Part 7

We will now consider the accounts given by Scandinavian historians, of the sea-serpent having been seen in northern waters. Here, I suppose, I ought to indulge in the usual flippant sneer at Bishop Pontoppidan. I know that in abstaining from doing so I am sadly out of the fashion; but I venture to think that the dead lion has been kicked at too often already, and undeservedly. Whether there be, or be not, a huge marine animal, not necessarily an ophidian, answering to some of the descriptions of the sea-serpent--so called--Pontoppidan did not invent the stories told of its appearance. Long before he was born the monster had been described and figured; and for centuries previously the Norwegians, Swedes, Danes, and Fins had believed in its existence as implicitly as in the tenets of their religious creed. Olaus Magnus, Archbishop of Upsala, in Sweden, wrote of it in A.D. 1555 as follows:--

"They who in works of navigation on the coasts of Norway employ themselves in fishing or merchandize do all agree in this strange story, that there is a serpent there which is of a vast magnitude, namely 200 foot long, and moreover, 20 foot thick; and is wont to live in rocks and caves toward the sea-coast about Berge: which will go alone from his holes on a clear night in summer, and devour calves, lambs, and hogs, or else he goes into the sea to feed on polypus (octopus), locusts (lobsters), and all sorts of sea-crabs. He hath commonly hair hanging from his neck a cubit long, and sharp scales, and is black, and he hath flaming, shining eyes. This snake disquiets the shippers; and he puts up his head on high like a pillar, and catcheth away men, and he devours them; and this happeneth not but it signifies some wonderful change of the kingdom near at hand; namely, that the princes shall die, or be banished; or some tumultuous wars shall presently follow. There is also another serpent of an incredible magnitude in an island called Moos in the diocess of Hammer; which, as a comet portends a change in all the world, so that portends a change in the kingdom of Norway, as it was seen anno 1522; that lifts himself high above the waters, and rolls himself round like a sphere. This serpent was thought to be fifty cubits long by conjecture, by sight afar off: there followed this the banishment of King Christiernus, and a great persecution of the Bishops; and it shewed also the destruction of the country."

'Historia de Gentibus Septentrionalibus,' Lib. xxi. cap. 43.

"Coils itself in spherical convolutions" is a better translation of the original Latin.

The Gothic Archbishop, amongst other signs and omens, also attributes this power of divination to the small red ants which are sometimes so troublesome in houses, and declares that they also portended the downfall, A.D. 1523, of the abominably cruel Danish king, Christian II., above mentioned. His curious work is full of wild improbabilities and odd superstitions, most of which he states with a calm air of unquestioning assent; but as he wrote in the time of our Henry VIII., long before the belief in witches and warlocks, fairies and banshees, had died out in our own country, we can hardly throw stones at him on that score. It is a most amusing and interesting history, and gives a wonderful insight of the habits and customs of the northern nations in his day.

Amongst his illustrations of the sea monsters he describes are the two of which I give facsimiles on the next page. In Fig. 12 a sea-serpent is seen writhing in many coils upon the surface of the water, and having in its mouth a sailor, whom it has seized from the deck of a ship. The poor fellow is trying to grasp the ratlins of the shrouds, but is being dragged from his hold and lifted over the bulwarks by the monster. His companions, in terror, are endeavouring to escape in various directions. One is climbing aloft by the stay, in the hope of getting out of reach in that way, whilst two others are hurrying aft to obtain the shelter of a little castle or cabin projecting over the stern. I am strongly of the opinion that this is but the fallacious representation of an actual occurrence. Read by the light of recent knowledge, these old pictures convey to a practised eye a meaning as clear as that of hieroglyphics to an Egyptologist, and my translation of this is the following: The crew of a ship have witnessed the dreadful sight of a serpent-like form issuing from the sea, rising over the bulwarks of their vessel, seizing one of their messmates from amongst them, and dragging him overboard and under water. Awe-stricken by the mysterious disappearance of their comrade, and too frightened and anxious for their own safety to be able, during the short space of time occupied by an affair, which all happened in a few seconds, to observe accurately their terrible assailant, they naturally conjecture that it must have been a snake. It was probably a gigantic calamary, such as we now know exist, and the dead carcases of which have been found in the locality where the event depicted is supposed to have taken place. The presumed body of the serpent was one of the arms of the squid, and the two rows of suckers thereto belonging are indicated in the illustration by the medial line traversing its whole length (intended to represent a dorsal fin) and the double row of transverse septa, one on each side of it.

After OLAUS MAGNUS.]

After OLAUS MAGNUS.]

In Fig. 13 an enormous lobster is in the act of similarly dragging overboard from a vessel a man whom it has seized by the arm with one of its great claws. From the crude image of a lobster having eight minor claws and two larger ones, to that of a cuttle having eight minor arms and two longer ones, the transition is not great; and I believe that this also is a pictorial misrepresentation of a casualty by the attack of a calamary similar to that above described, possibly another view of the same incident. The idea is that of a sea animal capable of suddenly seizing and grasping a man, and we must remember that we have evidence, in the writings of Pontoppidan and others, that, even two centuries later than Olaus Magnus, the Norsemen's knowledge of the cuttles was exceedingly vague and indistinct. Any one who has seen, as I frequently have at the Brighton Aquarium, and as they doubtless had whilst lobster-catching, the threatening and ferocious manner in which a lobster will brandish, and, if I may use the term, "gnash" its claws at an intruding hand, even if held above the surface of the water, can well imagine a party of fishermen discussing such a tragic occurrence as the foregoing, and differing in opinion as to the identity of the creature which had caused the catastrophe, some maintaining that it must have been a sea-serpent, and others shaking their heads and asserting that nothing but a colossal lobster could have done it.

Pontoppidan, in writing his history of Norway, of course had before him the statements of Olaus Magnus; but, though their author was an archbishop, he did not accept them with the childlike simplicity generally ascribed to him. Quoting, and, singularly enough, misquoting, the Swedish prelate as referring to a sea-serpent, when he is describing, incorrectly, one of the Acalephae, or sea-nettles, Pontoppidan says:--

"I have never heard of this sort, and should hardly believe the good Olaus if he did not say that he affirmed this from his own experience. The disproportion makes me think there must be some error of the press.... He mixes truth and fable together according to the relations of others; but this was excusable in that dark age when that author wrote. Notwithstanding all this, we, in the present more enlightened age, are much obliged to him for his industry and judicious observations."

Of the sea-serpent Pontoppidan writes:--

"I have questioned its existence myself, till that suspicion was removed by full and sufficient evidence from creditable and experienced fishermen and sailors in Norway, of which there are hundreds who can testify that they have annually seen them. All these persons agree very well in the general description; and others who acknowledge that they only know it by report or by what their neighbours have told them, still relate the same particulars. In all my inquiry about these affairs I have hardly spoke with any intelligent person born in the manor of Nordland who was not able to give a pertinent answer, and strong assurances of the existence of this fish; and some of our north traders that come here every year with their merchandize think it a very strange question when they are seriously asked whether there be any such creature: they think it as ridiculous as if the question was put to them whether there be such fish as eel or cod."

The worthy Bishop of Bergen did his best to sift truth from fable, but he could not always succeed in separating them. Many stupendous falsehoods were brought to him, and some of them passed through his sieve in spite of his care. Of these are the accounts of the "spawning times" of the sea-serpent, its dislike of certain scents, &c. We must pass over all this, and confine ourselves to the evidence offered by him of its having been seen.

The first witness he adduces is Captain Lawrence de Ferry, of the Norwegian navy, and first pilot in Bergen, who, premising that he had doubted a great while whether there were any such creature till he had ocular demonstration of it, made the following statement, addressed formally and officially to the procurator of Bergen:--

"Mr. JOHN REUTZ--

"The latter end of August, in the year 1746, as I was on a voyage, on my return from Trundhiem, on a very calm and hot day, having a mind to put in at Molde, it happened that when we were arrived with my vessel within six English miles of the aforesaid Molde, being at a place called Jule-Naess, as I was reading in a book, I heard a kind of a murmuring voice from amongst the men at the oars, who were eight in number, and observed that the man at the helm kept off from the land. Upon this I inquired what was the matter, and was informed that there was a sea-snake before us. I then ordered the man at the helm to keep to the land again, and to come up with this creature of which I had heard so many stories. Though the fellows were under some apprehension, they were obliged to obey my orders. In the meantime the sea-snake passed by us, and we were obliged to tack the vessel about in order to get nearer to it. As the snake swam faster than we could row, I took my gun, that was ready charged, and fired at it; on this he immediately plunged under the water. We rowed to the place where it sunk down (which in the calm might be easily observed) and lay upon our oars, thinking it would come up again to the surface; however it did not. Where the snake plunged down, the water appeared thick and red; perhaps some of the shot might wound it, the distance being very little. The head of this snake, which it held more than two feet above the surface of the water, resembled that of a horse. It was of a greyish colour, and the mouth was quite black, and very large. It had black eyes, and a long white mane, that hung down from the neck to the surface of the water. Besides the head and neck, we saw seven or eight folds, or coils, of this snake, which were very thick, and as far as we could guess there was about a fathom distance between each fold. I related this affair in a certain company, where there was a person of distinction present who desired that I would communicate to him an authentic detail of all that happened; and for this reason two of my sailors, who were present at the same time and place where I saw this monster, namely, Nicholas Pedersen Kopper, and Nicholas Nicholsen Anglewigen, shall appear in court, to declare on oath the truth of every particular herein set forth; and I desire the favour of an attested copy of the said descriptions.

"I remain, Sir, your obliged servant,

"L. DE FERRY.

"Bergen, 21st February, 1751.

"After this the before-named witnesses gave their corporal oaths, and, with their finger held up according to law, witnessed and confirmed the aforesaid letter or declaration, and every particular set forth therein to be strictly true. A copy of the said attestation was made out for the said Procurator Reutz, and granted by the Recorder. That this was transacted in our court of justice we confirm with our hand and seals. Actum Bergis die et loco, ut supra.

"A. C. DASS (Chief Advocate).

"H. C. GARTNER (Recorder)."

The figure of the sea-serpent (Fig. 14) given by Pontoppidan was drawn, he tells us, under the inspection of a clergyman, Mr. Hans Strom, from descriptions given of it by two of his neighbours, Messrs. Reutz and Teuchsen, of Herroe; and was declared to agree in every particular with that seen by Captain de Ferry, and another subsequently observed by Governor Benstrup. The supposed coils of the serpent's body present exactly the appearance of eight porpoises following each other in line. This is a well-known habit of some of the smaller cetacea. They are often met with at sea thus proceeding in close single file, part only of their rotund forms being visible as they raise their backs above the surface of the water to inhale air through their "blow-holes." Under these circumstances they have been described by naturalists and seamen as resembling a long string of casks or buoys, often extending for sixty, eighty, or a hundred yards. This is just such a spectacle as that described by Olaus Magnus--his "long line of spherical convolutions," and also as one reported to Pontoppidan as being descriptive of the sea-serpent:--

"'I have been informed,' he says, 'by some of our sea-faring men that a cable would not be long enough to measure the length of some of them when they are observed on the surface of the water in an even line. They say those round lumps or folds sometimes lie one after another as far as a man can see. I confess, if this be true, that we must suppose most probably that it is not one snake, but two or more of these creatures lying in a line that exhibit this phenomenon.' In a foot-note he adds: 'If any one enquires how many folds may be counted on a sea-snake, the answer is that the number is not always the same, but depends upon the various sizes of them: five and twenty is the greatest number that I find well attested.' Adam Olearius, in his Gottorf Museum, writes of it thus: 'A person of distinction from Sweden related here at Gottorf that he had heard the burgomaster of Malmoe, a very worthy man, say that as he was once standing on the top of a very high hill, towards the North Sea, he saw in the water, which was very calm, a snake, which appeared at that distance to be as thick as a pipe of wine, and had twenty-five folds. Those kind of snakes only appear at certain times, and in calm weather.'"

Six hundred feet.

I believe that in every case so far cited from Pontoppidan, as well as that given by Olaus Magnus, the supposed coils or protuberances of the serpent's body, were only so many porpoises swimming in line in accordance with their habit before mentioned. If an upraised head, like that of a horse, was seen preceding them, it was either unconnected with them, or it certainly was not that of a snake; for no serpent could throw its body into those vertical undulations. The form of the vertebrae in the ophidians renders such a movement impossible. All their flexions are horizontal; the curving of their body is from side to side, not up and down.

The sea-monster seen by Egede was of an entirely different kind; and his account of it--let sceptics deride it as they may--is worthy of attention and careful consideration. The Rev. Hans Egede, known as "The Apostle of Greenland," was superintendent of the Christian missions to that country. He was a truthful, pious, and single-minded man, possessing considerable powers of observation, and a genuine love of natural history. He wrote two books on the products, people, and natural history of Greenland, and his statements therein are modest, accurate, and free from exaggeration. His illustrations are little, if at all, superior in style of art to the two Japanese wood-cuts shown on page 29, but they bear the same unmistakable signs of fidelity which characterise those of the Japanese.