Fish Stories of the Fathers 9 



companying illustrations show this in perfect detail, rep- 

 resented with an exuberance of fancy — fascinating in the 

 extreme. In the first picture we see the ship and the monster 

 spouting water high in the air ; and on the quarter-deck, the 

 skipper blowing his war horn, while the men are tossing 

 over barrels of provisions to appease the monster. In the 

 next picture, the great fish, or whale, is seen coming aboard, 

 as the gallant ship goes down. 



A favorite tale of Olaus Magnus is of a gigantic fish or 

 whale which was so huge that ships' crews took it for an 

 island, landed, and did not discover their mistake until they 

 built a fire, and the animal, rudely awakened, dropped away 

 from them. Doubtless this was taken from the Arabian 

 Tales, as this story, or one like it, appears in Sinbad. Gesner 

 tells the same, but Olaus Magnus was an artist. He so 

 paints the picture, that it has all the elements of plausibility. 

 Gesner tells us that the men landed on the huge fish and took 

 its skin for the land ; but Olaus Magnus states that the fish 

 in swimming near the bottom, covered it with sand to such 

 a depth, that mariners cast their anchors in it, supposing it to 

 be the bottom. " The Whale hath upon its Skin a super- 

 ficies, like the gravel that is by the sea side; so that oft 

 times when he raiseth his back above the water, Sailors 

 take it to be nothing else but an Island, and sayl unto it, and 

 go down upon it, and they strike in piles upon it, and fasten 

 them to their ships : they kindl fires to biyl their meat ; until 

 at length the Whale feeling the fire, dives down to the bot- 

 tome; and such as are upon his back, unless they can save 

 themselves by ropes thrown forth of the ship, are drown'd." 



When a young whale runs aground it might seem difficult 

 to haul it off, but not to Magnus: "When for want of 

 water their young are hindered, that they cannot follow 

 their Dams, the Dams take water in their mouth, and cast 

 it to them like a river, that she may so free them from the 

 Land they are fast upon." 



The boundless nature of the imagination of Olaus Magnus 



