Kraken

The kraken is a legendary cryptid of enormous size. Its name comes from Norwegian, and according to its etymology it is something like a cephalopod. It is said to appear in the Norwegian Sea off the coast of Norway. Many people believe the legend may have started with sightings of giant squid, which can grow to 10.5 metres (34 ft) long.

The kraken was a subject of sailors' superstitions and mythos. It was first described in a Norwegian glossary by Christen Jensøn in 1646. Later, it appeared in a travelogue by Francesco Negri in 1700. In 1734, the Dano-Norwegian missionary and explorer Hans Egede gave a detailed account of the kraken and linked it with the hafgufa of medieval lore. However, the first description of the creature is usually credited to the Danish bishop Pontoppidan in 1753. He described the kraken as a giant octopus that had a reputation for pulling down ships. In the 19th century, the French malacologist Denys-Montfort also became known for his early studies into whether gigantic octopuses existed.

The giant man-hunting octopus entered French fiction when Victor Hugo introduced the pieuvre, an octopus from Guernsey folklore, in his 1866 novel Toilers of the Sea. Hugo identified it with the kraken of legend. This led to Jules Verne including the kraken in his novel Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas, although Verne did not tell octopuses and squids apart.

Carl Linnaeus may have written about the kraken indirectly. He wrote about the Microcosmus genus, an animal with other organisms or growths attached to it, forming a colony. Later authors have linked his writing, along with Thomas Bartholin's cetus called hafgufa and Christian Franz Paullini's monstrum marinum, to the kraken. The claim that Linnaeus used the word "kraken" in the margin of a later edition of Systema Naturae has not been confirmed.

Etymology

The English word "kraken" for the sea monster comes from Norwegian kraken or krakjen, which are the definite forms of krake, meaning "the krake." According to a Norwegian dictionary, krake means "malformed or overgrown, crooked tree." It comes from Old Norse kraki, which is related to krókr, meaning 'hook,' and is a cognate of "crook." The Swedish dictionary SAOB, published by the Swedish Academy, gives nearly the same meaning. Over time, krake came to mean any cut tree trunk with crooked branches, and it gave its name to simple tools such as grapnel anchors and drags. The monster is thought to have been named after the "crooked tree" or "drag" meaning. Icelandic philologist Finnur Jónsson first suggested this idea in 1920. A related name, krabbe, meaning "crab," also points to drags.

Besides kraken, the monster had many other names, the most common being horven, meaning "the horv." Finnur Jónsson explained in 1920 that this name may come from harv, meaning harrow, and suggested it was chosen because the squid seemed to plough the sea. Since the 19th century, krake has also given its name to the cephalopod order Octopoda in Swedish and German, so many octopus species have names based on it, such as the common octopus. Some plants, a diminutive form word for branchy wood, and even the Shetlandic word for "whale," which is a taboo word, are also linked to this family of words.

General description

In 1741, Hans Egede described the kraken as a many-headed, clawed creature. He said it was the same as the Icelanders' hafgufa, though that creature is usually treated as a make-believe whale. In 1753, Erik Pontoppidan made the kraken known to the wider world. He said that, according to legend, it had many arms, and he guessed it might be a giant sea-crab, a starfish, or a polypus (octopus). Pontoppidan is considered important for sparking interest in the kraken in the English-speaking world. In 1801, Denys-Montfort wrote about two giants, a "colossal octopus" and a "kraken octopod." In 1920, Finnur Jónsson also thought the kraken was an inkfish (a squid or octopus), based on etymological reasons.

In 1884, the Swedish encyclopedia Nordisk familjebok summarized the kraken myth. It described fishermen rowing a few Scandinavian miles from the coast, where the water was normally about 80–100 fathoms deep but sometimes only 20–30 fathoms. In these shallower spots, large groups of cod and lings gathered, and the kraken was believed to be lurking below, causing the change in depth. If the fishermen noticed the kraken rising, they had to row away quickly. After a few minutes, its body could be seen above the water, looking like a group of skerries covered in swaying, seaweed-like growths, and its shining tentacles rose high into the air, as tall as ship's masts. When the kraken sank again, boats had to avoid the dangerous suction vortex it created.

Historical descriptions

The Swedish writer Olaus Magnus made one of the earliest possible pictures of the kraken on his map of Scandinavia, the Carta marina, made in 1539. It showed sea monsters in the Norwegian Sea, though he did not use the word kraken. He lived in exile in Danzig and then in Venice. Swiss naturalist Conrad Gesner named the tusked monster a "swine whale" (in German: Schweinwal) and the horned one a "bearded whale" (Bart-wal).

In 1555, Magnus published the Historia de Gentibus Septentrionalibus, which described the monsters in more detail. His description seems to mix traits of whales and squids. The monster had a body about 14 to 16 metres long, and its "flaming" eyes may have come from bioluminescent photophores, which glow on some squids, such as the Taningia danae and the colossal squid. Its beard may have been whale barnacles like Xenobalanus. Because sperm whales hunt giant squids, the sightings may have come from whales hunting squids near the surface.

The first description of the kraken by name appeared in the Norwegian glossary of Christen Jensøn from Askvoll, published in 1646. He described it as a sea monster with many arms that pulled boats down into the deep. In 1700, the Italian writer Francesco Negri described a "sciu-crak," a huge many-armed fish, and kept it separate from a sea serpent. In 1729, Hans Egede recorded what Norwegian informants told him: the kraken's body was many miles long, and when it rose it seemed to cover the whole sea. Its claws caught ships, men, fish, and animals and carried them into the depths. Fishermen said that they could stand on it as if it were a sandbank, but if it became tangled in their hooks, they had to say its name to make it go back down. Egede also linked it to the hafgufa of Iceland, though he had little information about that creature. Later, Erik Pontoppidan, bishop of Bergen, wrote about the kraken in 1752 and 1753. He said that the danger of its whirlpool was like that of Moskstraumen, and that its arms could pull down the largest man-of-war. Henry Lee later suggested that the kraken's supposed waste was really ink released by a squid-like animal. Around 1770, an anonymous glossary from Surnadal described the kraken as a giant fish with tree-like fins that could sink a whole boat.

Mythical identifications

Main article: Hafgufa

Hans Egede identified the krake as the same creature as the hafgufa of the Icelanders. He seemed to have learned this indirectly from the medieval Norwegian book the Speculum Regale (or King's Mirror, c. 1250). Later, David Crantz also reported that the kraken and the hafgufa were the same in History of Greenland (1765). An English translator of the King's Mirror in 1917 chose to translate hafgufa as kraken. The hafgufa, described as the largest of the sea monsters living in the Greenland Sea, is still linked with the kraken in some scholarly writings. If this link is accepted, the kraken's legendary range would reach waters near Helluland (Baffin Island, Canada), as described in Örvar-Odds saga. The anonymous Historia Norwegiæ also says the hafgufa lived in a deep fjord, along with other sea beasts such as the hafstramb, the hrosshvalr (often shown as a hippocampus, half horse and half fish), and famous monsters like the Charybdis and Scylla.

Some people believe the description of the hafgufa in the King's Mirror is a confused eyewitness account of a whale. Halldór Hermannsson also reads it as describing a type of whale, and the name "sea reeker" may come from a whale blowing water. The King's Mirror describes many sea animals, including whales, seals, and walruses, and it gives fairly detailed descriptions of the whales near Iceland. Tales of more dangerous and mythical "fish" are less clear. Finnur Jónsson (1920) thought the kraken most likely was an inkfish (squid or octopus), and he doubted the common idea that the kraken came from the hafgufa.

Taxonomic identifications

Erik Pontoppidan wrote about a possible kraken, "perhaps a young and careless one", that washed ashore and died in 1680 in Ulvangen, near Alstahaug Church and the island of Dønna, Norway. He noticed it had long "arms" and guessed it had been crawling like a snail, but that it got stuck in the landscape. Later, Paul Bartsch suggested it was a giant squid. Pontoppidan was unsure what kind of creature the kraken was. At first he thought it might be a giant crab, then he compared it to sea monsters from Pliny. He later suggested it was a kind of octopus or "starfish", perhaps the one Gessner called Stella Arborescens. This starfish may be one of the northern ophiurids, possibly one of the Gorgonocephalids or the genus Gorgonocephalus, which is now placed under Phrynophiurida. Local lore called starfish "Medusa's heads" the young of the great sea-kraken, but von Bergen thought this was absurd.

In 1802, the French malacologist Pierre Denys de Montfort described two kinds of giant octopuses in his book on mollusks. He linked his "colossal giant" to Pliny's "monstrous polypus", a creature that ripped apart shipwrecked people. Montfort also drew a giant octopus attacking a three-masted ship, based on a picture of sailors who met the giant off the coast of Angola. That picture was left as a gift at a chapel in Saint-Malo, France. Montfort also blamed giant octopuses for the loss of ten British warships in 1782, including the ship of the line Ville de Paris, though others said a storm was to blame. In 1813, the ship Niagara reported seeing a huge marine animal, and Samuel Latham Mitchill drew it as an octopus.

Giant squid (Architeuthis)

Main article: Giant squid

A common idea is that the kraken comes from sightings of giant squid. A piece of squid recovered by the French ship Alecton in 1861 was discussed by Henry Lee, and was later identified as a giant squid, Architeuthis, by A. E. Verrill. A specimen was also discovered by Moses Harvey. In 1873, fishermen off Conception Bay in Newfoundland found a giant squid with a huge beak and long tentacles. They cut off two of its tentacles, and it was later concluded that giant squid do exist in our seas.

Iconography

A well-known engraving by Denys-Montfort shows a "colossal octopus," and it is often used to picture the kraken. However, a French expert on shellfish says this differs from the kraken. Commentators describe a ship attack shown in one picture as showing the "kraken octopod." Other publishers later made similar pictures of a kraken attacking a ship. Egede described the kraken as having "many Heads and a Number of Claws," and some pictures show it with spikes or horns. Some commentators think the "bearded whale" on an early map may be a kraken. A two-headed, horned monster said to have washed up in Dingle, County Kerry, Ireland, was also thought to be a giant octopus-like creature.

Swedish writer Olaus Magnus did not use the word kraken, but various sea monsters appeared on his Carta marina map (1539), and modern writers have tried to link some of them to the kraken. Ashton's Curious Creatures (1890) relied heavily on Olaus' work and identified the kraken as a cephalopod. Olaus showed the giant "polypus" as a lobster-like creature, which Henry Lee believed was a mistake for a cephalopod attack on a ship. The legend on the map does not explain the lobster-like monster "M" off the island of Iona, but its writing links that area to the "Fortunate Island" from St. Brendan's Voyage. On that voyage, the crew landed on an island-sized monstrous fish, which Bartholin said was the hafgufa, a creature already linked to the kraken.

Taxonomical influences

The Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus described a strange creature called Microcosmus in his book Systema Naturae (1735). He called it a "body covered with various heterogeneous [other bits]" (Latin: Corpus variis heterogeneis tectum). He drew on earlier writers such as Thomas Bartholin, Christian Franz Paullini, and Francesco Redi, who wrote about a giant tunicate (Ascidia). Later, the English writer Thomas Pennant and the naturalist James Wilson wrote about these ideas in English, which helped English readers in the 1800s become aware of the kraken. A French writer, Louis Figuier, wrongly said that Linnaeus had placed a squid-like animal called "Sepia microcosmus" in his first edition. Linnaeus never described the kraken that way.

Main article: Mark McMenamin § Triassic kraken

The paleontologist Mark McMenamin and his spouse Dianna Schulte McMenamin claimed that an ancient, giant cephalopod like the kraken caused the deaths of ichthyosaurs during the Triassic period, though many researchers have criticized this idea. In 2026, an international team studied 27 fossilized octopus jaws from Japan and Vancouver Island. They concluded that giant finned octopodes of the genus Nanaimoteuthis were highly intelligent apex predators and possibly among the largest animals in the Late Cretaceous seas. Based on wear on their jaws, the researchers thought these "krakens" ate vertebrates with hard internal skeletons.

Literary influences

The French novelist Victor Hugo's Les Travailleurs de la mer (1866, "Toilers of the Sea") discusses the man-eating octopus, the kraken of legend, called pieuvre by the locals of the Channel Islands (in the Guernsey dialect, etc.). Hugo's octopus later influenced Jules Verne's depiction of the kraken in Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas. Verne also drew on a real encounter the French ship Alecton had with what was probably a giant squid. Verne often used the words kraken, calmar (squid), and poulpe (octopus) in place of one another.

In the English-speaking world, famous examples include Alfred Tennyson's 1830 irregular sonnet The Kraken and references in Herman Melville's 1851 novel Moby-Dick (Chapter 59 "Squid").

Modern use

Although the kraken is fictional and comes from myth, the legend still appears today in films, books, television, and other popular culture. Examples include John Wyndham's novel The Kraken Wakes (1953), the Kraken of Marvel Comics, the 1981 film Clash of the Titans and its 2010 remake of the same name, and the Seattle Kraken professional ice hockey team. Krakens also appear in video games such as Sea of Thieves, God of War II, Return of the Obra Dinn and Dredge. The kraken was also featured in two Pirates of the Caribbean movies. In the 2006 film Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest, it is the pet of the fearsome Davy Jones, and it appears in the sequel, At World's End. In George R.R. Martin's fantasy novel series, A Song of Ice and Fire, and its HBO series adaptations, Game of Thrones and House of the Dragon, the mythical kraken is the sigil of House Greyjoy of the Iron Islands.

The character of Cthulhu, created by H.P. Lovecraft in 1928, also serves as a modern version of the kraken. This giant, squid-like creature is linked to the older idea of the mythological serpent, and to the more recent idea of horror focused on the body. Two features on other celestial objects have also been named after the Kraken. Kraken Mare, a major sea of liquid ethane and methane, is the largest known body of liquid on Saturn's moon Titan. Kraken Catena is a crater chain and possible tectonic fault on Neptune's moon Triton. The Kraken Regiment (Ukrainian: Спецпідрозділ "Kraken", romanized: Spetspidrozdil "Kraken") is a Ukrainian military volunteer unit formed by veterans of the Azov Regiment, who adopted the mythical sea creature as their name. Their insignia shows a giant squid.