The kraken is a legendary sea monster from Norway, also found in other Scandinavian countries. It is depicted as a many-armed creature resembling an octopus or squid, larger than ordinary versions. It splits ships apart and devours the crew. The myth may be based on real encounters with giant squid and octopus.
The kraken is a mythological sea monster from Norway that also appears in the legends of other Scandinavian countries. According to myth, krakens favor the waters off the coast of Norway and Iceland, although stories of similar sea monsters appearing in other parts of the world can also be found. Some authors have even found the kraken story compelling enough to borrow from it; HP Lovecraft, for example, wrote about a version of the kraken known as Cthulu. The monster also appears in the poetry and literature of authors such as Tennyson, Verne and Tolkien, among others.
Numerous fairy tales and paintings depict the kraken, usually as a many-armed monster resembling an octopus or squid. In all myths, it is much larger than ordinary versions of these animals, though descriptions of its size vary. In some accounts, the kraken could easily reach the top of a ship’s masts, and in others it was so gigantic that its body could be mistaken for an island. Some stories actually describe ships anchored alongside the creature, unaware of the danger.
In all stories, the kraken is a bloodthirsty creature that splits ships apart and devours the crew along with various sundries on board. Armed versions of the kraken could grab ships and manipulate them in the water with the help of their tentacles, while versions that took the form of giant crabs and lobsters could tear ships apart with their formidable claws. In any case, it was not a creature that a person wanted to meet.
In most myths, the kraken prefers to hide in the depths of the water, only periodically coming to the surface. Krakens emerge when hungry or disturbed, as might be the case when a large vessel is sailing or fishing high. The stories may have been used to explain why many ships failed to return home in historical times when navigation was extremely dangerous.
Some historians have suggested that the kraken myth may be based on real events. There are giant versions of both squid and octopus, and it’s possible that sailors encountered these creatures on their voyages and perhaps exaggerated their size and ferocity. Krakens were actually classified at some point by Linnaeus, the father of modern taxonomy, although later editions of Linnaeus’ work lacked descriptions and classifications for this creature.
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