Kraken

Kraken (plural) are a supposed type of sea monster of gargantuan size, said to have been seen off the coast of Norway and Iceland. The earliest extensive description was made by Erik Pontopiddan, bishop of Bergen, in his natural history of Norway (Det første Forsøg paa Norges naturlige Historie, forestillende dette Kongeriges Luft, Grund, Fjelde, Vande, Væxter, Metaller, Mineralier, Steen-arter, Dyr, Fugle, Fiske og omsider Indbyggernes Naturel, samt Sædvaner og Levemaade, Copenhagen, 1752–3). Kraken is the definite article form of krake a word designating an unhealthy animal, or something 'twisted' (cognate with the english crook and crank).

Related Topics:
Sea monster - Norway - Iceland - Erik Pontopiddan - Bergen - Copenhagen - Definite article - Cognate - Crook - Crank

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Early accounts, including Pontopiddan's, describe Kraken as animals "the size of a floating island," and the real danger for sailors was not the creature itself, but the whirlpool it created after quickly descending back into the ocean. Kraken were always distinct from sea serpents, also common in Scandinavian lore (Jörmungandr for instance). A representative early description is given by the Swede Jacob Wallenberg in his book Min son på galejen ("My son on the galley") from 1781:

Related Topics:
Whirlpool - Sea serpents - Jörmungandr - 1781

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:... Kraken, also called the Crab-fish, which is not that huge, for heads and tails counted, he is no larger than our Öland is wide ... He stays at the sea floor, constantly surrounded by innumerable small fishes, who serve as his food and is fed by him in return: for his meal, if I remember correctly what E. Pontoppidan writes, last no longer than three months, and another three are then needed to digest it. His excrements nurture in the following an army of lesser fish, and for this reason, fishermen plumb after his resting place ... Gradually, Kraken ascends to the surface, and when he is at ten to twelve fathoms, the boats had better move out of his vicinity, as he will shortly thereafter burst up, like a floating island, spurting water from his dreadful nostrils and making ring waves around him, which can reach many miles. Could one doubt that this is the Leviathan of Job?

Related Topics:
Öland - Plumb - Fathoms - Leviathan - Job

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The name Kraken never appears in the Norse sagas. However, there are corresponding sea monsters, such as two creatures called hafgufa and lyngbakr described in Örvar-Odds saga (the former is also mentioned in Konungs Skuggsjá).

Related Topics:
Norse saga - Örvar-Odds saga - Konungs Skuggsjá

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Since the late 18th century, Kraken have been depicted in a number of ways, primarily as a large octopus-like creature, and it has often been alleged that Pontoppidan's Kraken might have been based on sailors' observations of the giant squid. The earliest descriptions of the creature were more crab- than octopus-like, however, and generally take on traits that associated with large whales rather than giant squids.

Related Topics:
18th century - Octopus - Sailor - Giant squid - Crab - Whale

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In 1802, however, the French malacologist Pierre Denys de Montfort in Historie Naturalle Générale et Particulière des Mollusques, an encyclopedic description of mollusks, recognized the existence of two kinds of giant octopus. One being the kraken octopus, which Denys de Montfort believed had been described not only by Norwegian sailors and American whalers, but also by ancient writers such as Pliny the Elder. The second one being the much larger colossal octopus (the one actually depicted by the image) which reportedly attacked a sailing vessel from Saint-Malo off the coast of Angola. In defense of Denys de Montfort, it should be noted that many of his sources for the "kraken octopus" probably described the very real giant squid, proved to exist in 1878.

Related Topics:
1802 - Malacologist - Pierre Denys de Montfort - Pliny the Elder - Saint-Malo - Angola - Giant squid - 1878

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