The Norse were talented sailors and navigators. But on their travels, they often encountered things they couldn’t explain, including sea monsters. One of these sea monsters, the Kraken, became firmly placed in Norse mythology because of its immense size and its habit of attacking ships and devouring sailors. There’s good reason to believe these legends are true… at least in part.
release the kraken
Norse and Viking legends describe the Kraken as a giant creature with tentacles and eyes the size of dinner plates. Most accounts compare the Kraken to a squid or octopus, but note that it is much, much larger. Some stories claim that the Kraken’s tentacles are over a kilometer long. Others say the sea monster is so huge it could be mistaken for an island.
The Kraken: Norse Legend or Newly Discovered Creature?
The Norse were talented sailors and navigators. But on their travels, they often encountered things they couldn’t explain, including sea monsters. One of these sea monsters, the Kraken, became firmly placed in Norse mythology because of its immense size and its habit of attacking ships and devouring sailors. There’s good reason to believe these legends are true… at least in part.
release the kraken
Norse and Viking legends describe the Kraken as a giant creature with tentacles and eyes the size of dinner plates. Most accounts compare the Kraken to a squid or octopus, but note that it is much, much larger. Some stories claim that the Kraken’s tentacles are over a kilometer long. Others say the sea monster is so huge it could be mistaken for an island.
First reports of the monster
The Kraken is first mentioned in a 13th century Icelandic work entitled Orvar-Oddr . A saga of heroes, the literature makes mention of a sea monster called Hafgufa, which is described similarly to the Kraken. Another text from the time, a scientific journal dating from around 1250 and titled the Konungs skuggsia work, describes the Kraken in great detail and even comments on the monster’s unique eating habits. He claims that the Kraken would regurgitate food particles from its mouth into the sea. The fish would be attracted to the food and crowd together to feed. The Kraken could then collect the school of fish in one gulp.
The Kraken appeared in Linnaeus’s first taxonomy of living organisms
When Swedish botanist and zoologist Carl Linnaeus first took on the task of classifying all living creatures on Earth, he included the Kraken. The 1735 edition of his Systema Naturae has an entry for the Kraken, which he categorized as a cephalopod and called Microcosmus marinus . Subsequent printings of the respected scientific book omitted Kraken’s entry. In another work, Linnaeus noted that the Kraken was a ‘unique monster that inhabits the Norwegian seas, but I have not seen this animal’.
The Kraken was included on ancient sea maps
The Kraken, according to legends, was a dangerous sea monster. Can create whirlpools that can sink ships. It may also attract sailors who have mistaken its large size for an island. But most Kraken attack stories are eerily similar. The giant beast would swiftly rise from the depths to wrap its monstrous tentacles around a ship, pulling it beneath the waves where it could devour sailors. Numerous drawings and engravings still exist showing a Kraken attacking a ship.
Kraken legends served as cautionary tales
In many cases, the myths and legends surrounding the Kraken serve as cautionary tales. For sailors of the 15th and 16th centuries, the oceans were a fearsome and inhospitable place, full of unknowns. Stories about sea monsters were intended to keep cowards on land and experienced sailors alert and vigilant while in the water. The Kraken was a reminder to men that they are interlopers in the sea monster world… and that they should tread lightly.
Are Krakens real?
Based on ancient descriptions of the Kraken, most biologists believe that what ancient mariners were describing were giant squids. A member of the squid and octopus family, giant squid are an elusive deep-sea animal that can grow up to 15 meters in length. For such a large animal, researchers know very little about the giant squid. Only a few carcasses made it to shore for scientists to study. It seems that the giant squid, if indeed it is the legendary Kraken, has become much more shy and introverted since the days of the Viking sailing expeditions. The animal is rarely seen and even more rarely photographed. The first photograph of a living squid in the ocean was taken by Japanese scientists in 2004. The first video of a giant squid was filmed in 2012.
If one monster myth is real, could others be?
Since it seems likely that science has proven the legend of the Kraken to be true, this raises serious debates among scientists, anthropologists and cryptozoologists. Could legends of other beasts and fantastic monsters also be true?