110 NORWEGIAN SEA SERPENT. [CHAP. VIII. 



clared that they can now no longer doubt that there lives in 

 their seas some monster, which has given rise to the tales pub 

 lished by Pontopiddan, Bishop of Bergen, in his Natural History 

 of Norway (1752), who gave an engraving, which the living wit 

 nesses declare to be very like what they saw. 



Fig. 2. 



_ ..._.. .*^L 



Pontoppidan s figure of the Norwegian sea serpent, published 1752. 



These appearances were witnessed in 1845, near Christian- 

 sand, and at Molde, and in the parish of Sund, the animal enter 

 ing fiords in hot weather, when the sea was calm. The length 

 of the creature was from sixty to one hundred feet ; color dark, 

 body smooth, and in thickness, like that of a stout man ; swim 

 ming swiftly with serpentine movement, both horizontally and 

 up and down, raising its blunted head occasionally above the 

 water ; its eyes bright, but these not perceived by some witnesses ; 

 its undulating course like that of an eel ; its body lay on the sea 

 like a number of &quot; large kegs,&quot; the water much agitated by its 

 rapid movements, and the waves broke on the shore as when a 

 steam-boat is passing. From the back of the head a mane like 

 that of a horse commenced, which waved backward and forward 

 in the water. Archdeacon Deinboll says, that &quot; the eye-witnesses, 

 whose testimony he collected, were not so seized with fear as to 

 impair their powers of observation ; and one of them, when 

 within musket shot, had fired at the monster, and is certain the 

 shots hit him in the head, after which he dived, but came up 

 again immediately.&quot; 



In reading over these recent statements, drawn up by observers 

 on both sides of the Atlantic, it is impossible not to be struck 

 with their numerous points of agreement, both with each other 

 and with those recorded by the New Englanders between the 

 years 1815 and 1825, when the sea serpent repeatedly visited 

 the coast of North America. There is even a coincidence in 



