Part 34

The figure shows a head with a mane, and six coils of the body. The nostril is indicated, the mouth has no teeth, the eye is large.

It is remarkable that Mr. LEE tells us: “The figure of the sea-serpent 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 TUCHSEN, of Herroe; and was declared to agree in every particular with that seen by Captain DE FERRY, and another subsequent observed by Governor BENSTRUP.”

Not only does not the first part of this statement tally with the words of PONTOPPIDAN, but also the second part is discrepant, for the learned Bishop goes on saying: “This figure agrees with the descriptions given by two of his neighbours Messrs. REUTZ and TUCHSEN.”

Mr. VON FERRY is not mentioned at all on this occasion by PONTOPPIDAN!

Mr. BENSTRUP’S figure has also been copied by Dr. R. HAMILTON in the volume of Phocidae (seals) of JARDINE’S Naturalist’s Library, but it has been greatly exaggerated. It seems that Dr. R. HAMILTON thought it to be the same animal as that seen by EGEDE, for he figures both animals with the same head and features. Of the figure of BENSTRUP too he makes a serpentine dragon, swimming with corkscrew motions! O horror!

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=11=.--1748?--Mr. REUTZ of Herröe declared to PONTOPPIDAN that the drawing of Parson HANS STROEM agreed even in particulars with what he saw of the serpent several times when he went in his boat to church.

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=12=.--1749?--Also Mr. TUCHSEN of Herröe made the same declaration. He too saw the animal several times when he went to church in his boat. PONTOPPIDAN adds: “and then I do not even mention many other persons of the same high rank and trustworthiness. The same Mr. TUCHSEN is the only one who told me that he distinctly saw the difference in thickness between the trunk and the tail of the animal, viz., the trunk is not gradually growing smaller where the tail begins, but becomes smaller at once and very distinctly. The body is as thick as a barrel of two hogsheads. The tail is tapering towards its end, which is very pointed.”

This account is remarkable for the reason that it mentions the fact that the beginning of the tail is distinctly visible. So we must infer from it that the animal had thighs, and consequently had also hind-limbs. And knowing that the fore-limbs which Egede saw, are flappers, the hind-limbs too must be flappers; consequently the animal has four flappers.

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=13=.--1750?--PONTOPPIDAN, telling what he has learned from the north-sailors says:

“One of these north-sailors tells that he was once so close to the serpent, that he might have touched its smooth skin.”

Here is stated by a person who saw the sea-serpent close to his boat, that the skin is smooth, a statement apparently contradictory to that of the fisherman (n^o. 8), who declared it as woolly as a seal-skin. The fact is that the one has distinctly recognized the hairy nature of the skin, whilst the other did not discern it.

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=14=.--1751?--(PONTOPPIDAN, Chapt. VIII, § 1, note). “An incertain rumour tells me, that some peasants of Sundmöer have lately captured in their nets a serpent of eighteen feet with four paws under its belly; which they brought ashore. Thus it resembled a crocodile. The peasants in their terror fled from their nets, and by doing so they gave an opportunity to the serpent to do the same.”

Though the Bishop does not call this animal a sea-serpent, I am sure it was one. In the Norwegian and Danish languages an Orm is a serpent, viz., a long slender animal with a rather small head and a pointed tail; and as it was captured in nets in the sea, it is certain, that this animal, which PONTOPPIDAN compares with a crocodile, having a slender and round body like a snake and four paws (or flappers) is the same as the animal afterwards seen by Captain HOPE (n^o 119) and compared by him with an alligator. The dimensions not surpassing twenty feet, the animal must have been very young.

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Now let us see what PONTOPPIDAN himself says of the sea-serpent, after having heard hundreds of eye-witnesses:

“The sea-serpent, serpens marinus, by some people also called Aale Tust, is the second wonderful and frightful sea-monster which ought to be studied by him who looks with delight on the great deeds of the Lord, and which is considered as the greatest wonder next to the Kraken, which will be described hereafter. Before describing its habit and shape, I feel again obliged to prove the real existence of the serpent, as I did before with the mermen.”

The first kind of wonderful and frightful sea-monsters were the mermen and mermaids. At present, we know with certainty what were and are the mermen and mermaids of ancient days and our own time. All zoologists are convinced they were nothing else but sea-cows or manatees (Thrichechus manatus L. and Thrichechus senegalensis DESM.) or dugongs (Dagungus dugung GMEL.). Mr. LEE believes that the occurrences of mermen and mermaids in the northern seas and even in the waters round Great-Britain and Ireland “afford some slight hope that the remarkable rytina (Rytina borealis GMEL.) may not have become extinct in 1768, as has been supposed, but that it may still exist somewhat further south than it was met with by its original describer, STELLER.” Some of the mermen of PONTOPPIDAN were nothing else but Bladdernosed seals (Cystophora cristata (ERXL) NILSS) as I already proved in my little paper in the Album der Natuur of 1882, and I see that Mr. LEE comes to the same conclusion (Sea Fables Explained, London, 1883).

We also know with certainty that the Kraken of the Norwegian tales and the gigantic Octopus of DENYS DE MONTFORT really exist, and that they are nothing else but gigantic calamaries and cuttles (Cephalopoda).

But we don’t know with certainty what the Great-Sea-Serpent really is. That it exists, has already been stated by the highest scientific persons, so no doubt need any longer be felt as to that fact.

“If it were not the wise and careful arrangement of the Creator, that this sea-animal perpetually lives in the depths of the sea, except in July and August, its pairing-time, during which it appears, when the sea is quite calm, but dives as soon as the wind ruffles the surface of the water; if this arrangement, I say, were not thus made for man’s safety, the existence of the sea-serpent would want fewer proofs, than even in Norway, thanks to God! is the case, the shores of which are the only ones of Europe, frequented by this monster.”

Here again it is stated that the sea-serpent is only seen in July and August (and PONTOPPIDAN believes that these two months are the pairing-time of the animal), that it only appears in calm weather, and dives under water as soon as the wind rises. The writer believes that the animal frequents only the shores of Norway. According to an account of OLAUS MAGNUS, it seems, however, that the sea-serpent was also seen in the Baltic Ocean, and we know now for certain that the animal which EGEDE saw in Davis’ Straits at 64° N. lat., was also our Sea-Serpent. Evidently our Bishop did not hit on the idea that the Sea-Serpent could be a migratory animal.

“Like all who are enemies to credulousness I too doubted of the existence of the sea-serpent, when at last my doubt was dispelled by incontestable proofs. Amongst our ablest navigators and fishermen of this country there are many hundreds who prove the existence of the sea-serpent as eye-witnesses, and they agree pretty well in their descriptions, though there are many others who declare that they know the sea-serpent only from the tales of their neighbours. I, however, in my inquiry hardly met with a person who, when born in the Northern provinces, did not answer immediately with the greatest certainty and assurance. Nay, some so-called north-sailors, who are here (in Bergen) every year for commercial interests, even consider it as a shame to be earnestly questioned on that subject. They consider this question as superfluous as that one, whether there exists a cod-fish or an eel.”

We see hereby that in Norway the belief in the existence of the sea-serpent was as firm as possible amongst the sea-faring people.

“Though no one has ever been able to measure this animal, many witnesses agree in telling that the serpent must be as long as a cable, viz., 100 fathoms or 300 ells, whilst it lay on the surface of the water, so that only here and there behind the head, which is held upwards, some parts of the back were visible, which were also held upwards, whilst the serpent bent; and from afar one would have believed that he saw some tuns or hogsheads, which floated in a line, so that there was a space between each of them.”