Note 296 — Chapter IV

This story, or one very similar to it, is found in the chronicle of John of Brompton. The bay of Satalia was notoriously dangerous to navigators, who attempted to account for it by legends like these. We have already seen an earlier traveller, Sæwulf, narrowly escape shipwreck in passing it (p. 49). John of Brompton gives two legends to account for the stormy character of the bay, according to one of which the head of the monster alluded to in the text lay at the bottom; and when it was turned with the face upwards, this position caused a perilous tempest. [296]