386 SEA MONSTERS UNMASKED. 



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 Acalepha, 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 expe- 

 rienced 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 acknow- 

 ledge 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, 



