Kraken
A sea monster of Norwegian lore so large it was taken for an island, described by Bishop Erich Pontoppidan in the 1750s as round, flat and full of arms.
Meaning
Pontoppidan's Natural History of Norway (English translation, 1755) calls the kraken the largest and most surprising creature in the ocean, and gives its other names: Krabben, Horven, Soe-horven and Anker-trold. The naturalist Henry Lee, writing in 1883, found stories of a sea animal so huge that it looked more like an island than a living thing in the older legends and traditions of northern nations, and argued that the giant squid were the kraken's living representatives.
Origin and history
Lee wrote that Pontoppidan is "generally, but unjustly, regarded as the inventor" of the kraken, and that authors who had never read the bishop's book kept misquoting him: the stories were older than his account.
Lee's evidence for the squid was new. He listed great calamaries of 30 to 52 feet taken off Newfoundland since 1870, among them one found floating near the Grand Banks in October 1871 by the Gloucester schooner B. D. Hoskins.
Was the kraken a giant squid?
Henry Lee thought so. Watching common squid in the tanks of the Brighton Aquarium, he saw them swim half-submerged with their arms trailing, and recognised in that habit the "sea-serpent" of many a well-authenticated story. He believed the same animals lay behind many reports of the Sea serpent.
See also
Sea serpent, Sea serpent, Loch Ness Monster, Champ (Lake Champlain monster), Bigfoot (Sasquatch), Yeti (Abominable Snowman).
Sources
- The Natural History of Norway, Part II (Erich Pontoppidan, English translation, 1755), Erich Pontoppidan, The Natural History of Norway, Part II (London, 1755), Internet Archive, Part II, section XI (the Kraken); Part II, section XI (continued)
- Sea Monsters Unmasked (Henry Lee, 1883), Henry Lee, Sea Monsters Unmasked (London, 1883), Internet Archive, The Kraken; Preface; The Kraken; Preface
Last reviewed September 28, 2026 by Rory Hansen. How we research