"I have questioned its existence myself, till that suspicion was removed by full and sufficient evidence from creditable and experienced fishermen and sailors in Norway, of which there are hundreds who can testify that they have annually seen them. All these persons agree very well in the general description; and others who acknowledge that they only know it by report or by what their neighbours have told them, still relate the same particulars. In all my inquiry about these affairs I have hardly spoke with any intelligent person born in the manor of Nordland who was not able to give a pertinent answer, and strong assurances of the existence of this fish; and some of our north traders that come here every year with their merchandize think it a very strange 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 demonstration of it, made the following statement, addressed formally and officially to the procurator of Bergen:--
"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-Næss, 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 gun, that was ready charged, and fired at it; on this he immediately plunged under the water. We rowed to the place where it sunk down (which in the calm might be easily observed) and lay upon our oars, thinking it would come up again to the surface; however it did not. Where the snake plunged down, the water appeared thick and red; perhaps some of the shot might wound it, the distance being very little. The head of this snake, which it held more than two feet above the surface of the water, resembled that of a horse. It was of a greyish colour, and the mouth was quite black, and very large. It had black eyes, and a long white mane, that hung down from the neck to the surface of the water. Besides the head and neck, we saw seven or eight folds, or coils, of this snake, which were very thick, and as far as we could guess there was about a fathom distance between each fold. I related this affair in a certain company, where there was a person of distinction present who desired that I would communicate to him an authentic detail of all that happened; and for this reason two of my sailors, who were present at the same time and place where I saw this monster, namely, Nicholas Pedersen Kopper, and Nicholas Nicholsen Anglewigen, shall appear in court, to declare on oath the truth of every particular herein set forth; and I desire the favour of an attested copy of the said descriptions.