It's reasonable, I think, to infer from this that Henry III did in fact have a white or pale bear (depending on your choice of translation) at this time, given him by H�kon IV of Norway; reasonable, too, to assume the king meant it to catch its own food in the Thames (to the likely alarm and distress of local traders and ferrymen). But do we assume this "white bear" was a polar bear? There are, after all, such things as "white bears". There's no evidence either way, though it does somehow seem