Page:Blackwood's Magazine volume 002.djvu/671
of this species, which shall afterwards be spoken of); its back or upper part, which seems to be in appearance about an English mile and a half in circumference (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 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 for 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 every thing down with it, like the current of the river Male, which has been described in its proper place." Vol. ii. p. 211. He adds, "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."
It is a favourite notion of Pontoppidan, and seems indeed extremely probable, that from the appearance of the kraken originate those traditions of floating islands being so frequently observed in the North Sea. Thus Debes, in his Feroa Reserata, alludes to certain islands which suddenly appear and as suddenly vanish. Similar accounts may be found in the Mundus Mirabilis of Harpelius, and in the History of Norway by Torfæus. These islands are looked upon, by the common people, as the habitations of evil spirits, which appear at sea for the purpose of confounding their reckoning, and leading them into danger and difficulty. That these superstitious notions are occasioned by the appearance of some monstrous sea animal, is the more likely, in as far as real floating islands are never seen at sea, being incapable of resisting the swell and tumult of its waters. In lakes, marshes, and rivers, they have sometimes been met with, but never elsewhere.
"But, according to the laws of truth," says Pontoppidan, "we ought not to charge this apostate spirit without a cause. I rather think that this devil, who so suddenly makes and unmakes these floating islands, is nothing else but the kraken, which some seafaring people call Soe-draulen, that is Soetrolden, or Sea-mischief. What confirms me in this opinion, is the following occurrence, quoted by that worthy Swedish physician, Dr Urban Hierne, in his short introduction to an Inquiry into the Ores and Minerals of that country, p. 98, from Baron Charles Grippenheim. The quotation is as follows: 'Amongst the rocks about Stockholm there is sometimes seen a certain track of land, which at other times disappears, and is seen again in another place. Buræus has placed this as an island in his map. The peasants, who call it Gummers-ore, say that it is not always seen, and that it lies out in the open sea, but I could never find it. One Sunday when I was out among the rocks, sounding the coast, it happened, that in one place I saw something like three points of land in the sea, which surprised me a little, and I thought that I had inadvertently passed them over before. Upon this, I called to a peasant to inquire for Gummers-ore; but when he came we could see nothing of it; on which the peasant said, all was well, and that this prognosticated a storm, or a great quantity of fish,' &c. Now," says the Bishop, "who is it that cannot discover, at first sight, that this visible and invisible Gummers-ore, with its points and prognostications of fish, cannot possibly be any thing else but the kraken, krabben, or soe-horven, improperly placed in a map by Buræus as an island. Probably the creature keeps himself always about that spot, and often rises up amongst the rocks and cliffs." Vol. ii. p. 214.
Many people have objected to the accounts of the kraken, for very inadequate reasons, alleging, that if such a creature had been created, it would have multiplied like other animals in the course of time, and by its occasional occurrence would ere this have dispelled all doubts concerning its existence. The same futile arguments were applied, and with equal propriety, to the sea-snake, of which we shall afterwards speak; and the occurrence of the animal itself among the Orkney isles in the summer of 1808, and more recently off the American coast, where it was seen by hundreds of people, has scarcely been deemed sufficient to corroborate the testimony of the older writers. It appears, in fact, to be a law of nature, that all animals of extraordinary magnitude produce much fewer young than those of inferior dimensions; at least, the elephant, the rhinoceros, the hippopotamus, and the giraffe, are among the least prolific of