NATURAL HISTORY of NORWAY. i 9 i 



down to the face, in which the noftrits have ever been very vifible. 

 The breaft was not far from the head ,- the arms feem'd to hang 

 to the fide, to which they were joined by a thin (kin or mem- 

 brane. The hands were, to appearance, like the paws of a Sea-calf. 

 The back of this creature was very fat, and a great part of it was 

 cut off, which, with the liver, yielded a large quantity of train-oil. 

 That this creature, which is reckoned among the Whale-kind, is 

 a Fifh of prey, and lives upon the (mailer fort, may be concluded 

 from what Mr. Luke Debes relates, in his Defcription of Faroe. 

 He^ tells us, that they have there (een a Mermaid with a Fifh, 

 which (he held in her hand. The words are, in p. 171, as follows 2 

 "There walfo feen in 1670, at Faroe, Weftward of Qualboe 

 Eide, by many of the inhabitants, as alfo by others from different 

 parts of Suderoe, a Mer-maid, clofe to the more. She ftood there 

 two hours and a half, and was up to the navel in water. She 

 had long hairs on her head, which hung down to the furface of 

 the water all round about her. She held a Fifli, with the head 

 downwards^ in her right-hand. I was told alfo, that in the fame 

 year the fifhermen in Wefterman -haven, on Stromoe, had, at their 

 fifhery north of Faroe, feen a Mer-maid. 5 ' 



Tormodus Torfaeus relates, that feveral Mer-men, along with 

 other monfters, were {ten at one time on the coaft of Iceland, in 

 his Hift. Norv. T. iv. L. viii. p. 416, and there refers to his Ac- 

 count of Greenland. I am forry that I have not the work at hand, 

 for thofe that would be curious to know more of this matter ; but 

 in the place juft quoted he fpeaks thus: " Sirenes propter auftra- 

 lialflandiaeprornontoria, Sudrnes appellata, pluraque alia monftra 

 vifa, & in his illud, quod Hafftrambe appellatur (de quo videri 

 poteft Gronlandia noftra cap. xin.J nautis, qui in Illandiam vento 

 retroafti funt, obfervatum." 



That thefe creatures, being Fifh of prey, fometimes quarrel 

 with the Sea-calf, is confirmed by a relation fent me, with feve- 

 ral others, by the rev. Mr. Hans Strom, at Borgen, It runs to this 

 effecl: : u It happened at Neroe in Numedalen, that there was 

 found a Mer-man and a Sea-calf on a rock, both dead, and all over 

 bloody ^from which it is conjectured that they had killed one 

 another." 



The rev. Mr. Randulf, reftor of the place, gave himfelf (bme 

 trouble, by endeavouring to preferve the Mer-man, but to no 

 purpofe ; for before he or his people could get near it, the peafents 

 had cut them both to pieces, for the fake of the fat. Whether 

 amongft thefe Mer-men, or, as we may rather call them, Sea-apes, 

 there be any fpecifick difference in fhape or fize (as I have obferved 



before 



