The neck and the head

The collector of folklore and journalist Halvor J. Sandsdalen wrote down the story of Torje shortly after it had happened. Sandsdalen included the story in his booklet "Ormen i Seljordsvatnet" of 1976. During the Gust expedition to Seljord, the sympathetic Swede Anders Andersson and I paid Torje and his wife a visit if possibly to hear him tell the story himself. We were warmly welcomed and got to see their restored complete1880 living room as well as his 7 - 9 hundred years old "loft", a Norwegian traditional log house with beautiful carvings. Torje is an expert restorer for sure.

This morning 37 years ago Torje with his little tractor was transporting logs downhill from his forest down to the shore of Seljord lake. The narrow area between the road and the shore had been cleared of trees to make room for his store of timber. This place is called Svarvaren. Unloading logs around 10.00 a.m. Torje was struggling with a log when he noticed something peculiar just outside the shore. At first he thought it must be a moose calf having crossed the lake just south of him. It was not. Torje left his tool and log to try to sneak closer to have a look. At a distance of 40 m he was able to see the animal clearly when a neck protruded right out of the water slightly curved back, with a head that bent down. That animal did not look like anything he had ever seen. The lumberjack was totally perplexed. Torje tried to get even closer southwardly along the shore, but the animal reacted by lowering both neck and head, only to disappear in the pitch black Seljord lake. A back was partly visible as it disappeared. Just waves against the shore revealed that something extraordinary had happened. The animal was visible to Torje about 10 seconds.

The otherwise down-to-earth farmer spent the rest of the day strolling along the shores for another glimpse. This he got. Past noon he saw big waves out towards the Sinnes peninsula. In the waves he saw humps. These were not rounded but had a distinct break. The visible part of each hump could be 75 cm with 5 - 6 m of water in between.  

Torje made me a couple of sketches of the head and neck:          

The neck was arched back, and it could have been 20 cm thick. The colour was greybrown with some orange to it. The head was bent down and about 35 cm long. Torje told me that the head reminded him of the head of a roe deer. He remembered details like a closed mouth, and the closest eye which was dark. He recalled the animal winking the eye once, remembering the light reflecting in the eye. The immediate area of the eye seemed to have soft and loose skin, consisent with a ring surrounding the eye. The nose ridge was curved and an area towards the scull was well marked. The scull itself rose towards a sort of ridge or scull top. At the back of the head he described "bumps". Asking him further what sort of bumps he meant, he related the bumps to the sort of protuding edges in the scull of an old ram. He saw the head in profile, and slightly from the rear before the animal lowered its head and dived.                                                       

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