“It continued there while the warm weather lasted, lying motionless, and as if dozing, in the sunbeams.
“The number of persons living on the island, he said, was about thirty; the whole of whom, from motives of curiosity, went to look at it while it remained. This was confirmed to me by subsequent inquiries among the inhabitants, who gave a similar account of it. The first time that he saw it he was in a boat, at the distance of two hundred yards. The length of it he supposes to have been about three hundred ells or six hundred feet. Of this he could not speak accurately; but it was of considerable length, and longer than it appeared, as it lay in large coils above the water to the height of many feet. Its colour was greyish. At the distance at which he was, he could not ascertain whether it were covered with scales; but when it moved it made a loud crackling noise, which he distinctly heard. Its head was shaped like that of a serpent; but he could not tell whether it had teeth or not. He said it emitted a very strong odour; and that the boatmen were afraid to approach near it, and looked on its coming as a bad sign, as the fish left the coast in consequence! Such were the particulars he related to me.
“The merchant at Krogoën confirmed in every particular the account of Captain Schielderup, and that many of the people of Krogoën had witnessed it.
“On the island of Lekö I obtained from the son of Peter Greger, the merchant, a young man who employed himself in the fishery, still further information respecting the sea-serpent. It was in August of the preceding year, while fishing with others in the Viig or Veg-Fjord, that he saw it. At that time they were on shore hauling in their nets, and it appeared about sixty yards distant from them, at which they were not a little alarmed, and immediately retreated. What was seen of it above water, he said, appeared six times the length of their boat, of a grey colour, and lying in coils a great height above the surface. Their fright prevented them from attending more accurately to other particulars. In fact, they all fairly took to their heels when they found the monster so near to them.
“At Alstahoug I found the Bishop of the Nordlands. The worthy prelate was a sensible and well-informed man, between fifty and sixty years of age. To the testimony of others respecting the existence of the sea-serpent, I shall now add that of the Bishop himself, who was an eye-witness to the appearance of two in the Bay of Shuresund or Sörsund, on the Drontheim Fjord, about eight Norway miles from Drontheim. He was but a short distance from them, and saw them plainly. They were swimming in large folds, part of which were seen above the water, and the length of what appeared of the largest he judged to be about one hundred feet. They were of a darkish grey colour; the heads hardly discernible, from their being almost under water, and they were visible for only a short time. Before that period he had treated the account of them as fabulous; but it was now impossible, he said, to doubt their existence, as such numbers of respectable people since that time had likewise seen them on several occasions. He had never met with any person who had seen the kraken, and was inclined to think it a fable.
“During the time that I remained at Hundholm, a curious circumstance occurred. One day, when at dinner at Mr. Blackhall’s house, and thinking little of the sea-serpent, concerning which I had heard nothing for some time, a young man, the master of a small fishing-yacht, which had just come in from Drontheim, joined our party. In the course of conversation he mentioned that a few hours before, whilst close to Hundholm, and previous to his entering the harbour, two sea-snakes passed immediately under his yacht. When he saw them he was on the deck, and, seizing a handspike, he struck at them as they came up close to the vessel on the other side, upon which they disappeared. Their length was very great, and their colour greyish, but for the very short time they were visible he could not notice any further particulars.
“He had no doubt of their being snakes, as he called them, and the circumstance was related entirely of his own accord.”
Captain Brooke sums up the reports he received with the following general observations:—
“Taking upon the whole a fair view of the different accounts related in the foregoing pages respecting the sea-serpent, no reasonable person can doubt the fact of some marine animal of extraordinary dimensions, and in all probability of the serpent tribe, having been repeatedly seen by various persons along the Norway and Finmark coasts. These accounts, for the most part, have been given verbally from the mouths of the fishermen, a honest and artless class of men, who, having no motive for misrepresentation, cannot be suspected of a wish to deceive; could this idea, however, be entertained, the circumstance of their assertions having been so fully confirmed by others, in more distant parts, would be sufficient to free them from any imputation of this kind.
“The simple facts are these: In traversing a space of full seven hundred miles of coast, extending to the most northern point, accounts have been received from numerous persons respecting the appearance of an animal called by them a sea-serpent. This of itself would induce some degree of credit to be given to it; but when these several relations as to the general appearance of the animal, its dimensions, the state of the weather when it was seen, and other particulars, are so fully confirmed, one by the other, at such considerable intervening distances, every reasonable man will feel satisfied of the truth of the main fact. Many of the informants, besides, were of superior rank and education; and the opinions of such men as the Amtmand (Governor) of Finmark, Mr. Steen, the clergyman of Carlsö, Prosten (Dean) Deinboll of Vadsö, and the Bishop of Nordland and Finmark, who was even an eye-witness, ought not to be disregarded.