In his fascinating book [1] about the sea monsters that
adorn various early maps, Chet Van Duzer writes:
I would suggest that sea monsters
on maps have two main roles. First, they may serve as graphic records of
literature about sea monsters, indications of possible dangers to sailors – and
datapoints in the geography of the marvellous. Second, they may function as
decorative elements which enliven the image of the world, suggesting in a general
way that the sea can be dangerous, but more emphatically indicating and drawing
attention to the vitality of the oceans and the variety of creatures in the
world, and to the cartographers artistic talents.. ..During the Renaissance,
sea monsters on maps reflect and express an increased general interest in
wonders and marvels.. ..the more exotic the creature depicted, the better, and
the study of both maps and images of exotic creatures was thought to sharpen
the intellect and be educational. Maps decorated with sea monsters, by
implication, would offer the viewer an even richer intellectual experience.
If that is the case, the map produced by Olaus Magnus (1490-1557),
and shown below, must have been of great significance. Of the many sea monsters
depicted, perhaps the most well-known is the sea serpent described by Olaus as
follows [1]:
Those who do their work aboard
ship off the shores of Norway, either in trading or fishing, give unanimous testimony
to something utterly astounding: a serpent of gigantic bulk, at least two
hundred feet long, and twenty feet thick, frequents the cliffs and hollows of
the sea coast near Bergen. It leaves its caves in order to devour calves,
sheep, and pigs, though only during the bright summer nights, or swims through
the sea to batten on octopus, lobsters, and other crustaceans. It has hairs
eighteen inches long hanging from its neck, sharp, black scales, and flaming
red eyes. It assaults ships, rearing itself on high like a pillar, seizes men
and devours them.
Such a creature (the red “snake” attacking a ship in the
image below) would deter fisherman, and other sailors, from entering
Scandinavian waters and, as Van Duzer points out, this may be one of the
reasons for the location of sea serpents, and other monsters, on maps.
Sea serpent myths have a wide distribution and examples have
been described by Aristotle, Pliny the Elder and many others [2]. Although
there were sightings of serpents from Norwegian waters in the Nineteenth Century,
the most well-known observation of one of the creatures was made by Captain
Peter M’Quhæ of H.M.S.Daedalus off the south-west coast
of Africa. As an Officer in the Royal Navy he was viewed as a reliable source
and The Times of 9th October 1848
carried a report of M’Quhæ’s sighting.
His letter to The Admiralty was quoted by Philip Henry Gosse in The Romance of Natural History [3] and it
contains the following description of the creature:
..it was discovered to be an
enormous serpent, with head and shoulders kept about four feet constantly above
the surface of the sea, and, as nearly as we could approximate by comparing it
with the length of what our maintopsail-yard would shew in the water, there was
at the very least sixty feet of the animal [at the surface of the water], no
portion of which was, to our perception, used in propelling it through the
water, either by vertical or horizontal undulation..
..The diameter of the serpent was
about fifteen or sixteen inches behind the head, which was, without any doubt,
that of a snake; and it was never, during the twenty minutes that it continued
in sight of our glasses, once below the surface of the water; its colour a dark
brown, with yellowish white about the throat. It had no fins, but something
like the mane of a horse, or rather a bunch of sea-weed, washed about its
back..
There are differences to the sea serpent described
by Olaus Magnus but, as with all descriptions of these creatures, it is large
and snake-like. Gosse, who was a literalist Christian and believer in Creation,
had sufficient faith in M’Quhæ’s
sighting to propose that the sea serpent was an enaliosaur; spending many
pages of The Romance of Natural History
sifting through the conclusions of others.
What
did M’Quhæ, and others aboard his ship, see? Given that humpback whales using bubble nets could be the origin of belief in the
kraken [4], the answer may lie with the behaviours of contemporary marine
animals, although there is no obvious explanation for the appearance of the sea serpent. There are many who still wish to believe in the survival of
dinosaurs, and the well-established mythological importance of snakes and
dragons with extraordinary powers certainly influences our imagination.
[1] Chet Van Duzer (2013) Sea Monsters on Medieval and Renaissance Maps. London, The British
Library.
[2] Joseph Nigg (2013) Sea
Monsters: The Lore and Legacy of Olaus Magnus’s Marine Map. Lewes, Ivy
Press.
[3] Philip Henry Gosse (1860) The Romance of Natural History. London, J. Nisbet and Co.
The copy of Olaus Magnus's map used in the illustrations above come from Nigg's book (see reference [2]).
