They tried to kill
the sea serpent

 

AT SEA: Sea serpents always had a nasty reputation of being dangerous to small boats. At any rate people were mortally afraid of them.

Onsøy in Østfold
A man died after having been hit hard by the tail of a sea serpent.

Ellinggårdkilen at Onsøy
In the Ellinggård inlet a sea serpent  used to go ashore to hunt calves of dairy cows. There soon was a trail from the sea leading up to the pasture. No farmer wanted to take the calves indoors, as they then expected the sea creature to cause still worse damage. Not even bullets of old silver did any harm to it. When the congregation was assembled in prayers for protection, the sea serpents took still more calves. One brave and strong man then made a club of solid oak tree and hid to ambush the animal. When the sea serpent finally arrived, he struck a hard blow and killed the beast. The tradition says that one of the vertebrae parts for years was used as a milking stool in the barn of Ellingsøy farm. 

Ørekvam in Hordaland
For a few successive years Åsmund Ørekvam saw a sea serpent at about the same spot at a certain time of the summer. It was growing bigger all the time. He ha made an axe with an unusually long handle in order to kill the serpent. When he met the creature again, it was half in the water, half on land. Even if he was a very strong and curageous man, he did not dare to pick a fight when he got close and saw the sheer size of the animal.

Bjørnefjorden
Johannes Furuberg in Mauranger was on his way to Bergen to buy grain. He had borrowed a gun to defend himself if he met the sea serpent. In the Bjornefjord he saw somthing that he assumed to be a cluster of fishing boats. It wasn`t. It was the sea serpent, and in vain he tried to outrow it. When it got very close to his boat, it raised its head high. Johannes said a prayer, pointing the gun directly into the mouth of the monster he pulled the trigger. The orm sank out of sight and coloured the sea red with blood. Johannes loaded the gun again but the sea serpent did not surface again. 

Molde
Lorentz de Ferry and his oars crew met a sea serpent at Juleneset in 1746. De Ferry shot at the animal, and it disappeared.

Romsdalsfjorden
Five men in a little sailboat met a sea serpent in the Romsdal fjord in 1815. One of the men, J.C.Lund, fired a shot against the head of the sea serpent at close range. The orm chased the men in the small boat till it reached shallow water, whereupon it turned and left.

Brekkestadbukta at Ørland
A sea serpent entered the Brekkestad bay close to the entrance of the Trondheim fjord. It stayed there patrolling the area, forcing the fishermen to stay on land. No one dared go out fishing, until the blacksmith Jørn Hovde solved the problem for them. He rammed a lot of iron spikes into a log and went sea serpent fishing in the bay. When the sea serpent closed in on him, he sent the spiked log forward. The creature attacked the log, and eventuallyt got itself killed from the spike wounds.

Sandøyfjorden
The sea serpent entered the Sandøyfjord and stayed there. No one dared to go fishing, except for an old man who knew what to do. He told the people to ask a blacksmith to make a lot of iron spikes and hammer them into a log he had found. Then they were to push the log out in the fjord next to an anchored boat. So they did. When they started banging on the empty rowing boat, the sea serpent surfaced. It saw the log and attacked. The log started rolling in the water and the sea serpent coiled itself around it. The dead sea serpent later drifted ashore. No animal or bird ever ate from the carcass except for the ravens.

Tysfjorden
Some fishermen were outside the north side of Brynilen. Two boats were anchored to allow the crew to sleep. Suddenly one of the fishermen saw a head come out of the sea. The beast stretched its neck and peeked down into the other boat. Then it disappeared but surfaced again on the other side of the boat. Suddenly it lunged forward and pressed the boat down into the water causing both boat and crew to disappear. The two fishermen of the other boat hurried towards the safety of the nearest shore, but they had to stay there for two days before the sea serpent left the area.
There are other stories about narrow escapes, but none as dramatic as this one.

 

IN THE LAKES AND THE RIVERS: Contrary  to salt water sea serpents the sweet water variety have never presented any direct danger or harm to humans, except for accidents caused by panic or people trying to kill the animal..

Mjøsa
1.A Mjoes orm was killed in 1522 by a volley of cross bow arrows. 
2.Another Mjoes orm had crawled up to the Ringsaker church. A brave man climbed the bell tower and fired at it till it returned to the lake. 
3.In the1920ies a man hunting pike emptied the magazine of his Krag Jørgensen rifle at a sea serpent.

Hønefoss
A man shot at an orm that came swimming downstream the river. When he succeeded in dragging the dead orm ashore and saw the size of the animal, he lost his mind.

Sperillen
Åbborvatnet  at  Bjonskogen.
The gun smith Rifle-Gunder lived in the 1st part of the 19th century. When he was about to kill the greedy sea serpent of the Aabbor lake in the Bjon woods, he crafted a heavy rifle in caliber 20 mm. The orm in the small Aabbor lake was particularly keen on killing and eating livestock. Rifle-Gunder brought a live goat that he tied in a leash on some flat rocks close to the shore, but he also tied himself to a tree as he was afraid of the mesmerizing effect of looking into the sea serpent eyes. The gun was loaded with two bullets, the one on top of the other. The orm came swimming, got ashore and grabbed the bleating goat. Rifle-Gunder then aimed at a yellow spot on the breast of the orm and pulled the trigger. When the death throes of the animal subsided, the Aabbor lakes was coloured red with blood.

This orm was supposed to have come from the lake Randsfjord. That one in turn was supposed to have come from the lake Mjoesa. Stories like these probably originated from the fact that many stories tell about sea serpents that were seen when they appeared on land going back into the lake.

Sperillen
Another sea serpent was supposed to have come from the lake Vangsmjoesa along the river, then entering the lake Sperillen. Again Rifle-Gunder was called upon to hunt it with his unique rifle. Crossing a pasture in Fjoesvika he came next to a summer barn where he spotted a hideous head resting in the doorway. The sea serpent had taken a nap inside the barn. Rifle-Gunder aimed at the head and fired. When the beast was hit in the head the convulsions and death throes of the dying creature crushed much of the inside riggings of the barn. 
The arm of Rifle-Gunder used to twitch when he was about to go hunting some big animal. Before this trip the arm "almost came off", but it was the last time his arm predicted a killing.

Seljord
In the Aall woods there is a small lake calld Mork lake. Knut Kleiva went fishing there when he saw a small orm. He managed to get it ashore and started killing the animal by hitting it with his wooden fishing rod. By the time it died just two feet were left of Knut`s rod. The neighbours called the10 feet long creature a water orm.

Fyresvatn
The sea serpent here was named the Gjev Troll. It was last seen in 1918 by two men when it recieved three rounds from one of the men`s Krag Jørgensen rifle.

In Setesdal
A man ramming a long wooden stick into the throat of a sea serpent, was rewarded by a blow of the tail so hard that he suffered from it the rest of his life.

Hallandsvatnet at Mandal
Two brothers gone fishing to the Halland lake met a sea serpent there in 1969. One of the men threw a heavy stone down onto its head.

Vangsvatnet at Bruvik in Hordaland. An orm rested in the outlet thus damming the lake. People hung gleaming brass outside the bell tower of the church. The orm got curious, came close to have a look and got killed.

Jølstervatnet. The wedding party in a boat hung a silver can outside the boat railing. The orm came, and its head got chopped off.

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