138 The Cuttle-fish or Squid 



a multitude of serpent-like arms taller than the masts 

 of the vessels, which embraced the ships and collected 

 the crews until, with a horrible whirling of the whole 

 ocean, island and ships and men disappeared for ever. 

 And he does not even explain to us whence he derived 

 his information. 



This creature is undoubtedly the Kraken of old 

 Norse legends, sufficiently awe-inspiring in its supreme 

 hideousness and its vast size to excuse the wildest 

 tale told by a shuddering eye-witness of its prowess 

 in those far-off days ; yes, even sufficiently terrible 

 to account for its being considered the originating 

 cause of the maelstrom oflE the Lofoden Islands, around 

 which so many hair-raising tales have clustered. 



But what does seem incomprehensible to me is 

 that, after so many indisputable glimpses of the great 

 Cuttle-fish during those early years, the exaggerations 

 of the historians should have been able to cause such 

 a revulsion of feeling as to make people disbelieve 

 in the existence of such a creature at all. Yet that 

 is exactly what happened, in spite of the fact that very 

 many authentic records exist of appearances of the 

 creature. It is true that at the same time many fables 

 were current anent the appearance of the great sea- 

 serpent, most of which were doubtless due to hurried 

 glimpses of the gigantic Cuttle-fish in his conflict with 

 a sperm whale. But why stories of the mythical 

 sea-serpent should have been accepted, and accounts 

 of the real mollusc have been rejected, it is impossible 

 to say. It must, I suppose, remain a mystery. 



An added wonder comes from the fact that the 

 American sperm whale fishery has existed for well over 

 a century, and during the whole of that time every 

 officer, to say nothing of the men, must have known of 

 the very real existence of the great Squid, since scarcely 



