| Kraken | |
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Real Name |
Kraken, Krake, Crookie |
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First Appearance |
Scandinavian Folklore |
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Created by |
Scandinavian Folklore |
Origin[]
The Kraken from Champion Comics #5.
The kraken is a legendary sea monster of enormous size, etymologically akin to a squid or octopus, said to appear in the sea between Norway and Iceland. It is believed the legend of the Kraken may have originated from sightings of giant squid, which may grow to 12–15 m (40–50 feet) in length.
In Norwegian sailor folklore, kraken ("the krake" or "the crookie"), also known as horven (among others), is a legendary sea monster said to appear in the sea between Norway and Iceland.
It is said that when fishermen row out a few miles (Scandinavian miles) from the coast on a hot summer's day in a calm, and according to normal calculations should find a depth of 80–100 fathoms (140–180 metres (460–590 ft) deep), it sometimes happens that the plummet bottoms at 20–30 fathoms (35–50 metres (115–164 ft) deep). But in this water stand the most abundant shoals of cod and lings. Then you can assume that the kraken lurks down there; as it is he who forms the artificial elevation of the bottom and by his secretions attracts fish there. But if those fishing notices that the kraken is rising, it is necessary to row away for all the boat can take. After a few minutes, the beast can then be seen lifting the upper part of its body above the surface of the water, which for a quarter of a mile (ca 1.5 mi.) in circumference appears as a collection of skerries, covered with swaying, seaweed-like growths. Finally, a few shining tentacles rise up in the air, increasingly thicker at the bottom, which can even appear as high as ship's masts. After a while, the kraken gives in to sinking again, and you then have to be careful not to run into the suction vortex that is formed.
Kraken, as a subject of sailors' superstitions and mythos, was first described in the modern era in a travelogue by Francesco Negri in 1700. This description was followed in 1734 by an account from Dano-Norwegian missionary and explorer Hans Egede, who described the kraken in detail and equated it with the hafgufa of medieval lore. However, the first description of the creature is usually credited to the Norwegian bishop Pontoppidan (1753). Pontoppidan was the first to describe the kraken as an octopus (polypus) of tremendous size, and wrote that it had a reputation for pulling down ships. The French malacologist Denys-Montfort, of the 19th century, is also known for his pioneering inquiries into the existence of gigantic octopuses.
The great man-killing octopus entered French fiction when novelist Victor Hugo (1866) introduced the pieuvre octopus of Guernsey lore, which he identified with the kraken of legend. This led to Jules Verne's depiction of the kraken, although Verne did not distinguish between squid and octopus.
Public Domain Literary Appearances[]
- Carta marina (1539)
- Description of Greenland (1745)
- Det første Forsøg paa Norges naturlige Historie vol. 2 (1753)
- Histoire Naturelle Générale et Particulière des Mollusques (1802)
- Toilers of the Sea (1860)
- The Kraken (1830)
- Moby-Dick (1851)
- Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas (1870)
- Curious Creatures (1890)
- L'île des Pingouins (1908)
- King's Mirror (1917)
Public Domain Film Appearances[]
- Under the Seas (1906)
Public Domain Comic Appearances[]
- Adventures into the Unknown #49
- Champion Comics #5 - Neptina used a Kraken to dispose of prisoners until it escaped and then attempted to attack palace which forced her to have it killed with an explosive.
Notes[]
- H. P. Lovecraft's novel The Call of Cthulhu, written in 1926, according to Cthulhu Mythos scholar Robert M. Price, has been inspired by Alfred Tennyson's sonnet the Kraken from 1830.