The Serpent of Long Beach Island

There's one thing about fishermen; they have a way with tales,
even tho' their fish sometimes take on the size of whales.
But there's a tale about a serpent; I believe is so.
It was sighted off Surf City, ninety-odd years ago.

One fine old fisherman named Rube was always in his glory
when folks would ask to hear, firsthand, him tell the serpent story.
As Ruben carved his decoys, the story he'd relate,
how it happened on a June day when they'd gone to take up bait.

He'd gone out just after daybreak with his brother-in-law, John,
so they could go out fishing later on.
For they had plans to row to sea for fluke and bass and blue.
They knew just where good bitin' was, a wrecked ship was the clue.

Their net was filled with mossbunkers, when Rube let out with squeals,
for coming toward them was a monster with a head shaped like an eel's.
Rube said he thought of Jonah, that man of Bible fame,
who was swallowed by a giant fish; would he end up the same?

"'John, let the net go; don't hold on!  John, let it slip away!'
We watched the serpent gobble all the bait we'd caught that day.
We made fast plans to get away as soon as we could think.
John grabbed an oar up, but by then it slithered in the drink."

"Three other boats with fishermen were cruisin' round nearby;
came over to investigate the commotion, and our cry.
They said that we was seein' things, when what to our surprise,
the serpent surfaced half a mile away, before their eyes."

"Its eyes, they saw, was big as hats; its mouth was four feet wide.
It was black in color, with white fleshy underside.
They figured it a hundred tons; they, too, were filled with fear.
Then, again, with snakelike motion, it began to disappear."

"Newspapers kinda hinted we'd been samplin' Jersey light'nin'.
We hadn't, but we would'a if we'd known it'd be so fright'nin'!"
We asked the storyteller if it ever came again.
He said, yes, they surmised it did, to steal bait now and then.

Then he finished up his yarn, with a twinkle and a grin.
"Outside of a mermaid, I've seen ever'thing with fin."

-Lillian Arnold Lopez "Pineylore"

"A Sea Serpent Sighted off the Jersey Shore," from the New York World, 1880.
(Illustration from Down Barnegat Bay, A Nor'easter Midnight Reader, by Robert Jahn)

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