Part 31

Of the sea-serpent GESNER tells us:

“In the Baltic or Swedish Ocean are found certain yellow sea-serpents of thirty or forty feet in length, which, when not provoked, do not harm any one. Of these sea-serpents OLAUS MAGNUS gives the following figure in his Map of Scandinavia”.--(See our fig. 15).

“On the same Map there is another sea-serpent, a hundred or two hundred feet long (as says the text, or three hundred, as states the number added to the figure), which sometimes appears near Norway in fine weather, and is dangerous to Sea-men, as it snatches away men from the ships. Mariners tell that it incloses ships, as large as our trading vessels, made on our rivers and lakes, by laying itself round them in a circle, and that the ship then is turned upside down. It sometimes makes such large coils above the water, that a ship can go through one of them. I give the figure as it is on the Map.”--(See our fig. 16.)

Here we meet with three other characteristics of the sea-serpent: it is harmless when not provoked, it encircles ships and turns them upside down, and its coils are so gigantic that a ship can go through one of them. The first characteristic is a real one: the sea-serpent is perfectly harmless, if not provoked. We observe this in almost every account. The other two are of course extraordinary exaggerations of its dimensions.

The two figures of GESNER copied on a reduced scale, with an extract of his text, appeared in the Graphic of January 29, 1876.

* * * * *

The text in the edition of OLAUS MAGNUS’ work printed at Basle in 1567 is the same as that of the first edition printed in 1555 at Rome, but the figure between the text differs, and is doubtless a combination of our figg. 14 and 16, in miniature; see our fig. 17.

On the map of Scandinavia subjoined to the work also occurs a figure of the sea-serpent, which we have copied in our fig. 18.--This figure does not claim our attention; it represents an eel or a snake, it has no scales.--Not so fig. 17: it distinctly shows dorsal scales and ventral plates, just as snakes have. This seems to me a confirmation of my opinion that in all these figures the drawers had no other intention than to delineate a large snake, without any notion of the arms of a calamary. As to the seizing of a man, we believe that a large calamary was the robber, whose deed is wrongly attributed to the sea-serpent. Last not least, it distinctly shows the long hairs, hanging down from its neck, a true mane, and several credible persons declare to have seen them.

* * * * *

ALDROVANDUS, 1640, believes that the sea-serpent of the Baltic or Swedish Ocean is the same as that of the Norwegian Ocean. I believe he is right. Moreover he repeats the texts of OLAUS MAGNUS and GESNER. His figures are enlargements of the figures on the Map of Scandinavia, which accompanies the edition of OLAUS MAGNUS’ work, unknown to me, and mentioned above. He only omits the water, the ship and the man in its mouth. Of his figures I don’t give copies, because they are exact enlargements of our fig. 15 and 16.--

* * * * *

=2=.--1640?--(See ADAM OLEARIUS, Gottorfische Kunstkammer, Ed. I, 1650, Ed. II, 1674) “and that this is true has not long ago been confirmed by a Swedish nobleman at Gottorf, who declared to have heard from the Burgomaster of Malmoi, a trustworthy man, that, whilst standing on a hill on the Norwegian coast, he saw in the calm water a large serpent, which seen from afar, had the thickness of a wine barrel, and 25 windings. These serpents are said to appear on the surface of the water only in calm weather and at certain times.”

Here again we have the statement, that in the Norwegian sea, and most probably in the Sound between Sweden and Danmark, a large animal was seen, looking like a huge serpent, and the confirmation that it comes to the surface of the water only in calm weather and at certain times. I beg the reader to fix his attention on those apparently insignificant statements, as it will be seen that they are given several times independant of one another.

* * * * *

JONSTON in his Historia naturalis, and his Theatrum universale omnium animalium of which several editions appeared in 1653, 1657, 1660, 1665, 1718 (edited by RUYSCH, quoted by Prof. W. D. PECK in Mem. Amer. Acad. 1818, Vol. IV), 1764 and 1768, repeats the tales of OLAUS MAGNUS, and the figures of GESNER and ALDROVANDUS.--

* * * * *

MILTON in his Paradise Lost, printed in 1667, comparing Satan with huge monsters, also mentions the sea-serpent of the Norwegians, calling it Leviathan (Book I, verse 192-208):

“Thus Satan, talking to his nearest mate, With head up-lift above the wave, and eyes That sparkling blaz’d; his other parts besides Prone on the flood, extended long and large, Lay floating many a rood, in bulk as huge As whom the fables name of monstrous size Titanian, or Earth-born, that war’d on Jove, Briareus, or Typhon, whom the den By ancient Tarsus held; or that sea-beast Leviathan, which God of all his works Created hugest that swim th’ ocean stream: Him, haply slumb’ring on the Norway foam, The pilot of some small night founder’d skiff Deeming some island, off, as seamen tell, With fixed anchor in his scaly rind, Moors by his side under the lee, while night Invests the sea, and wished morn delays.”

We observe that he mixes here also another story of a large sea-monster on which sea-men, believing it some island, will anchor, a story told about the Kraken and about the sperm-whales.

* * * * *

CHARLETON in 1668 quotes only ALDROVANDUS and OLAUS MAGNUS, giving neither description nor figures.

* * * * *

=3=.--1687.--(RAMUS, Norges Beskrivelse, quoted by PONTOPPIDAN).

“In the year 1687 a Great Sea-Serpent was seen several times by several persons in the Damsfjord, and once by eleven persons together. The weather was calm, but as soon as the sun set and the wind began to blow, it left the fjord, and like one who runs out a coil of rope can know the length thereof, so one could see how long it was, before it had wound off all its coils, and stretched itself at full length.”

In this account we read again that the animal is seen in calm weather and that it shows coils or windings. For the first time the fact is mentioned that it can stretch itself, evidently in a straight line. Further on we shall read this several times.

* * * * *

=4=.--1720.--(PONTOPPIDAN, Det förste Forsög paa Norges naturlige Historie).

“THORLACK THORLACKSEN has told me that in 1720 a sea-serpent had been shut up a whole week in a little inlet, into which it came by high tide through a narrow entrance of seven or eight fathoms deep, and that eight days afterwards, when it had left the inlet, a skin of a snake or serpent was found. One end of the skin had entirely sunk into the water of the inlet, and no one could guess how long it was, the inlet in which the skin partly lay, being several fathoms deep. The other end of this skin was washed ashore by the current, where everybody could see it; apparently it could not be used, for it consisted of a soft, slimy mass. THORLACKSEN was a native of the harbour of Kobbervueg”.