Origin of Sea^Serpent Stories l6g 



or suppress it to fit the theory, and ignore utterly any 

 other explanation but their own. 



The list of what Dr. Oudemans calls 'would-be 

 Sea-serpents ' is a fairly large and comprehensive one. 

 Seals, cuttlefish, sharks, porpoises, fossils {Zeuglodon 

 and Basilaurus), and even albacore ; the physalis, 

 a rorqual, and a supposed marine plesiosaurus are 

 among the living (?) creatures, while sea-weed and 

 floating tree-trunks are among the inanimate simu- 

 lators of the great snake. But he evidently does not 

 relish the idea that any of his contributors have called 

 upon their imagination to stimulate pen and pencil, 

 except where confession of detection has exposed the 

 fraud. This may seem harsh, but what else can be 

 said of a scientific zoologist of the present day, who 

 deliberately quotes Olaus Magnus, Archbishop of 

 Upsala, and Pontoppidan, Bishop of Bergen — two 

 clerics remarkable for nothing greater than their most 

 amazing credulity and riotous imagination ? A quo- 

 tation from our author must be given as showing the 

 position he takes up with regard to the latter of these 

 two ancient fictionists. 



' We see the Bishop weighing and considering 

 whatever he heard, and not accepting everything 

 for truth. We think that Pontoppidan is right in 

 giving no credit to the narrative that the Sea-serpents 

 made themselves guilty of sinking ships and eating 

 men. . . . Pontoppidan further teUs us that the Sea- 

 serpent sometimes encloses ships by laying itself round 

 them in a circle, that the fishermen then row over its 

 body there where a coil is visible, for when they reach 

 the coil it sinks, while the invisible parts rise. Further, 

 that the Serpent swims with an incredible velocity, 

 and that the fishermen, who are much afraid of it, 

 when seeing that it follows them, throw any object, 



