United States,” was created in 1822, making it the earliest known board game printed in the U.S. Since “The Travellers’ Tour” was the first board game to employ a map of the U.S., it might have been an especially interesting gift to American consumers, writes Matthew Wynn Sivils, but there are no records of sales, leaving its true popularity a mystery.

"The Travellers’ Tour Through the United States" is the earliest known board game to depict a map of the U.S.
“The Travellers’ Tour Through the United States” is the earliest known board game to depict a map of the U.S. Library of Congress/Public Domain

Before Moo Deng, There Was ‘William Johnson Hippopotamus’

by Andrew Coletti

If you’re waiting for a hippopotamus for Christmas, this story is your dream come true. In May of 1927, U.S. President Calvin Coolidge and his wife received a 300-pound mini hippo. The two were no strangers to pets, from cats to raccoons. Harvey S. Firestone, founder of the Firestone Tire and Rubber Company, sent “Billy,” a live pygmy hippopotamus captured in West Africa, to his friends at the White House. Billy was one of many of his kind displaced after his rainforest home was destroyed by the encroachment of Firestone’s rubber plantations. Along with many of the Coolidge’s other exotic gifts, Billy found a home at the National Zoo in Washington, D.C. His legacy certainly lives on. Most captive pygmy hippos in the U.S. today are descended from Billy.

Welsh Sheep-Shearing Cake Is a Forgotten Pastoral Pleasure

by Jamie Ellis

Shearing Day, as it’s known, happens once or twice a year for Welsh sheep farmers. Throughout the day, shearers and farmhands are treated to tea, food, and, at one point in time, cake! Cacen gneifo is a buttery sponge cake studded with heady caraway seed, lemon rind, and candied citrus peel, and was a traditional gift for farmhands during wool-gathering season. While this was once a customary gift, many struggle to remember a time when these special cakes were exchanged. A select few are keeping the tradition, and recipe, alive today.