Sea monster captured between Scheveningen and Katwijk, 1661

Translation:
A WONDERFUL SEA MONSTER TO SEE.

This aforesaid sea monster is caught between Schevelingen and Katwijk in the sea, on Saturday the 2nd of November, 1661, and has still not died since it was caught. It is smooth, is long around two fathoms itself, has a very wonderful head and snout, with large white eyes like large plates, the beak like a parrot, and eight long tentacles, with which it is able to grab, and at the ends of which are Spanish stars; and at the end of its wondrous body is a tail like a fan, long around two fathoms, and the underside covered with the same suckers. The sack of the monster is long around one fathom, and not very fat; its face pale as the face of a dead man.

This monster is of the true piscatores, as the wonder books call them, and is named by Mr. Johannes van Luyden, professor of medicine at Leiden, who has written about it. This fish is cooked and eaten six times a year, but it cannot be kept (because it quickly rots); but there are also people who have seen this wonder fish and caught it before, and some say it is a natural creation of nature never seen before; some say it is a kind of octopus, others think it is a sea devil, so that many various opinions are expressed about this wondrous creation of nature; some say it is a sea monk, others say it is a sea bishop.

This wondrous sea monster is to be seen (with commentary by the showman in each city on the market and also in the painted house).

Where one shows it for a small fee.

—

https://www.rijksmuseum.nl/en/collection/object/Zeemonster-gevangen-tussen-Scheveningen-en-Katwijk-1661--3047f9f1c795020c90b6b38d40810461

@TARTARIAthetruth 🦅