CONCLUSIONS. AQ 
A. Fables, Fictions, Exaggerations and Errors. 
At present nobody believes that the appearance of a stange ani- 
mal on the coast is a bad sign! In the sixteenth and the seven- 
teenth century, however, this was not uncommon. So we read 
that an appearance of a sea-serpent portended a change in Norway 
(1), and that the appearance of one in 1522 was followed by the 
banishment of King Christiernus and by a great persecution of the 
Bishops; it also foretold the destruction of the country (1). The 
snatching away of a man from a ship did not happen without a 
terrible event in the Kingdom, without a change being at hand, 
either that the princes would die or be banished, or that a war 
would soon break out (p. 105). The Norwegian fishermen looked 
upon its coming as a bad sign, for the fish would leave the coast 
(61). Curious are also the characters described to the animal. It 
lives in rocks and holes, and it comes out of its caverns only in 
summernights and fine weather, to devour calves, lambs and hogs 
(p. 105). The eating of cuttles, lobsters and all kinds of sea-crabs 
(p. 105) may also be a story, though this is not quite improbable. 
The fables, often told of Kraken and Spermwhales, that when 
sleeping on the surface of the water they are taken for an islet, 
are also related of sea-serpents: “and when it is slumbering on 
the Norway foam, the seamen deeming it some island, fixed their 
anchor in its scaly rind” (p. 111). 
It is also said to enclose ships by laying itself round them in 
a circle; and to upset the ship (p. 109) if the seamen do not try 
to escape, which they can manage to do when they row over its 
body there where a coil is visible, for that when they reach the 
coil, it sinks, while on the contrary the invisible part rises (p. 134, 
p. 227). Arend Bzrwnpsen tells us that sea-serpents, as well as 
spermwhales, often run down whole ships with all aboard (p. 134), 
and some north sailors know that it had occasionally thrown itself 
across a yacht of several hundred tons and dragged it to the bot- 
tom (p. 134). Mr. Lex has sufficiently shown in his Sea Monsters 
Unmasked, that large calamaries really sometimes snatch a man 
from a rowing boat; for a long time this was considered to be a 
fable; now, however, zoologists unconditionally accept it as truth. 
Such incidents, if happened, are generally, but falsely, attributed 
by the Northern fishermen to sea-serpents (p. 105, p. 108, p. 134). 
It is not astonishing that by such people the sea-serpent is called 
dangerous to seamen (p. 108, p. 134) and that they are very much 
