328 SEA MONSTERS UNMASKED. 



an account as the nature of the thing, according to the Creator's wise 

 ordinances, will admit of. Such I shall give at present, and perhaps 

 much greater light on this subject may be reserved for posterity. 



" Our fishermen unanimously affirm, and without the least variation 

 in their accounts, that when they row out several miles to sea, par- 

 ticularly in the hot summer days, and by their situation (which they 

 know by taking a view of different points of land) expect to find eighty 

 or a hundred fathoms of water, it often happens that they do not find 

 above twenty or thirty, and sometimes less. At these places they 

 generally find the greatest plenty of fish, especially cod and ling. 

 Their lines, they say, are no sooner out than they may draw them up 

 with the hooks all full of fish. By this they know that the Kraken is 

 at the bottom. They say this creature causes those unnatural shal- 

 lows mentioned above, and prevents their sounding. These the fisher- 

 men are always glad to find, looking upon them as a means of their 

 taking abundance of fish. There are sometimes twenty boats or more 

 got together and throwing out their lines at a moderate distance from 

 each other ; and the only thing they then have to observe is whether 

 the depth continues the same, which they know by their lines, or 

 whether it grows shallower, by their seeming to have less water. If 

 this last be the case they know that the Kraken is raising himself 

 nearer the surface, and then it is not time for them to stay any longer ; 

 they immediately leave off fishing, take to their oars, and get away as 

 fast as they can. When they have reached the usual depth of the 

 place, and find themselves out of danger, they lie upon their oars, and 

 in a few minutes after they see this enormous monster come up to the 

 surface of the water ; he there shows himself sufficiently, though his 

 whole body does not appear, which, in all likelihood, no human eye 

 ever beheld. Its back or upper part, which seems to be in appearance 

 about an English mile and a half in circumference (some say more, 

 but I chuse the least for greater certainty), looks at first like a number 

 of small islands surrounded with something that floats and fluctuates 

 k e sea-weeds. Here and there a larger rising is observed like sand- 

 banks, on which various kinds of small fishes are seen continually 

 leaping about till they roll off into the water from the sides of it ; at 

 last several bright points or horns appear, which grow thicker and 

 thicker the higher they rise above the surface of the water, and some- 

 times they stand up as high and as large as the masts of middle-sized 

 vessels. It seems these are the creature's arms, and it is said if they 

 were to lay hold of the largest man of war they would pull it down to 

 the bottom, After this monster has been on the surface of the water 



