Sea Monsters Unmasked and Sea Fables Explained Part 1

Sea Monsters Unmasked and Sea Fables Explained.

by Henry Lee.

PREFACE.

As I commence this little history of two sea monsters there comes to my mind a remark made to me by my friend, Mr. Samuel L. Clemens--"Mark Twain"--which ill.u.s.trates a feeling that many a writer must have experienced when dealing with a subject that has been previously well handled. Expressing to me one day the gratification he felt in having made many pleasant acquaintances in England, he added, with dry humour, and a grave countenance, "Yes! I owe your countrymen no grudge or ill-will. I freely forgive them, though one of them did me a grievous wrong, an irreparable injury! It was Shakspeare: if he had not written those plays of his, I should have done so! They contain _my_ thoughts, _my_ sentiments! He forestalled me!"

In treating of the so-called "sea-serpent," I have been antic.i.p.ated by many able writers. Mr. Gosse, in his delightful book, 'The Romance of Natural History,' published in 1862, devoted a chapter to it; and numerous articles concerning it have appeared in various papers and periodicals.

But, for the information from which those authors have drawn their inferences, and on which they have founded their opinions, they have been greatly indebted, as must be all who have seriously to consider this subject, to the late experienced editor of the _Zoologist_, Mr.

Edward Newman, a man of wonderful power of mind, of great judgment, a profound thinker, and an able writer. At a time when, as he said, "the shafts of ridicule were launched against believers and unbelievers in the sea-serpent in a very pleasing and impartial manner," he, in the true spirit of philosophical inquiry, in 1847, opened the columns of his magazine to correspondence on this topic, and all the more recent reports of marine monsters having been seen are therein recorded. To him, therefore, the fullest acknowledgments are due.

The great cuttles, also, have been the subject of articles in various magazines, notably one by Mr. W. Saville Kent, F.L.S., in the 'Popular Science Review' of April, 1874, and a chapter in my little book on the Octopus, published in 1873, is also devoted to them. In writing of them as the living representatives of the kraken, and as having been frequently mistaken for the "sea-serpent," my deductions have been drawn from personal knowledge, and an intimate acquaintance with the habits, form, and structure of the animals described. It was only by watching the movements of specimens of the "common squid" (_Loligo vulgaris_), and the "little squid" (_L. media_), which lived in the tanks of the Brighton Aquarium, that I recognised in their peculiar habit of occasionally swimming half-submerged, with uplifted caudal extremity, and trailing arms, the fact that I had before me the "sea-serpent" of many a well-authenticated anecdote. A mere knowledge of their form and anatomy after death had never suggested to me that which became at once apparent when I saw them in life.

It is a pleasure to me to acknowledge gratefully the kindness I have met with in connection with the ill.u.s.trations of this book. The proprietors of the _Ill.u.s.trated London News_ not only gave me permission to copy, in reduced size, their two pictures of the _Daedalus_ incident, but presented to me electrotype copies of all others small enough for these pages--namely, "Jonah and the Monster," Egede's "Sea-Serpent," and the Whale as seen from the _Pauline_. Equally kind have been the proprietors of the _Field_. To them I am greatly indebted for their permission to copy the beautiful woodcuts of the "Octopus at Rest," "The Sepia seizing its Prey," and the arms of the Newfoundland squids, and also for "electros" of the two curious j.a.panese engravings, all of which originally appeared in their paper. From the _Graphic_ I have had similar permission to copy any cuts that might be thought suitable, and the ill.u.s.trations of the sea-serpent, as seen from Her Majesty's yacht _Osborne_ and the _City of Baltimore_, are from that journal. Messrs.

Nisbet most courteously allowed me to have a copy of the block of the _Enaliosaurus_ swimming, which was one of the numerous pictures in Mr.

Gosse's book, published by them, already referred to. And last, not least, I have to thank Miss Ellen Woodward, daughter of my friend, Dr.

Henry Woodward, F.R.S., for enabling me to better explain the movements and appearances of the squids when swimming, and when raising their bodies out of water in an erect position, by carefully drawing them from my rough sketches.

HENRY LEE.

SAVAGE CLUB; _July 21st, 1883_.

SEA MONSTERS UNMASKED.

THE KRAKEN.

In the legends and traditions of northern nations, stories of the existence of a marine animal of such enormous size that it more resembled an island than an organised being frequently found a place. It is thus described in an ancient ma.n.u.script (about A.D. 1180), attributed to the Norwegian King Sverre; and the belief in it has been alluded to by other Scandinavian writers from an early period to the present day.

It was an obscure and mysterious sea-monster, known as the Kraken, whose form and nature were imperfectly understood, and it was peculiarly the object of popular wonder and superst.i.tious dread.

Eric Pontoppidan, the younger, Bishop of Bergen, and member of the Royal Academy of Sciences at Copenhagen, is generally, but unjustly, regarded as the inventor of the semi-fabulous Kraken, and is constantly misquoted by authors who have never read his work,[1] and who, one after another, have copied from their predecessors erroneous statements concerning him. More than half a century before him, Christian Francis Paullinus,[2] a physician and naturalist of Eisenach, who evinced in his writings an admiration of the marvellous rather than of the useful, had described as resembling Gesner's 'Heracleoticon,' a monstrous animal which occasionally rose from the sea on the coasts of Lapland and Finmark, and which was of such enormous dimensions, that a regiment of soldiers could conveniently manoeuvre on its back. About the same date, but a little earlier, Bartholinus, a learned Dane, told how, on a certain occasion, the Bishop of Midaros found the Kraken quietly reposing on the sh.o.r.e, and mistaking the enormous creature for a huge rock, erected an altar upon it and performed ma.s.s. The Kraken respectfully waited till the ceremony was concluded, and the reverend prelate safe on sh.o.r.e, and then sank beneath the waves.

[1] 'Natural History of Norway.' A.D. 1751.

[2] Born 1643; died 1712.

And a hundred and fifty years before Bartholinus and Paullinus wrote, Olaus Magnus,[3] Archbishop of Upsala, in Sweden, had related many wondrous narratives of sea-monsters,--tales which had gathered and acc.u.mulated marvels as they had been pa.s.sed on from generation to generation in oral history, and which he took care to bequeath to his successors undeprived of any of their fascination. According to him, the Kraken was not so polite to the laity as to the Bishop, for when some fishermen lighted a fire on its back, it sank beneath their feet, and overwhelmed them in the waters.

[3] Olaus Magnus has sometimes been mistaken for his brother and predecessor in the archiepiscopal see, Johan Magnus, author of a book ent.i.tled 'Gothorum, Suevorumque Historia.' Olaus was the last Roman Catholic archbishop of the Swedish church, and when the Reformation, supported by Gustavus Vasa, gained the ascendancy in Sweden, he remained true to his faith, and retired to Rome, where he wrote his work, 'Historia de Gentibus Septentrionalibus,' Romae, 1555. An English translation of this book was published by J.

Streater, in 1658. It does not contain the ill.u.s.trations.

Pontoppidan was not a fabricator of falsehoods; but, in collecting evidence relating to the "great beasts" living in "the great and wide sea," was influenced, as he tells us, by "a desire to extend the popular knowledge of the glorious works of a beneficent Creator." He gave too much credence to contemporary narratives and old traditions of floating islands and sea monsters, and to the superst.i.tious beliefs and exaggerated statements of ignorant fishermen: but if those who ridicule him had lived in his day and amongst his people, they would probably have done the same; for even Linnaeus was led to believe in the Kraken, and catalogued it in the first edition of his 'Systema Naturae,' as '_Sepia Microcosmos_.' He seems to have afterwards had cause to discredit his information respecting it, for he omitted it in the next edition. The Norwegian bishop was a conscientious and painstaking investigator, and the tone of his writings is neither that of an intentional deceiver nor of an incautious dupe. He diligently endeavoured to separate the truth from the cloud of error and fiction by which it was obscured; and in this he was to a great extent successful, for he correctly identifies, from the vague and perplexing descriptions submitted to him, the animal whose habits and structure had given rise to so many terror-laden narratives and extravagant traditions.

The following are some of his remarks on the subject of this gigantic and ill-defined animal. Although I have greatly abbreviated them, I have thought it right to quote them at considerable length, that the modest and candid spirit in which they were written may be understood:[4]

"Amongst the many things," he says, "which are in the ocean, and concealed from our eyes, or only presented to our view for a few minutes, is the Kraken. This creature is the largest and most surprising of all the animal creation, and consequently well deserves such an account as the nature of the thing, according to the Creator's wise ordinances, will admit of. Such I shall give at present, and perhaps much greater light on this subject may be reserved for posterity.

"Our fishermen unanimously affirm, and without the least variation in their accounts, that when they row out several miles to sea, particularly in the hot summer days, and by their situation (which they know by taking a view of different points of land) expect to find eighty or a hundred fathoms of water, it often happens that they do not find above twenty or thirty, and sometimes less. At these places they generally find the greatest plenty of fish, especially cod and ling. Their lines, they say, are no sooner out than they may draw them up with the hooks all full of fish. By this they know that the Kraken is at the bottom. They say this creature causes those unnatural shallows mentioned above, and prevents their sounding. These the fishermen are always glad to find, looking upon them as a means of their taking abundance of fish. There are sometimes twenty boats or more got together and throwing out their lines at a moderate distance from each other; and the only thing they then have to observe is whether the depth continues the same, which they know by their lines, or whether it grows shallower, by their seeming to have less water. If this last be the case they know that the Kraken is raising himself nearer the surface, and then it is not time for them to stay any longer; they immediately leave off fis.h.i.+ng, take to their oars, and get away as fast as they can. When they have reached the usual depth of the place, and find themselves out of danger, they lie upon their oars, and in a few minutes after they see this enormous monster come up to the surface of the water; he there shows himself sufficiently, though his whole body does not appear, which, in all likelihood, no human eye ever beheld. Its back or upper part, which seems to be in appearance about an English mile and a half in circ.u.mference (some say more, but I chuse the least for greater certainty), looks at first like a number of small islands surrounded with something that floats and fluctuates like sea-weeds. Here and there a larger rising is observed like sand-banks, on which various kinds of small fishes are seen continually leaping about till they roll off into the water from the sides of it; at last several bright points or horns appear, which grow thicker and thicker the higher they rise above the surface of the water, and sometimes they stand up as high and as large as the masts of middle-sized vessels. It seems these are the creature's arms, and it is said if they were to lay hold of the largest man of war they would pull it down to the bottom. After this monster has been on the surface of the water a short time it begins slowly to sink again, and then the danger is as great as before; because the motion of his sinking causes such a swell in the sea, and such an eddy or whirlpool, that it draws everything down with it, like the current of the river Male.

"As this enormous sea-animal in all probability may be reckoned of the Polype, or of the Starfish kind, as shall hereafter be more fully proved, it seems that the parts which are seen rising at its pleasure, and are called arms, are properly the tentacula, or feeling instruments, called horns, as well as arms. With these they move themselves, and likewise gather in their food.

"Besides these, for this last purpose the great Creator has also given this creature a strong and peculiar scent, which it can emit at certain times, and by means of which it beguiles and draws other fish to come in heaps about it. This animal has another strange property, known by the experience of many old fishermen. They observe that for some months the Kraken or Krabben is continually eating, and in other months he always voids his excrements. During this evacuation the surface of the water is coloured with the excrement, and appears quite thick and turbid. This muddiness is said to be so very agreeable to the smell or taste of other fishes, or to both, that they gather together from all parts to it, and keep for that purpose directly over the Kraken; he then opens his arms or horns, seizes and swallows his welcome guests, and converts them after due time, by digestion, into a bait for other fish of the same kind. I relate what is affirmed by many; but I cannot give so certain a.s.surances of this particular, as I can of the existence of this surprising creature; though I do not find anything in it absolutely contrary to Nature. As we can hardly expect to examine this enormous sea-animal alive, I am the more concerned that n.o.body embraced that opportunity which, according to the following account once did, and perhaps never more may offer, of seeing it entire when dead."

[4] 'Natural History of Norway,' vol. ii., p. 210.

The lost opportunity which the worthy prelate thus lamented, with the true feeling of a naturalist, was made known to him by the Rev. Mr.

Friis, Consistorial a.s.sessor, Minister of Bodoen in Nordland, and Vicar of the college for promoting Christian knowledge, and was to the following effect:

"In the year 1680, a Krake (perhaps a young and foolish one) came into the water that runs between the rocks and cliffs in the parish of Alstaboug, though the general custom of that creature is to keep always several leagues from land, and therefore of course they must die there. It happened that its extended long arms or antennae, which this creature seems to use like the snail in turning about, caught hold of some trees standing near the water, which might easily have been torn up by the roots; but beside this, as it was found afterwards, he entangled himself in some openings or clefts in the rock, and therein stuck so fast, and hung so unfortunately, that he could not work himself out, but perished and putrefied on the spot. The carca.s.s, which was a long while decaying, and filled great part of that narrow channel, made it almost impa.s.sable by its intolerable stench.

"The Kraken has never been known to do any great harm, except,"

the Author quaintly says, "they have taken away the lives of those who consequently could not bring the tidings. I have heard but one instance mentioned, which happened a few years ago, near Fridrichstad, in the diocess of Aggerhuus. They say that two fishermen accidentally, and to their great surprise, fell into such a spot on the water as has been before described, full of a thick slime almost like a mora.s.s. They immediately strove to get out of this place, but they had not time to turn quick enough to save themselves from one of the Kraken's horns, which crushed the head of the boat, so that it was with great difficulty they saved their lives on the wreck, though the weather was as calm as possible; for these monsters, like the sea-snake, never appear at other times."

Pontoppidan then reviews the stories of floating islands which suddenly appear, and as suddenly vanish, commonly credited, and especially mentioned by Luke Debes in his 'Description of Faroe.'

"These islands in the boisterous ocean could not be imagined," he says, "to be of the nature of real floating islands, because they could not possibly stand against the violence of the waves in the ocean, which break the largest vessels, and therefore our sailors have concluded this delusion could come from no other than the great deceiver, the devil."

This accusation, the good bishop, in his desire to be strictly impartial, will not admit on such hear-say evidence, but is determined to, literally, "give the devil his due;" for he warns his readers that "we ought not to charge that apostate spirit without a cause; for," he adds, "I rather think that this devil who so suddenly makes and unmakes these floating islands, is nothing else but the Kraken."

Referring to a monster described by Pliny, he repeats his belief that "This sea-animal belongs to the Polype, or Star-fish species;" but he becomes very much "mixed" between the _Cephalopoda_ and the _Asteridae_, between the pedal segments, or arms, of the cuttle radiating from its head, and the rays of a Star-fish radiating from a central portion of the body. He evidently inclines strongly towards a particular Star-fish, the rays of which continually divide and subdivide themselves, or, as he describes it, "which shoots its rays into branches like those of trees,"

and to which he gave the name of "Medusa's Head," a t.i.tle by which, in its Greek form, _Gorgonocephalus_, it is still known to zoologists.

"These Medusa's Heads," he says, "are supposed by some seafaring people here, to be the young of the Sea-Krake; perhaps they are its smallest ovula." After considering other reports concerning the Kraken, he arrives at the following definite opinion:

"We learn from all this that the Polype or Starfish have amongst their various species some that are much larger than others; and, according to all appearance, amongst the very largest inhabitants of the ocean. If the axiom be true that greatness or littleness makes no change in the species, then this Krake must be of the Polypus kind, notwithstanding its enormous size."

His diagnosis is correct; but it is stated with a modesty which his detractors would do well to imitate; and his concluding words on this subject place him in a light very different from that in which he is popularly regarded:

"I do not in the least insist on this conjecture being true," he writes, "but willingly submit my suppositions in this and every other dubious matter to the judgment of those who are better experienced. If I was an admirer of uncertain reports and fabulous stories, I might here add much more concerning this and other Norwegian sea-monsters, whose existence I will not take upon me to deny, but do not chuse, by a mixture of uncertain relations to make such account appear doubtful as I myself believe to be true and well attested. I shall therefore quit the subject here, and leave it to future writers on this plan to complete what I have imperfectly sketched out, by further experience, which is always the best instructor."

It is easy to recognise in Pontoppidan's description of the Kraken, the form and habits of one of the "Cuttle-fishes," so-called. The appearance of its numerous arms, with which it gathers in its food, and which grow thicker and thicker as they rise above the surface, is just what would take place in the case of one of the pelagic species of these mollusks raising its head out of the sea. The rendering of the water turbid and thick by the emission of a substance which the narrator supposed to be faecal matter, is exactly that which occurs when a cuttle discharges the contents of the remarkable organ known as its ink-bag; and the strong and peculiar scent mentioned as appertaining to it, is actually characteristic of its inky secretion. The musky odour referred to, is more perceptible in some species than in others. In one of the Octopods (_Eledone moschatus_), it is so strong, that the specific name of the animal is derived from it.

The ancient Greeks and Romans, who were well acquainted with the various kinds of cuttles and regarded them all as excellent food, and even as delicacies of the table, applied the word "polypus" especially to the octopus. But Pontoppidan evidently uses it as descriptive of all the cephalopods. It must not be forgotten, however, that when he wrote, science was only slowly recovering from neglect of many centuries'

duration. In the enlightened times of Greece and Rome, natural history flourished, and as in our day, attracted and occupied the attention of the man of science, and afforded recreation to the man of business and the politician. Aristotle wrote 322 years before the birth of Christ, and his works are monuments of practical wisdom. When we consider the period during which he lived, and the isolated nature of his labours, and compare them with the information which he possessed, we are astonished at his sagacity and the great scope and general accuracy of his knowledge. Pliny, 240 years later, lived in times more favourable for the cultivation of science; but with all his advantages made little improvement on the work of the great master. And then, later still, the sun of learning set; and there came over Europe the long night of the dark ages which succeeded Roman greatness, during which science was degraded and ignorance prevailed; and it is not till the middle of the sixteenth century, that the zoologist finds much to interest and instruct him. When we further reflect, that until within the past five and twenty years--till our large aquaria were constructed--Aristotle's knowledge of the habits and life-history of marine animals, and amongst them the cephalopods, was incomparably greater and more perfect than that possessed by any man who had lived since he recorded his observations, we cannot help feeling that in some departments of knowledge there is still lost ground to be recovered.

In the old days of the Caesars, a Greek or Roman house-wife who was accustomed to see the cuttle, the squid, and the octopus daily exposed for sale in the markets, would of course have laughed at the idea of mistaking the one for the other; but there are comparatively few persons in our own country, at the present day, except those who have made marine zoology their study, whose ideas on the subject are not exceedingly hazy. This want of technical knowledge is not confined to the ma.s.ses; but is common, if not general, amongst those who have been well educated, and is frequently apparent even in leaders in the daily papers--the productions, for the most part, of men of receptive minds, trained discrimination, and great general knowledge. As the subject is one in which I have long felt especial interest, I venture to hope that I may succeed in making clear the difference between the eight-footed octopus and its ten-footed relatives, and thus enable the reader to identify the member of the family from which we are to strip the dress and "make up" in which it masqueraded as the Kraken, and cause it to appear in its true and natural form.

One of the great primary groups or divisions of the animal kingdom is that of the soft-bodied mollusca; which includes the cuttle, the oyster, the snail, &c. It has been separated into five "cla.s.ses," of which the one we have especially to notice is the _Cephalopoda_,[5] or "head-footed,"--the animals belonging to it having their feet, or the organs which correspond with the foot of other molluscs, so attached to the head as to form a circle or coronet round the mouth. Some of these have the foot divided into eight segments, and are therefore called the _Octopoda_:[6] others have, in addition to the eight feet, lobes, or arms, two longer tentacular appendages, making ten in all, and are consequently called the _Decapoda_.