The Kraken

Below the thunders of the upper deep;
Far far beneath in the abysmal sea,
His ancient, dreamless, uninvaded sleep
The Kraken sleepeth: faintest sunlights flee  

About his shadowy sides; above him swell
Huge sponges of millennial growth and height;
And far away into the sickly light,
From many a wondrous grot and secret cell
Unnumber'd and enormous polypi

Winnow with giant arms the slumbering green.
There hath he lain for ages, and will lie
Battening upon huge seaworms in his sleep,
Until the latter fire shall heat the deep;
Then once by man and angels to be seen,
In roaring he shall rise and on the surface die.

- Alfred Tennyson 

An illustration from the original 1870 edition of
Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne

In popular culture, few beings have evoked more horror and jaw-dropping feedback than the creatures we find at sea. Some of the oldest recorded notions are connected to the abyss, bewildering and infinite as it appears to this day. One of the most mysterious being connections to this realm, is quite certainly the Kraken. 

Introducing this article, we found English poet Alfred Tennyson's poem The Kraken, published in 1830. Some may recognize that the last lines of the poem, bearing similarities with the biblical legend of the mysterious Leviathan - a huge sea monster which was to come to the surface in the end times, in the form of something in between of a snake and a dragon. Tennyson's description has in turn influenced French author Jules Verne, who mentions a giant squid in the novel Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, published in 1870.

Fantasy writer J.R.R. Tolkien also made use of the tales of the Kraken, as inspiration for the monster at the entrance to Moria's mines mentioned in The Fellowship of the Ring, published in English in 1954 and 1955. Later on, notions of the Kraken have been included in several popular cultural narratives; some might recall the creature taking form of a great octopus, in the American fantasy swashbuckler film Pirates of the Carribean; Dead Man's Chest from 2006. 

For those of you unfamiliar with the film, here's a tasty teaser:

Already in ancient times there were several stories telling of great monsters at sea. In Greek and Roman mythology there are notions of Skylla, who lived on one side of a narrow strait; a terrible thing to behold, she had four eyes, six long necks with eerie heads, each of which had three rows of sharp teeth. Her body consisted of twelve feet resembling tentacles, she had a fishtail and four to six dog heads (!) growing out at her waist.

On the other side of the strait, there was Kharybdis, who lived under a small mountain. Three times a day, Kharybdi swallowed large amounts of water before blowing it out again, thus creating a whirlpool large enough to pull a ship under water. In one of the variations of the story, Kharybdis in fact is a great whirlpool or the embodiment of it. Together they guarded the Strait of Messina between Italy and Sicily, and the Odyssey tells of how they almost swallowed the Greek legendary hero Odysseus. "Between Skylla and Kharybdis" became a fixed saying; to choose between two evils. Between a rock and a hard place.

According to Konungs skuggsjá (Old Norse, ’the King’s Mirror’), an Old Norwegian philosophical didactic work written toward the end of the 12th century, there was a creature so monstrous and fearsome, that the author of the work thought it daring just to mention it. Described as a massive fish, more resembling an island than a living thing, the gap no smaller than a large strait or a fjord, the Hafgufa (Icelandic origin, meaning 'ocean-steam'), was rarely observed. Always spotted in the same two places, the author concluded there must be only two of the Hafgugas and that they must be infertile, otherwise the seas would be full of them. 

The Swedish clergyman Olaus Magnus' imaginative "Carta Marina" from 1539 shows a number of sea monsters in the waters between Norway and Iceland. The map was drawn in Italy and is today available in two well-known copies - one is stored in Munich, the other in the Carolina Rediviva library in Uppsala, Sweden.

According to Danish bishop and natural historian Erik Pontoppidan (1698-1764), the creature was also called krake or kraks, and had been observed by many fishermen along the Norwegian coast over the years. The descriptions he reproduced are very reminiscent of Konungs skuggsjá, written 500 years earlier. When the fishermen, especially on hot summer days, suddenly found themselves on a strange shallow with quantities of fish, it was the Kraken about to rise from the deep, resulting in the "unnatural increase" of the depth conditions. Then suddenly, glistening, mast-high spikes and ridges appeared, able to sink even the largest warship - "and after a short time the Kraken descended into the depths again", leaving a fatal whirlpool. Pontoppidan himself thought that the monster must have beeen a giant octopus.

The idea of this creature is international, and goes far back in time to distant shores, to China, India and the Atlantic Ocean. The Roman Gaius Plinius (23-79 AD) for example, could tell about a fish a hundred meters long, and about whales with a surface area of a small piece of land. They appeared especially around the summer solstice when whirlwinds stirred the sea. One could be tempted to refer it all to fantasy, had it not been for the prolonged and rather unanimous notions, based on reliable observations also from recent times.

On September 11, 1876, the English ship Nestor passed such a monster in the Strait of Malacca. The captain's report was published a week later in the Straits Times Overland Journal. Neither the captain, the crew, nor the passengers were in doubt; they had seen an immense body of an animal follow the ship for half an hour. The length was calculated to be over 200 feet, the square head about four meters wide.

Outside Iceland, observations of the havgufa, or ocean-steams, might originate from natural explanations; from underwater volcanoes that can create ocean currents, bubbling water and the formation of new islets. Many of the other observations that have been made, may simply be mirages or low-lying clouds. It is not unreasonable to believe that this sea monster was in fact a whale or giant octopuses searching the fish banks for food, and that the fishermen in their small boats, understandably, experienced a threatening and monstrous being of great and supernatural dimensions.

Nevertheless;  among the coastal people of western and northern Norway, the tall tale tradition of the Kraken remained almost unchanged in legends and eyewitness accounts right into the 20th century. The fisherman encountering the monster at first observes the sea which, little by little becomes shallower, and fills up with a shoal of fish. Eventually, several long poles or arms shoots up from the abyss, huddles around the fish as in an embrace, before sinking back into the depths again. 

The notions connected to this creature, bear reminders of a need to comprehend even the most enigmatic and treacherous a man could ever encounter; the abyss. There was a saying in Norwegian; to fish “upon the kraken.” In many cases, this entailed chances of a big catch. It may also involve a fatal peril – to risk life itself. 

The Kraken, as seen by the eye of imagination: imaginary view of a gigantic octopus seizing a ship, 1887. Gibson, J. (1887). Monsters of the Sea: Legendary and Authentic. Thomas Nelson and Sons, London. 

Source:

• Ørnulf Hodne (2012). Vetter og skrømt i norsk folketro. Cappelen Damm.