The Stronsay Beast
In September 1808, off Rothiesholm Head on Stronsay in Orkney, a farmer reported a strange carcass at sea. It was driven ashore about ten days later and measured at some 55 feet.
John Peace, a tenant at Rothiesholm, swore that on 26 September 1808 he was fishing off the east of Rothiesholm Head when he saw what he took for a dead whale on sunk rocks, a quarter mile from the Head. Sea-fowl were screaming around it. He rowed up and found it differed from a whale, because it had fins or arms. He raised one on his boat-hook and pulled off some bristles about ten inches long. He said that about ten days later a south-east gale drove it ashore on Rothiesholm Head, where he measured it at about nine fathoms, or fifty-four to fifty-five feet, and counted six arms.
Thomas Fotheringhame, a house-carpenter from Kirkwall, swore that he went to see the fish in Rothiesholm Bay during the October gales. He measured it with a foot-rule at exactly fifty-five feet, with a neck of ten feet three inches. Wikipedia dates the carcass coming ashore after a storm to 25 September 1808, a day earlier than Peace's sighting of it afloat.
The Wernerian Society of Edinburgh was unable to name it and judged it a new species, probably a sea serpent. Patrick Neill named it Halsydrus pontoppidani. Sir Everard Home later put its length nearer 30 feet and called it a decayed basking shark, and John Goodsir reached the same view in 1849. Karl Shuker defends the 55-foot figure and suggests a larger relative of the basking shark.
"Compeared Joun PEACE, tenant in Douna- toun in Rothiesholm ; and being interrogated, s0- lemnly declares, That on the 26th day of Septem- ber last, he went a fishing off the east part of Ro- thiesholm-head, when he perceived, as he imagi- ned, a dead whale, on some sunk rocks, about a quarter of ; a mile from the Head : That his atten- tion was first directed to it by the sea-fowl scream- ing and flocking about it ; and on approach of it, in his boat, he found the middle part of it above ; the surface of the water: That he then observed it to be different from a whale, particularly i in ha- ving fins or arms, one of which he raised with his boat- hook above the surface of the water : That this was one of the arms next the head, which was larger and broader than the others nearer the tail; and at that time the fin or arm was edged all around, from the body to the extremity of the toes, with a row of bristles about ten inches long, } some of which he pulled off, and examined in the boat : ‘That about ten days afterwards, a gale of south-east wind came on, and the surge drove the fish ashore on ‘Rothiesholm-head : That he mea- sured it by fathoms, and found it about nine fa- thoms, rather more than less; that is, about fifty- four or fifty- five feet in length : That be observed the six arms, or wings as they are calied on the | island ; but perceived no part of the bristles then"
- The six-legged sea serpent of Stronsay: still basking in cryptozoological controversy?, Karl Shuker (ShukerNature blog)
- Memoirs of the Wernerian Natural History Society, vol. 1 (1811): On the Orkney Animal, affidavit of Thomas Fotheringhame, Kirkwall, 10 Nov. 1808, Wernerian Natural History Society (Edinburgh, 1811), via Internet Archive
- Stronsay Beast, Wikipedia