Ok, wow… “The fishermen who first discovered the poor stranded whale started the procedure by poking its eyes out, so that it would "not be able to see us." Over the next two days, the creature was methodically axed, speared and shot until it finally died in a sea of its own blood.”
It surely is; 'fest' is the Swedish word for 'party'. I actually think Swedish or Norwegian (which are practically the same language) are closer to English than even Dutch. Many of the most common, short English words are the same.
I guess it was 1865.
The word can be deconstructed in Swedish as fest i val which translates to "party in whale"