On the Katanes Monster

Katanes is a loch, a deep icy lake near the Hvalfjurthur (“Whale Fjord”) on the west coast of Iceland.  In 1874, a monster about the size of a large dog emerged from the lake and trotted around, disturbing the sheep grazing on the heath above the lake.  The shepherds threw stones at the monster and it retreated into the lake.  A year later, the monster was seen again – it was now larger, the size of a calf, and looked more ferocious.  When the sheepherders approached, it again retreated and dived off a boulder into the lake.

The next year, the monster was back, this time killing and half-devouring two sheep.  Many people saw the monster (dyreth) – it was a big as a bull, reddish in color with a crocodile’s jaws and the droopy ears of a beagle.  It had six sharp claws on each foot.

The local farmers sent a representative to Reykjavik, a day’s travel away, and asked that the local Danish governor send them help.  The governor, thinking self-help the best, offered to pay a substantial bounty to anyone who killed the monster and brought evidence of its death to Reykjavik.  The farmers were excited.  They hired a professional photographer to stake out the lake and retained a sharpshooter to patrol the banks of the water. 

This is the expedition to take the monster shown in the postcard that I bought at Iceland’s National Museum in Reykjavik. 

One night, two men were patrolling the lake shore.  It was a very dark night with no moon.  The next morning, the two men were found injured among the rhyolite boulders on the edge of the lake.  One man had both eyes blackened and his jaw was broken.  The other man’s fists were raw and bloody.  The two men had been walking along the lake shore, moving in opposite directions and listening intently for splashing in the water, noise signifying that the monster was up and about.  The men each claimed to have been attacked in the darkness by the monster, but admitted they couldn’t see what was hitting and kicking them.  Since they were found sprawled on the edge of the lakeshore within a few feet of one another, a few members of their party formed conclusions that were not exactly flattering to the monster-attack victims.

The monster refused to show himself.  After a month, the sharpshooter presented a large invoice for his services.  The local farmers refused to pay and a lawsuit ensued.  The photographer went back to his portrait studio in Reykjavik.

A proposal was made to drain the lake.  The lake proved to be too deep.  I saw the lake on the edge of the Whale Fjord when I drove out into the country to visit  Borganes and some of the western fjords.  I didn’t see any monster or sign of any monster.  There were a lot of sheep, however, rambling around the still, cold waters. 

The locals believe that the lake has a subterranean passage to the sea or, perhaps, to a lake in mountins called Skorradalsvatn.  A monster haunts Skorrasdalsvatn too.  I drove by that lake and didn’t see any sign of a monster.