Research source

"At Alstahoug I found the Bishop of the Nordlands

Date of account: Published 1886
Source: Mythical Monsters
Reference: Mythical Monsters · selected passage 143
Rights: public_domain
Language: English
Record updated: 2026-08-24

Record summary

Published source text

Read the available text below. Archive transcriptions may contain OCR errors; later context is labelled separately. A recorded claim is not a finding that it happened.

Source passage

Source text · mention only

"At Alstahoug I found the Bishop of the Nordlands. The worthy prelate was a sensible and well-informed man, between fifty and sixty years of age. To the testimony of others respecting the existence of the sea-serpent, I shall now add that of the Bishop himself, who was an eye-witness to the appearance of two in the Bay of Shuresund or Sörsund, on the Drontheim Fjord, about eight Norway miles from Drontheim. He was but a short distance from them, and saw them plainly. They were swimming in large folds, part of which were seen above the water, and the length of what appeared of the largest he judged to be about one hundred feet. They were of a darkish grey colour; the heads hardly discernible, from their being almost under water, and they were visible for only a short time. Before that period he had treated the account of them as fabulous; but it was now impossible, he said, to doubt their existence, as such numbers of respectable people since that time had likewise seen them on several occasions.

Historical context

Contextual commentary · mention only

This is a historical compilation of unusual-animal reports and argument. Witness testimony, repetition between publications and the author's zoological assumptions all affect independence and reliability.

Modern context

Contextual commentary · mention only

Lattice compares morphology, behaviour and setting while keeping misidentification, folklore, exaggeration, error and known animals available as alternatives.

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