I walk by a house with giant inflatables — a sea serpent and a dragon. I am not sure when sea serpents became part of Halloween decorations, but there it was. My main experience with sea serpents is the 1962 animated ABC television series “Beany and Cecil.” As a 12-year-old, I loved watching Beany, the young boy with a propeller beanie cap, and Cecil the Seasick Sea Serpent.
According to Wikipedia, although “Beany and Cecil” was a children's show, it incorporated satirical references to current events and personalities that adults found entertaining, and the show also attracted adult viewers. Some of the plots and remarks were recognizable as lampoons of current political issues. Along with “The Jetsons” and “The Flintstones,” it was one of the first three color television series by the ABC television network. The Beany and Cecil characters shown in the image above are from left to right: Crowy, Captain Horatio Huffenpuff, Cecil, Beany and Dishonest.
Beany was a young, cupid-faced boy with a propeller beanie cap that allows him to fly. The "Beanycopter," complete with helmet and propeller, became a popularly marketed novelty. Beany is a good-hearted lad. In most episodes, he would be kidnapped by a villain or get caught in a rough situation, crying "Help, Cecil! Help!" to which Cecil would reply "I'm a-comin', Beany-boy!" as he raced to the rescue. This has become something of a catch phrase.
Cecil the Seasick Sea Serpent is a large green sea serpent with a slight lisp. He is fiercely loyal to Beany, but he's not very clever. Cecil's trusting good nature invariably results in him being taken advantage of by the bad people, and he often suffers a great amount of physical abuse — getting smashed flat, losing his head, having his skin burned off, being shattered to pieces — examples of cartoon physics. Cecil also has a superhero alter-ego known as Super-Cecil. In this guise, he wears a modified Superman shirt, complete with cape.
According to Wikipedia, a sea serpent or sea dragon is a type of dragon described in various mythologies, most notably Mesopotamian (Tiamat), Hebrew (Leviathan), Greek (Cetus, Echidna, Hydra, Scylla) and Norse (Jörmungandr).
Mythology
The chaos theme, the chief god in the role of the hero slaying a sea serpent, is widespread both in the ancient Near East and in Indo-European mythology. The Hebrew Bible also has less mythological descriptions of large sea creatures as part of creation under God's command, such as the Tanninim mentioned in Genesis 1:21 and the "great serpent" of Amos 9:3. In the "Aeneid," a pair of sea serpents killed Lacoön and his sons when he argued against bringing the Trojan Horse into Troy.
In antiquity and in the Bible, dragons were envisioned as huge serpentine monsters, which means that the image of a dragon with two or four legs and wings came much later during the Late Middle Ages. Stories depicting sea-dwelling serpents may include the Babylonian myths of Tiamat, the myths of the Hydra, Scylla, Cetus and Echidna in Greek mythology and even the Leviathan.
Tiamat
In the religion of ancient Babylon, Tiamat is a primordial goddess of the salt sea, mating with Abzû, the god of fresh water, to produce younger gods. She is the symbol of the chaos of primordial creation. She is referred to as a woman and described as the glistening one. It is suggested that there are two parts to the Tiamat mythos, the first in which Tiamat is a creator goddess, through a sacred marriage between salt and fresh water, peacefully creating the cosmos through successive generations. In the second Chaoskampf, Tiamat is considered the monstrous embodiment of primordial chaos. Some sources identify her with images of a sea serpent or dragon.
In the Enûma Elish, the Babylonian epic of creation, she gives birth to the first generation of deities; her husband, Apsu, correctly assuming they are planning to kill him and usurp his throne, later makes war upon them and is killed. Enraged, she also wars upon her husband's murderers, taking on the form of a massive sea dragon. She is then slain by Enki's son, the storm-god Marduk, but not before she had brought forth the monsters of the Mesopotamian pantheon, including the first dragons, whose bodies she filled with "poison instead of blood." Marduk then forms the heavens and the Earth from her divided body.
Hydra
The Lernaean Hydra or Hydra of Lerna — more often known simply as the Hydra — is a serpentine water monster in Greek and Roman mythology. Its lair was the lake of Lerna in the Argolid, which was also the site of the myth of the Danaïdes. Lerna was reputed to be an entrance to the Underworld, and archaeology has established it as a sacred site older than Mycenaean Argos. In the canonical Hydra myth, the monster is killed by Heracles (Hercules) as the second of his Twelve Labors.
According to Hesoid, the Hydra was the offspring of Typhon and Echidna. It had poisonous breath and blood so virulent that even its scent was deadly. The Hydra possessed many heads, the exact number of which varies according to the source. Later versions of the Hydra story add a regeneration feature to the monster: for every head chopped off, the Hydra would regrow two heads. Heracles required the assistance of his nephew Iolaus to cut off all of the monster's heads and burn the neck using a sword and fire.
Scylla
In Greek mythology, Scylla is a legendary monster who lives on one side of a narrow channel of water, opposite her counterpart Charybdis. The two sides of the strait are within an arrow's range of each other — so close that sailors attempting to avoid Charybdis would pass dangerously close to Scylla and vice versa.
Scylla is first attested in Homer’s “Odyssey,” where Odysseus and his crew encounter her and Charybdis on their travels. Later myth provides an origin story as a beautiful nymph who gets turned into a monster.
The strait where Scylla dwells has been associated with the Strait of Messina between Calabria — a region of southern Italy — and Sicily. For example, as in Book Three of Virgil's “Aeneid.” The coastal town of Silla in Calabria takes its name from the mythological figure of Scylla, and it is said to be the home of the nymph.
The idiom "between Scylla and Charybdis" has come to mean being forced to choose between two similarly dangerous situations.
Cetus
In Ancient Greek kētos — Latinized as cetus — is any huge sea creature or sea monster. According to the mythology, Perseus slew Cetus to save Andromeda from being sacrificed to it. In a different story, Heracles slew Cetus to save Hesione. The term cetacean for whale derives from cetus. In Greek art, ceti were depicted as serpentine fish. The name of the mythological figure Ceto is derived from kētos. The name of the constellation Cetus also derives from this word.
Echidna
In Greek mythology, Echidna — "She-Viper" — was a monster, half-woman and half-snake, who lived alone in a cave. She was the mate of the fearsome monster Typhon and the mother of many of the most famous monsters of Greek myth, including the Hydra.
Leviathan
Leviathan is a creature with the form of a sea serpent from Jewish belief, referenced in the biblical Book of Job, Psalms, the Book of Isaiah, the Book of Amos; it is also mentioned in the apocryphal First Book of Enoch.
The Leviathan of the Book of Job is a reflection of the older Canaanite Lotan, a primeval monster defeated by the god Baal Hadad. Parallels to the role of Mesopotamian Tiamat defeated by Marduk have long been drawn in comparative mythology, as have been wider comparisons to dragon and world serpent narratives such as Indra slaying Vtra or Thor slaying Jörmungandr. Leviathan also figures in the Hebrew Bible as a metaphor for a powerful enemy, notably Babylon (Isaiah 27:1). Some 19th century scholars have pragmatically interpreted it as referring to large aquatic creatures, such as the crocodile. The word later came to be used as a term for "great whale," as well as for sea monsters in general.
Jörmungandr
In Norse mythology, Jörmungandr ("huge monster") — also known as the Midgard or World Serpent — is a sea serpent, the middle child of the giantess Angrboŏa and Loki. According to the “Prose Edda,” Odin took Loki's three children by Angrboða — the wolf Fenrir, Hel and Jörmungandr — and tossed Jörmungandr into the great ocean that encircles Midgard. The serpent grew so large that it was able to surround the Earth and grasp its own tail. As a result, it received the name of the Midgard Serpent or World Serpent. When it releases its tail, Ragnarök will begin. Ragnarök is a series of events, including a great battle, foretold to lead to the death of a number of great figures, natural disasters and the submersion of the world in water. Jörmungandr's archenemy is the thunder-god, Thor. It is an example of an ouroboros, an ancient symbol depicting a serpent or dragon eating its own tail. Some stories report sailors mistaking Jörmungandr’s back for a chain of islands. Sea serpents also appear frequently in later Scandinavian folklore, particularly in that of Norway.
In 1028 A.D., Saint Olaf is said to have killed a sea serpent in Valldal, Norway, throwing its body onto the mountain Syltefjellet. Marks on the mountain are associated with the legend. In Swedish ecclesiastic and writer Olaus Magnus's “Carta marina,” many marine monsters of varied forms — including an immense sea serpent — appear.
Bergen sea serpent
In his 1555 work “History of the Northern Peoples,” Olaus Magnus gives the following description of a Norwegian sea serpent:
Those who sail up along the coast of Norway to trade or to fish, all tell the remarkable story of how a serpent of fearsome size — 200 feet or even 400 feet long and 20 feet wide — resides in rifts and caves outside Bergen. On bright summer nights this serpent leaves the caves to eat calves, lambs and pigs, or it fares out to the sea and feeds on sea nettles, crabs and similar marine animals. It has long hair hanging from its neck, sharp black scales and flaming red eyes. It attacks vessels, grabs and swallows people, as it lifts itself up like a column from the water.
Possible sightings
An apparent eyewitness account is found in Aristotle's “Historia Animalium.” Greek geographer and philosopher Strabo makes reference to an eyewitness account of a dead sea creature sighted by Poseidonius on the coast of the northern Levant. He reports the following: "As for the plains, the first, beginning at the sea, is called Macras, or Macra-Plain. Here, as reported by Poseidonius, was seen the fallen dragon, the corpse of which was about a plethrum [100 feet] in length, and so bulky that horsemen standing by it on either side could not see one another; and its jaws were large enough to admit a man on horseback, and each flake of its horny scales exceeded an oblong shield in length." The creature was seen by Poseidonius — a philosopher, politician, astronomer, geographer, historian and mathematician — sometime between 130 and 51 BC.
Hans Egede, a Dano-Norwegian Lutheran missionary and the national saint of Greenland, gives an 18th-century description of a sea serpent. On July 6, 1734 his ship sailed past the coast of Greenland when suddenly those on board "saw a most terrible creature, resembling nothing they saw before. The monster lifted its head so high that it seemed to be higher than the crow’s nest on the mainmast. The head was small and the body short and wrinkled. The unknown creature was using giant fins which propelled it through the water. Later the sailors saw its tail as well. The monster was longer than our whole ship," wrote Egede.
On 6 August 1848, Captain McQuhae of HMS Daedalus and several of his officers and crew — en route to St. Helena — saw a sea serpent which was subsequently reported and debated in The Times. The vessel sighted what they named as an enormous serpent between the Cape of Good Hope and St. Helena. The serpent was witnessed to have been swimming with four feet of its head above the water, and they believed that there was another 60 feet of the creature in the sea. Captain McQuahoe also said that "[The creature] passed rapidly, but so close under our lee quarter, that had it been a man of my acquaintance I should have easily have recognized his features with the naked eye." According to seven members of the crew, it remained in view for around 20 minutes. Another officer wrote that the creature was more of a lizard than a serpent. Evolutionary biologist Gary J. Galbreath contends that what the crew of Daedalus saw was a sei baleen whale.
A report was published in the Illustrated London News on April 14, 1849 of a sighting of a sea serpent off the Portuguese coast by HMS Plumper:
On the morning of the December 31, 1848, in lat. 41° 13'N., and long. 12° 31'W., being nearly due west of Oporto, I saw a long black creature with a sharp head, moving slowly, I should think about two knots [2.3 mph] ... its back was about 20 feet if not more above water; and its head, as near as I could judge, from six to eight ...There was something on its back that appeared like a mane, and, as it moved through the water, kept washing about; but before I could examine it more closely, it was too far astern.
According to Stephanie Hall’s Aug. 8, 2016 article “The Great American Sea Serpent” in Folklife Today, beginning with a sighting of the Gloucester, Massachusetts sea serpent in August 1817, the idea arose that there was a sea serpent found in the Atlantic off North and South America. Gloucester legends had told of a strange monster on the coast from colonial times. An 1817 report of the Linnaean Society of Massachusetts summarized interviews with people who had seen it, including sightings from previous years. They proposed that it was a new species, Scoliophis atlanticus. It was said to be a dark sinuous animal that moved vertically up and down in the water like a caterpillar. But actual reports of observers varied a great deal. Witnesses on the shore said it resembled a long line of barrels, riding high in the water. Those who saw it from ships reported a snake that was dark with a head like a horse. Subsequent drawings of it varied a good deal. Captain Joseph Woodward of the schooner Adamant reported an encounter off the coast of Cape Ann in May, 1818. He said he shot a cannon at the monster. He was quoted as saying that after the cannon shot:
The serpent shook its head and its tail in an extraordinary manner and advanced toward the ship with open jaws; I had caused the cannon to be reloaded, but he had come so near that all the crew were seized with terror, and we thought only of getting out of his way. He almost touched the vessel and, had I not tacked as I did, he would certainly have come on board. He dived, but in a moment we saw him come up again with his head on one side of the vessel and his tail on the other as if he was going to lift up and upset us. However, we did not feel any shock. He remained five hours near us, only going backward and forward.
— British Literary Gazette, August 1, 1818 (page 489)
According to Chelsea Steinaur-Scudder’s essay “The Great Sea Serpent of Casco Bay” in Emergence Magazine, in 1779 Edward Preble, an ensign on the ship Protector, spotted a great serpent in Penobscot Bay, off the coast of Maine. Ordered into a longboat, Preble approached the beast — whose head rose several feet out of the water atop a thick neck like that of a giant snake — took aim, and fired a shot. He missed. The creature vanished beneath the surface, never to be seen by Preble again.
Nearly 40 years later, in the summer of 1818, a serpentine monster was sighted from Week’s Wharf in Portland Harbor. In 1836 Captain Black, aboard the schooner Fox, reported a sighting of a snakelike creature in the seas near Mount Desert Rock. Major General H. C. Merriam and his sons were sailing to Wood Island Light in 1905, when they spotted a “monster serpent,” which proceeded to swim circles around their boat. In 1910, from the deck of the steamer Bonita, passengers saw an 80-foot-long black beast with white spots arc through the water.
In local folklore these sightings have cumulatively been attributed to the mysterious existence of the Casco Bay sea serpent, an elusive monster ever roaming the cold Atlantic waters off the coast of southern Maine.
Many of the ideas formed about sea serpents in the 19th century with the problem of the great American sea serpent were brought into the 20th, and some are still with us today. Some of these 19th century ideas are cleverly brought together in a Washington Times article, “The Sea Serpent is a Fact” from April 24, 1904, available via Chronicling America. A fanciful drawing of a giant oarfish dominates the page, accompanied by depictions of sea serpents sighted during the past century. Notice the plesiosaur at the bottom of the page. The vigorous life of the theory of surviving ancient creatures can be seen in “Possible Sea-Serpents: Prehistoric Monsters that May Not be Extinct,” by Frederic A. Lucas, director of the Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences. New-York Tribune Sunday Magazine. (New York, NY), 18 June 1905, page 5 (also found in Chronicling America).
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