Tales of the kraken

Maritime lore is filled with tales of vicious sea serpents and scaly-skinned fish men, but few creatures of the deep have struck fear into sailors’ hearts like the mighty kraken. Tracing its origins back to a giant fish from Norse mythology called the hafgufa, the kraken first entered popular folklore as a titanic octopus or squid spotted by fishermen off the coasts of Norway and Greenland. One 18th century account by Bishop Erik Pontoppidan described it as a squid-like beast so large that when any part of its body stuck out of the water it resembled a floating island. The kraken supposedly used its many tentacles to ensnare ships’ masts and drag them to the icy depths, but it could also create a deadly whirlpool just by submerging itself underwater. Tales of the kraken’s wrath might be embellished, but the creature itself is not entirely fanciful. The legend may have been inspired by sightings of actual giant squid, and some paleontologists have argued that the prehistoric oceans were once home to 100-foot-long cephalopods that fed on whale-sized Ichthyosaurs.

The kraken is also depicted to have spikes on its suckers. In the earliest descriptions, however, the creatures were more crab-like than octopus-like, and generally possessed traits that are associated with large whales rather than with giant squid. An ancient, giant cephalopod resembling the legendary kraken has been proposed as responsible for the deaths of ichthyosaurs during the Triassic Period

Although fictional and the subject of myth, the legend of the Kraken continues to the present day, with numerous references in film, literature, television, and other popular culture topics. Examples are Alfred Tennyson's 1830 irregular sonnet The Kraken, references in Herman Melville's 1851 novel Moby-Dick (Chapter 59 "Squid"),the novel The Kraken Wakes, the Kraken of Marvel Comics, the 1981 film Clash of the Titans and its 2010 remake of the same name, and the Seattle Kraken professional ice hockey team. Krakens also appear in video games such as Sea of Thieves and Return of the Obra Dinn. The kraken was also featured in two of the Pirates of the Caribbean movies, primarily in the 2006 film, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest, as the pet of the fearsome Davy Jones, the main antagonist of the film. The kraken also makes an appearance in the film's sequel, At World's End.

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