DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.70267#0059
OF MERMAIDS.
43
head, which hung down to the surface of the water all round
about her; she held a fish with its head downwards, in her
right hand. I was told also, that in the same year, the
fishermen in Westerman-haven, on Stromoe, had, in their
fishery north of Faroe, seen a mer-maid.
That these creatures being fish of prey, sometimes quar-
rel with the sea-calf, is confirmed by a relation sent me,
with several others, by the Rev. Mr. Hanstrom, at Bergen.
It runs to this effect:—“ It happened at Nerse, in Nume-
dalen, that there was found a mer-man and sea-calf on a
rock, both dead and all over bloody ; from which it is con-
jectured that they had killed one another.”
In the year 1624, a mer-man, thirty-six feet, long, was
taken in the Adriatic Sea ; according to Henry Seebald’s
Breviar Histor. to this the last mentioned, was but a dwarf.
See p. 535. As to their form, it is said, that some have
a skin over their heads like a monk’s hood, which, perhaps,
serves them for the same purpose ; as does the skinny hood,
which a certain sort of sea-calves have on their heads,
which from thence are called Klap-mitzer, as has been ob-
served in the description of that creature. Olaus Magnus
speaks, in lib. xxi. cap. 1. of several monsters in the North
Sea, all which resemble thehuman kind, with a monk’s hood
on the head. His words are, “ Cucullate hominis forma
he adds, that if any of this company be catched, a number
of them set up a howl, put themselves in violent agitations,
and oblige the fishermen to set the prisoner at liberty. But
this last article is a mere romance, to which this too credu-
lous author in this, as well as some other particulars, has
given too much credit, without sufficient grounds.
Of this mer-man with a hood, Rondeletius writes thus, in
Gesner. de Aquatilibus, lib. iv, which I ought not to omit.
As this account confounds Norway with the Sound, and
Malmoe, which the Dutch call the Elbow, I conclude this
strange fish here spoken of, to have been just the same
with that which Arild Hvitfield in vita Christ, iii ad
anno
43
head, which hung down to the surface of the water all round
about her; she held a fish with its head downwards, in her
right hand. I was told also, that in the same year, the
fishermen in Westerman-haven, on Stromoe, had, in their
fishery north of Faroe, seen a mer-maid.
That these creatures being fish of prey, sometimes quar-
rel with the sea-calf, is confirmed by a relation sent me,
with several others, by the Rev. Mr. Hanstrom, at Bergen.
It runs to this effect:—“ It happened at Nerse, in Nume-
dalen, that there was found a mer-man and sea-calf on a
rock, both dead and all over bloody ; from which it is con-
jectured that they had killed one another.”
In the year 1624, a mer-man, thirty-six feet, long, was
taken in the Adriatic Sea ; according to Henry Seebald’s
Breviar Histor. to this the last mentioned, was but a dwarf.
See p. 535. As to their form, it is said, that some have
a skin over their heads like a monk’s hood, which, perhaps,
serves them for the same purpose ; as does the skinny hood,
which a certain sort of sea-calves have on their heads,
which from thence are called Klap-mitzer, as has been ob-
served in the description of that creature. Olaus Magnus
speaks, in lib. xxi. cap. 1. of several monsters in the North
Sea, all which resemble thehuman kind, with a monk’s hood
on the head. His words are, “ Cucullate hominis forma
he adds, that if any of this company be catched, a number
of them set up a howl, put themselves in violent agitations,
and oblige the fishermen to set the prisoner at liberty. But
this last article is a mere romance, to which this too credu-
lous author in this, as well as some other particulars, has
given too much credit, without sufficient grounds.
Of this mer-man with a hood, Rondeletius writes thus, in
Gesner. de Aquatilibus, lib. iv, which I ought not to omit.
As this account confounds Norway with the Sound, and
Malmoe, which the Dutch call the Elbow, I conclude this
strange fish here spoken of, to have been just the same
with that which Arild Hvitfield in vita Christ, iii ad
anno