si 4 NATURAL HISTORY of NORWAY. 



SECT. XIII. 



stni farther I have now given all the intelligence that has come to my 

 1confinnations ' knowledge concerning this vaft, but hitherto hardly at all known 

 Sea-animal ; and now I fhall relate farther, according to what I 

 think is mofl probable, fome properties that may be prefumed to 

 belong to it. This may give fome light into the hiflory of it, and 

 alfo ferve as a farther confirmation of what has been faid concern- 

 ing it. Mr. Luke Debes, in his Defcription of Faroe, fpeaks of 

 certain iflands which fuddenly appear, and as fuddenly vanifh. 

 This was a thing no -body could comprehend ; fo that one ought 

 not to wonder at the common people, and even thofe that were 

 a degree above them, for looking upon thofe moving iflands to 

 be inhabited by evil fpirits, which appeared fometimes in fuch 

 places where the fea-men, by daily experience, knew very well 

 that there was no fuch thing as a rock, much lefs an ifland ; but 

 however, they often found fomething at fea which had the ap- 

 pearance of land, and confequently were confounded, made falfe 

 reckonings, and were taken out of their courfe, and brought 

 a notion of into the greatefl inconveniences * Many fea-faring people give 

 mS accounts of fuch appearances of land, and their fuddenly vanifhing 

 away, and particularly here in the North-fea. Thefe iflands, in 

 the boifterous ocean, cannot be imagined to be of the nature of 

 thofe real floating iflands, that are feen on frefti and ftagnated 

 waters; and which I have-obferved, P. I. c. 3, are found here in 

 Norway, and in other places.. Thefe could not poflibly hold or 

 fland againft the violence of the waves in the ocean, which break 

 the largeft veffels ; and therefore our failors have concluded this 

 delufion could come from no other than that great deceiver the 

 devil. But, according to the laws of truth, we ought not to 

 charge this apoftate fpirit without a caufe. I rather think that 

 this devil, who fo fuddenly makes and unmakes thefe floating 

 iflands, is nothing elfe but the Kraken, which fome fea-faring 

 people call Soe-draulen, that is, Soe-trolden, Sea-mifchief. What 

 confirms me in this opinion is the following occurrence, quoted 

 by that worthy Swedifh phyfician Dr. Urban Hierne, in his Short 

 Introduction to an Enquiry into the Ores and Minerals of that 

 country, p. 98, from Baron Charles Grippenhielm. The quota- 



* Concerning moving iflands, fee Everh. Harpelii Mund. Mirab. Tom. I. Lib. iv. 

 cap. 20, 21 -, and in Thormod. Torf. there is a remarkable teftimony of the fame kind, 

 concerning an ifland appearing in Breidefiord, on the coaft of Iceland, Annales notant, 

 emerfiffe ex undis infulam quandam vel rupes (An. 1345) antea nunquam vifas in finu 

 IflandijE Brediafiordo. Hill. Norw. P. IV. L. ix. c. viii. p. 477. It is a pity that he 

 does not tell us whether it always remained there. 



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