Case file · Cryptid
The sea bishop
Sixteenth-century writers told of a 'bishop-fish' with a mitre-like head, one caught off Germany in 1531 that refused food and died after three days, another taken to the King of Poland.
1531 CE · 54.60, 18.60 · status: legend
The account
In the Polish story the creature was shown to Catholic bishops, gestured to be freed, and when released made the sign of the cross and vanished into the sea. Gesner illustrated it in his 'Historiae animalium'. It belongs with the sea monk to a genre in which the sea mirrored the Church. Bernard Heuvelmans suggested a mutilated squid. The pin, in the Gulf of Gdańsk, is representative.
The sceptical view
A known animal, probably a squid or ray, retold and redrawn as a churchman.