The Lady’s Magazine or to give it its full name - Ladies’ Magazine and Museum of the Belles Lettres, Fine Arts, Music, Drama, Fashions etc - was published during the 1830s and contained articles on a variety of subjects as well as poetry and pictures of the latest fashions. John Galt had several articles published in various volumes of the magazine.
Fashion plate from Lady's Magazine 1833
The June 1833 edition contained a short story by John Galt called The Midgard, or the Sea-Serpent. Midgard was the name of a huge sea serpent in Norse mythology. An advertisement for the publication describing some of the other articles in the issue states –
“Galt’s amusing fragment … ought to put us in good temper with all the others".
It is the story of a whaling ship’s encounters in Arctic waters with a sea-serpent or Midgard." In true Galt fashion, we get a very down-to-earth and amusing description of the beast, given by Galt's narrator, Captain Lampet –
“When the weather cleared up we beheld ahead of us something that reminded me of Waterloo bridge as seen from Westminster, only much longer, and black, crossing the sea. Not a man of board could make out what it was but being only south fifteen miles of the Pole we were prepared for wonders. Still the sight was inexplicable; all around the sea was calm, and nothing could be seen but this black, up-and-down, zig-zag phenomenon on the water.”
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| Waterloo Bridge, London |
The rest of the story includes sailing through an arch made by the serpent's body and finding the North Pole. An interesting read!
During the 1820s and 30s there was a lot of interest in
Arctic exploration due to Scottish naval officer Sir John Ross (1777-1856) and
his various expeditions in the area which were widely reported in the press of
the day.
