H W Lee

Sea Monsters Unmasked and Sea Fables Explained H W Lee

Pontoppidan was not a fabricator of falsehoods; but, in collecting evidence relating to the "great beasts" living in "the great and wide sea," was influenced, as he tells us, by "a desire to extend the popular knowledge of the glorious works of a beneficent Creator." He gave too much credence to contemporary narratives and old traditions of floating islands and sea monsters, and to the superstitious beliefs and exaggerated statements of ignorant fishermen: but if those who ridicule him had lived in his day and amongst his people, they would probably have done the same; for even Linnæus was led to believe in the Kraken, and catalogued it in the first edition of his 'Systema Naturæ, ' as 'Sepia Microcosmos.