270 CURIOUS CREATURES. 



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 eys. 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 hapneth 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 a town called 

 Moos, of 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 

 rouls himself round like a sphere. This Serpent was 

 thought to be fifty Cubits long by conjecture, by sight 

 afar off : there followed this the banishment of King 

 Chrtstiemus, and a great persecution of the Bishops ; and 

 it shew'd also the destruction of the Country." 



Topsell, in his Historic of Serpents, 1608, does not 

 add much to Sea-Serpent lore, but he adds the picture 

 of another kind of Serpent, as does also Aldrovandus, 

 whose illustration I give. (See p. 272.) Erik Pontop- 

 pidan, Bishop of Bergen, in his Naturlichen Historic von 

 Norwegen, gives a picture of the Sea-Serpent, somewhat 

 similar to that previously given by Hans Egede, " the 

 Apostle of Greenland." (See next page.) Pontoppidan 

 tried to sift the wheat from the chaff, in connection with 

 the Natural History of the North, but he was not always 

 successful. He gives several cases, one seemingly very 

 well authenticated, of the appearance of Sea-Serpents. 



But possibly more credence may be given to more 

 modern instances. Sir Walter Scott, in the Notes to The 



