THE GREA T SEA SERPENT. 
6i 
question when they are seriously asked whether there be any such 
creature : they think it as ridiculous as if the question was put to 
them whether there be such fish as eel or cod." 
The worthy Bishop of Bergen did his best to sift truth 
from fable, but he could not always succeed in separating 
them. Many stupendous falsehoods were brought to him, 
and some of them passed through his sieve in spite of his 
care. Of these are the accounts of the " spawning times " 
of the sea-serpent, its dislike of certain scents, &c. We 
must pass over all this, and confine ourselves to the 
evidence offered by him of its having been seen. 
The first witness he adduces is Captain Lawrence de 
Ferry, of the Norwegian navy, and first pilot in Bergen, 
who, premising that he had doubted a great while whether 
there were any such creature till he had ocular demonstra- 
tion of it, made the following statement, addressed formally 
and officially to the procurator of Bergen : — 
" Mr. John Reutz — 
"The latter end of August, in the year 1746, as I was on a 
voyage, on my return from Trundhiem, on a very calm and hot 
day, having a mind to put in at Molde, it happened that when 
we were arrived with my vessel within six English miles of 
the aforesaid Molde, being at a "place called Jule-Naess, as 
I was reading in a book, I heard a kind of a murmuring 
voice from amongst the men at the oars, who were eight in 
number, and observed that the man at the helm kept off from 
the land. Upon this I inquired what was the matter, and was 
informed that there was a sea-snake before us. I then ordered 
the man at the helm to keep to the land again, and to come up 
with this creature of which I had heard so many stories. Though 
the fellows were under some apprehension, they were obliged to 
obey my orders. In the meantime the sea-snake passed by us, 
and we were obliged to tack the vessel about in order to get nearer 
to it. As the snake swam faster than we could row, I took my 
