The Suffolk Sea Dragon

The creature's thrashing form was dragged ashore, the sand around it being churned up as it beat its hooved legs down into the ground in desperation. Hardly able to think straight in the thick fog placed over his mind by the panic of the situation, a fisherman grabbed a boat-hook and beat the reptilian monstrosity down to the ground. Feeling safe enough now to open the net, the frantic men unbound their bizarre catch - but their sense of safety would quickly be revealed to be false...

## Orm of Orford

The introduction to this article is a dramatised retelling of a truly bewildering story relayed to the Suffolk Naturalists' Society by a man named Mr. Lingwood - a member of a local Gentleman's Magazine in which the tale was originally told. The story in question details how, in 1749, '*a monster of a very singular nature*' was captured by fishermen off the coast of Suffolk between Orford and Southwold. It can be gathered that they were attempting to catch mackrel, and succeeded in doing so, but that they also managed to capture something which was very much more than they bargained for.

When the men realised that they had caught something highly unusual, they dragged the thing to shore and knocked it down onto the ground with a boat-hook. Presumably out of curiosity at what exactly they had procured from the briny depths, they decided to open the net - this was a mistake. As soon as the net was open, the creature '*suddenly sprung up*' and used wing-like organs to fly over 50 yards (150ft) away from its tormentors. The man who had initially seized the creature was attacked during this brief rampage, and his fingers were bitten off. As if this wasn't horrifying enough, the wound quickly mortified and he swiftly succumbed to this process - dying soon afterwards. The creature then '*fastened*' on the arm of said man - perhaps this means that it ate it, but I can't tell due to the tricky nature of Old English. The source only gets more annoyingly difficult to decipher after this, with either the man's arm or the creature itself being '*dessicated*' and '*lacerated*' to such a point that its muscles shrank and its hand was horribly distorted. The wounds inflicted on this unclear recipient are said to be so bad that they were '*thought incurable*'. I suppose that this implies that it is the man's arm that we are talking about here, seeing as no mention of the monstrosity's hands are made ever again. Then again, I'm sure that even people in the 1700s wouldn't have expected the wounds on a corpse to naturally heal...

Anyhow - the creature was somehow recaptured by the fishermen after this, who then killed it and dried its carcass so that it could be put on display as a curiosity. Mr. Lingwood apparently went to see this macabre trophy at an unspecified location, and he was able to provide the aforementioned Naturalists' Society with a much better description of the critter than had previously been offered. He said that its head and tail resembled those of an alligator, and that its body was covered in '*impenetrable scales*' and measured roughly 4ft, but also clarified that it was obviously longer before the dessication process. It apparently had two large fins with which it was able to both swim and fly, and Lingwood said that - although they were now too dry to stretch out - they looked to be of the same folded shape as the wings given to dragons and other monsters by painters on coats of arms. The sketch made of the creature shows that its wings emerge from its shoulders, despite the Naturalists' Society expecting them to come from its neck for some bizarre reason. Its legs were said to lack joints, and to end in hooves '*like those of an ass*' - but the Naturalists' Society notes that they were probably severely damaged and distorted in the dessication process and so this description may not be accurate. It had five rows of '*very white and sharp teeth*' in each jaw.

## An Enigma of '*Quite Irrecoverable*' Identity

Although the Naturalists' Society decries the description as being '*too inexact*' to be considered anything more than a nebulous curiosity (ouch - I love the savagery in these old documents), it does briefly entertain the notion that perhaps this creature was of the same variety as what had previously been called a cockatrice by Aldrovanus, but then goes back on this speculation by saying that the wings make this identity difficult to back up. Also, Aldrovanus's cockatrice was a serpentine creature with eight legs and a cockerel's head - meaning that this comparison was kind of pointless anyway.

However, I do have a theory of my own which could possibly explain the dessicated specimen seen by Lingwood. There is something called a Jenny Haniver, which is a common curio made from the dried and mummified remains of a skate or ray, and then sold as either a dragon or a demon. Sources dating as far back as 1558 were warning potential buyers that these creatures were actually just fish made to look like fanciful fiends. The description in Mr. Lingwood's version of events of boneless legs and dried wings makes me think that what he was looking at could've been a Jenny Haniver, but obviously this theory falls apart if we are to take the fishermen's story at face value. What do you think of this story? Do you have any theories of your own?

## Source

'The Reptiles of Suffolk' by the Suffolk Naturalists' Society