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:[25]--
"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.[26] 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."
[25] 'Historia de Gentibus Septentrionalibus,' Lib. xxi. cap. 43.
[26] "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.
[Illustration: FIG. 12.--A SEA SERPENT SEIZING A MAN ON BOARD SHIP.
_After_ OLAUS MAGNUS.]
[Illustration: FIG. 13.--A GIGANTIC LOBSTER DRAGGING A MAN FROM A SHIP.
_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_)."
[Illustration: FIG. 14.--PONTOPPIDAN'S "SEA SERPENT."]
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[27] 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.'"
[27] 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,[28] 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.
[28] 'Des alten Groenlands neue Perlustration,' 8vo., Frankfurt,
1730, and 'Det Gamle Groenlands nye perlustratione eller Naturel
Historie.' 4to., Copenhagen, 1741.
In his 'Journal of the Missions to Greenland' this author tell us that--
"On the 6th of July, 1734, there appeared a very large and
frightful sea monster, which raised itself so high out of the water
that its head reached above our main-top. It had a long, sharp
snout, and spouted water like a whale; and very broad flappers. The
body seemed to be covered with scales, and the skin was uneven and
wrinkled, and the lower part was formed like a snake. After some
time the creature plunged backwards into the water, and then turned
its tail up above the surface, a whole ship-length from the head.
The following evening we had very bad weather."
The high character of the narrator would lead us to accept his
statement that he had seen something previously unknown to him (he does
not say it was a sea-serpent) even if we could not explain or understand
what it was that he saw. Fortunately, however, the sketch made by Mr.
Bing, one of his brother missionaries, has enabled us to do this. We
must remember that in his endeavour to portray the incident he was
dealing with an animal with the nature of which he was unacquainted, and
which was only partially, and for a very short time, within his view. He
therefore delineated rather the impression left on his mind than the
thing itself. But although he invested it with a character that did not
belong to it, his drawing is so far correct that we are able to
recognise at a glance the distorted portrait of an old acquaintance, and
to say unhesitatingly that Egede's sea-monster was one of the great
calamaries which have since been occasionally met with, but which have
only been believed in and recognised within the last few years. That
which Mr. Egede believed to be the creature's head was the tail part of
the cuttle, which goes in advance as the animal swims, and the two side
appendages represent very efficiently the two lobes of the caudal fin.
In propelling itself to the surface the squid raised this portion of its
body out of the water to a considerable height, an occurrence which I
have often witnessed, and which I have elsewhere described (see pp. 23
and 27). The supposed tail, which was turned up at some distance from
the other visible portion of the body, after the latter had sunk back
into the sea, was one of the shorter arms of the cuttle, and the suckers
on its under side are clearly and conspicuously marked. Egede was, of
course, in error in making the "spout" of water to issue from the mouth
of his monster. The out-pouring jet, which he, no doubt, saw, came from
the locomotor tube, and the puff of spray which would accompany it as
the orifice of the tube rose to the surface of the water is sketched
with remarkable truthfulness. In quoting Egede, Pontoppidan gives a copy
(so-called) of this engraving, but his artist embellished it so much as
to deprive it of its original force and character, and of the honestly
drawn points which furnish proofs of its identity.
[Illustration: FIG. 15--THE ANIMAL DRAWN BY MR. BING AS HAVING BEEN SEEN
BY HANS EGEDE.]
[Illustration: FIG. 16.--THE ANIMAL WHICH EGEDE PROBABLY SAW.]
Pontoppidan records other supposed appearances of the sea-serpent, but
from the date of his history I know of no other account of such an
occurrence until that of an animal "apparently belonging to this class,"
which was stranded on the Island of Stronsa, one of the Orkneys, in the
year 1808:--
"According to the narrative, it was first seen entire, and measured
by respectable individuals. It measured fifty-six feet in length,
and twelve in circumference. The head was small, not being a foot
long from the snout to the first vertebra; the neck was slender,
extending to the length of fifteen feet. All the witnesses agree in
assigning it blow-holes, though they differ as to the precise
situation. On the shoulders something like a bristly mane commenced
which extended to near the extremity of the tail. It had three
pairs of fins or paws connected with the body; the anterior were
the largest, measuring more than four feet in length, and their
extremities were something like toes partially webbed. The skin was
smooth and of a greyish colour; the eye was of the size of a
seal's. When the decaying carcass was broken up by the waves,
portions of it were secured (such as the skull, the upper bones of
the swimming paws, &c.) by Mr. Laing, a neighbouring proprietor,
and some of the vertebrae were preserved and deposited in the Royal
University Museum, Edinburgh, and in the Museum of the Royal
College of Surgeons, London. An able paper," says Dr. Robert
Hamilton, in his account of it,[29] "on these latter fragments and
on the wreck of the animal was read by the late Dr. Barclay to the
Wernerian Society, and will be found in Vol. I. of its
Transactions, to which we refer. We have supplied a wood-cut of the
sketch" (of which I give a _facsimile_ here) "which was taken at
the time, and which, from the many affidavits proffered by
respectable individuals, as well as from other circumstances
narrated, leaves no manner of doubt as to the existence of some
such animal."
[29] Jardine's Naturalists' Library: 'Marine Amphibia,' p. 314.
[Illustration: FIG. 17.--THE "SEA SERPENT" OF THE WERNERIAN SOCIETY.
(_Facsimile._)]
Well! one would think so. It looks convincing, and there is a savour of
philosophy about it that might lull the suspicions of a doubting
zoologist. What more could be required? We have accurate measurements
and a sketch taken of the animal as it lay upon the shore, minute
particulars of its outward form, characteristic portions of its skeleton
preserved in well-known museums, and any amount of affidavits
forthcoming from most respectable individuals if confirmation be
required. And yet,
"'Tis true, 'tis pity;
And pity 'tis 'tis true,"
the whole fabric of circumstances crumbled at the touch of science.
When the two vertebrae in the Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons
were examined by Sir Everard Home he pronounced them to be those of a
great shark of the genus _Selache_, and as being undistinguishable from
those of the species called the "basking shark," of which individuals
from thirty to thirty-five feet in length have been from time to time
captured or stranded on our coasts. Professor Owen has confirmed this.
Any one who feels inclined to dispute the identification by this
distinguished comparative anatomist of a bone which he has seen and
handled can examine these vertebrae for himself. If they had not been
preserved, this incident would have been cited for all time as among the
most satisfactorily authenticated instances on record of the appearance
of the sea-serpent. As it is, it furnishes a valuable warning of the
necessity for the most careful scrutiny of the evidence of well-meaning
persons to whom no intentional deception or exaggeration can be imputed.
In 1809, Mr. Maclean, the minister of Eigg, in the Western Isles of
Scotland, informed Dr. Neill, the secretary of the Wernerian Society,
that he had seen, off the Isle of Canna, a great animal which chased his
boat as he hurried ashore to escape from it; and that it was also seen
by the crews of thirteen fishing-boats, who were so terrified by it that
they fled from it to the nearest creek for safety. His description of it
is exceedingly vague, but is strongly indicative of a great calamary.