IIT. 
Would-be Sea-Serpents. 
It is by no means astonishing that in the vast waters of the 
ocean several objects, totally different from the animal generally 
known as the Great Sea-Serpent, gave rise to tales of that Great 
Unknown, such as wrecks, gigantic sea-weeds, or even animal 
beings. So we meet with an account dated: 
1720. — (See Ponropripan.) “T'HortAcK 'T'HoRLACKSEN has told 
me that in 1720 a Sea-Serpent had been shut up a whole week 
in a little mlet, m which it came with high tide through a 
narrow entrance of seven or eight fathoms deep, and that eight 
days afterwards, when it had left the inlet, a skin of a snake or 
serpent was found. One end of the skin had sunk into the water 
of the inlet, so that its length could not be made out, as the 
inlet. was several fathoms deep, and the skin partly lay there. The 
other end of this skim was washed on the shore by the current, 
where everybody could see it; apparently, however, it could not 
be used, for it consisted of a soft slimy mass. THORLACKSEN was 
a native of the harbour of Kobbervueg.” 
It may be that a real sea-serpent remained a week in the inlet. 
The Norwegian fishermen know the sea-serpent too well to make 
mistakes. Another animal would not have been called a sea-serpent , 
and a short description of it would have been given. But the skin 
wrongly attributed to the sea-serpent, was certainly nothing else 
but a putrified long arm or tentacle of a gigantic calamary. The 
description “soft and slimy mass” proves this sufficiently. The great 
calamary died in the fjord, or inlet, and its long dead arm was 
floated ashore by the current, while the body sank. Such great 
calamaries, the true Krakens, have been measured, and found to 
have a body of 30 feet in length with long tentacles of 58 feet 
