Babbling Billows (encyclopedia article)

Babbling Billows, The. Such waves almost always come into being in very remote and uneventful sea areas seldom frequented by ships, usually during prolonged spells of calm weather. No detailed scientific study or analysis of their origins has yet been undertaken because Babbling Billows have a tendency to drive their victims insane. The few scientists who have ventured to study them are now confined under guard in padded cells or lying on the ocean floor in the form of skeletons with tropical fish swimming in and out of them.
Babbling Billows normally appear only to shipwrecked sailors. They circle their helpless victims for days or weeks on end, bombarding them with tasteless jokes and cynical comments on the hopelessness of their predicament until the unfortunate seafarers, already weakened by thirst and exposure to the sun, completely lose their reason. An ancient Zamonian myth constitutes the basis of the popular fallacy that Babbling Billows are the material manifestations of oceanic boredom.