Part 35

Though the length of a cable or six hundred feet given to the sea-serpent is exaggerated, it may be more than 100 feet, why not? For there are other sea-animals, such as the whale, which measures more than 88 feet, and the fin-fish (Balaenoptera loops) which sometimes attains a length of about 105 feet.

It has been stated to PONTOPPIDAN by most of the eye-witnesses that the animal shows by its vertical undulations several coils above the water, and that these coils resembled from afar tuns or hogsheads floating in a line. It is very remarkable that these facts are repeatedly stated by witnesses who are independent of one another, even by persons who never heard of a sea-serpent.

“The head of all these animals has rather a high and broad forehead; some, however, have a sharp snout, others a quadrangular beak as cows and horses have, with large nostrils, and on the sides there are a few stiff hairs, or bristles, as other animals have with a good nose. And that the sea-serpent has a good nose, is proved by its flying away at the smell of castoreum, which the people who go out in summer to fish on the great bank, will never forget to take with them.”

The various ways of describing the head may be owed to this that different persons saw the head in different positions, that some of them saw it for such a short moment that it was impossible to say with certainty what form it had. It is not always explicable why one describes the head of an animal in one way and another in quite another. As to me I see in the head of a seal that of an otter, others distinctly see a man’s or a cat’s head in it, and the people in the service of the Zoological Gardens in the Hague exclaim “why, I can very well understand why that animal is called a sea-dog; it has a dog’s head, to be sure!” The fact is that we don’t know with any certainty the form of the sea-serpent’s head, but most probably it resembles that of a sea-lion, which has also a head with a broad and flattened forehead, rather pointed, seen from one side, and blunt, seen in front. Here mention is also made of the large nostrils and the bristles on the lips of the animal.

“The eyes are, as one says, large and blue, they are rather like a pair of pewter plates.”

The eyes again are described differently. We have already heard them described as being black, red as fire, and now they are blue, viz. the ordinary blue, called tin-colour, that is a bluish-grey or a greyish-blue; so a grey rabbit is also called a blue rabbit; and grey fowls are called blue-fowls; there is rather a lilac tint to be observed in it. I cannot explain those differences otherwise than in the following way: when an observer sees the eyes in an oblique direction, he will always see this grey colour; when more in the axis of the eye, the colour is a bright dark black one, and when occasionally seen thus that the “tapetum lucidum” of the eye reflects the day-light, it is, as if the eyes were sparkling like fire.

“The serpent’s colour is dark brown over the whole body, but thereby spotted, and with light streaks, or maculated with distinctly visible light spots, like a turtle or a lackered table, except in the region of mouth and eyes where it is rather dark, so that it resembles those horses which we call moorish-heads or black-faces.”

We shall repeatedly have occasion to observe that these statements are correct. All eye-witnesses agree in this point.

“That this animal spouts like a whale through its nostrils, as Mr. EGEDE saw, has never been seen here by anybody.”

It is remarkable that though EGEDE has nowhere asserted that his animal was a sea-serpent, our learned Bishop seems to have recognized it as such at once, believing, however, it to be another species of the same genus. We have already stated that EGEDE did not see the animal spouting water, but he only saw the warm breath of the animal condensed in the cold air, just as BING, his brother missionary, figured it, and just as it is mentioned by accurate observers of whales. It is very easy to understand that EGEDE saw it, for the animal had apparently been under water for a long time; it suddenly appeared with so much violence, that a considerable part of its body was elevated above the surface of the sea, whilst, by a violent blow, the breath, hitherto held in, was pushed into the air. In this way parts of mucus of the inner surface of the nostrils and the little quantity of water adhering to the valves of the nose, must have been driven away at the same time, and the whole effect has been very accurately described by EGEDE and figured by BING, but has afterwards been exaggerated and altered by PONTOPPIDAN (see our fig. 22), and also in our century by Dr. R. HAMILTON (see our fig. 23).

“But many agree in telling that when it swims rapidly through the water, it propels before it the water with such a violence that it murmurs like a small mill-brook.”

This peculiarity has been repeatedly confirmed by the most trustworthy eye-witnesses as we will observe more than once afterwards.

“Also the common sea-serpents of our shore differ from those of the Greenland-coasts, seen by EGEDE, in having no rough and hard skin, but a smooth one like a mirror, except on the neck, on which it has a mane, resembling sea-weed.”

Remarkable again is the statement of its smooth skin, remarkable too is the declaration of the sea-serpent having a mane, and most remarkable the resemblance of this mane to sea-weed, an observation made by several eye-witnesses independant of each other. It is surprising that PONTOPPIDAN silently passes over the difference between his two kinds of sea-serpents: that the Greenland one has two flappers on the fore-part of its trunk.

“As they cast their skin like common snakes, some people pretend, that a few years ago, a table-cloth has been made of such a slough found in the harbour of Kobbervueg. This made me so curious, that I wrote to one of the inhabitants of that harbour, to inquire after it, and as the proverb says, to get a strap of the skin. However, there was nothing of that skin, at least at that time. And a man of that harbour, who came to Bergen, told me he knew nothing at all about it.”

As to the renewing of the skin, we see that the Bishop was taken in! But we must respect him that he did not rest before he knew the truth or the untruth of the fact, and that he also mentions his inquiry. Though the Bishop may have been deceived, his endeavours to find out the truth enhance his trustworthiness.

“That the flesh of these animals is soft, has been stated by some who tell of a small, and probably young sea-serpent which was taken unexpectedly on board a ship. It instantly died, and nobody dared to touch it, till the crew was forced at last to cast it over board, owing to the intolerable smell arising from the soft and tough slime, in which it was dissolved by the action of the air. But this animal cannot have been a sea-serpent, for, as will be remembered, it is only seen in the calmest weather and sinks into the deep at the least motion in the air.”

We agree with the Bishop, though for other reasons than he.

After having related the two strandings of a sea-serpent (n^o. 6, 7), PONTOPPIDAN goes on:

“I would that in such cases some one had inquired whether this serpent had a strong backbone, which seems to be necessary to keep together the mass of such a gigantic animal. The sharks, however, which are also cartilaginous fishes without bones, have such a backbone, but it is very subtile and even in the largest sharks only ten ells long. The sea-serpent, like sharks, eels and whales also seems to be a viviparous, not an oviparous fish, and most probably it seeks the other sex in the above mentioned season. It is said, that when this animal is ruttish, it looks after ships and boats, which it probably takes for something else. If this be true, as seamen say, those are wrong who think that the sea-serpent is not born in the sea, but on land, and lives in forests and among mountains, till it can no longer hide its body in it; it is said that it then seeks some river, and floats out to the sea, as some people pretend to have seen.”

There is but one single reason why we think the sea-serpent is a viviparous being, viz. its hairy skin. It is certain that an animal with long hairs on its neck, has also hairs on its whole body, which has also been stated once already (n^o. 8), and hairy animals are viviparous (except the Monotrymata). Most probably PONTOPPIDAN called the sea-serpent viviparous for the same reason, otherwise I cannot find a single fact that would have led him to this conclusion. Its seeking the other sex cannot be a reason, for all animals do so in the warm season. I think that it looked after ships because it is a curious animal, knowing no fear of strange things or persons. It is evidently a fable that it brings forth young ones on the shore, probably originating in the fact that the sea-serpent has sometimes been seen in fjords, even in small ones, or probably originating in the fact that also seals creep ashore in the critical moment, whelp there and return with their young ones to the sea as soon as possible.

“The question which troubles us most is the following: Is this animal dangerous to men, and how are they to defend themselves against this monster? ARENDT BERNDSEN (Danmarks og Norges frugtbare Herlighed p. 308) answers the first question in the affirmative, and tells us that the sea-serpent, as well as the sperm-whale, even often runs down men and ships. That such things happened in this region, I never heard of with certainty; but the north-sailors tell that it had occasionally happened that the sea-serpent raised itself and threw itself straight across a boat, nay across a large yacht of several hundred tons, and had dragged it to the depths. One of these north-sailors tells that he was once so close to the serpent, that he might have touched its smooth skin; he mentions at the same time that this serpent sometimes snatches a man from a boat, with its head raised upward and gives the others of the crew an opportunity to escape. Whether these reports are to be believed or not, I don’t know, because it is uncertain whether these serpents live on prey.”

We see the Bishop weighing and considering whatever he heard, and not accepting everything for truth. We think that PONTOPPIDAN is right in giving no credit to the narrative that the sea-serpents made themselves guilty of sinking ships and eating men. It is mentioned already twice, that the sea-serpent raised itself high above the surface of the water; yet the flappers are not mentioned; so we may conclude that these are situated far from the head, or, what is the same, that the animal has a very long neck.

PONTOPPIDAN further tells us that the sea-serpent sometimes encloses ships by laying itself round them in a circle, that the fishermen then row over its body there where a coil is visible, for when they reach the coil, it sinks, while on the contrary the invisible parts rise. Further, that the serpent swims with an incredible velocity, and that the fishermen who are much afraid of it, when seeing that it follows them, throw any object, for instance a scoop, at it, when the animal generally plunges into the deep. But most fishermen are in the habit of taking castoreum with them, for the serpent cannot bear the smell of it. And still further on he tries to explain the considerable length of the animal some witnesses speak of; the Bishop namely believes that two or more individuals followed each other, for they are only seen in rutting-time. And in his tenth paragraph, trying to answer the question, why those large serpents only frequent the northern seas, he says:

“To this question I answer that the Creator of all beings disposes of the dwellings of His different creatures in different places by His wise intentions, which are not to be known to us. Why won’t the reindeer thrive anywhere but in the high and cold mountains? Why do the whales frequent only the north pole? Why are India and Egypt almost the only countries, where men have to fear crocodiles? No doubt because it pleases the wise Creator.”

Here PONTOPPIDAN takes leave of the Sea-Serpent, and begins to treat of the large snakes mentioned by PLINIUS and other ancient authors, and we too will take leave of our honest and trustworthy Bishop, who has so often been laughed at for what he relates in his chapter on monsters. And yet two of his monsters, the mermaids and the Kraken, are unmasked, why cannot his third be accounted for?

* * * * *

Now let us again collect all the facts which are not impossible from a zoologist’s point of view.