The Kraken

Lore & Background

He described 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. This led to Jules Verne's depiction of the kraken in his novel Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas, although Verne did not distinguish between octopuses and squids. Carl Linnaeus may have indirectly written about the kraken; subsequent authors have referred to his writing and those of Thomas Bartholin and Christian Franz Paullini as 'krakens', though the claim that Linnaeus used the word 'kraken' in the margin of a later edition of Systema Naturae has not been confirmed.

Reader's Guide

The kraken holds a significant place in maritime folklore and natural history, bridging superstition and early scientific inquiry. This depiction influenced later naturalists like Denys-Montfort, who classified two types of giant octopuses, and entered fiction through Victor Hugo and Jules Verne, cementing the kraken in popular culture. The etymology of 'kraken'—from Norwegian 'krake' meaning a malformed or crooked tree, and related to 'hook'—reflects its imagined appearance as a many-armed creature. The kraken's legacy endures as a symbol of the unknown depths, and its possible basis in giant squid sightings continues to fascinate.

Did You Know?

• The word 'kraken' derives from Norwegian 'krake', meaning a malformed or overgrown, crooked tree.

Taxonomic Home Among the Molluscs

The Kraken occupies a specific niche in the classification of legendary creatures, filed under Molluscs alongside a diverse group of soft-bodied sea monsters. Its neighbors in this category include Akkorokamui, an octopus monster from Ainu tradition in Japan; Amikuk, a Yup'ik shapeshifting creature with four arms that can traverse land as readily as water; Carbuncle from Chilote lore, sometimes described as a luminescent bivalve; Lou Carcolh, a French giant snail with fur and tentacles that devours humans; and Shen, a Chinese clam-dragon responsible for mirages and fata morgana at sea. The Kraken itself is identified simply as a squid monster, a designation that places it firmly in the cephalopod tradition rather than the bivalve or gastropod lines represented by its fellow mollusc entries. This grouping reveals how mythological traditions across cultures have drawn on the soft, tentacled, and often enormous forms of real molluscs to conjure creatures of dread and wonder.

A Worldwide Designation

What sets the Kraken apart from many of its fellow entries in this catalog of legendary creatures is its geographic scope. Where Akkorokamui is pinned to Ainu Japan, Amikuk to Yup'ik tradition, Lou Carcolh to France, and Shen to China, the Kraken carries the label Worldwide. This single word signals a creature whose legend has transcended any single cultural origin, spreading across traditions and coastlines in a way that more localized monsters have not. In a list where the vast majority of entries are tethered to a specific people, language, or region—whether Greek, Slavic, Mayan, Australian Aboriginal, or Polynesian—the Kraken's worldwide tag marks it as something of a universal figure. It suggests a creature that has been encountered, feared, or imagined by maritime cultures on multiple continents, making it one of the few entries in this taxonomy whose home is not a single shore but the ocean itself.

A Place in the Grand Taxonomy

The Kraken's entry sits within an extraordinarily broad taxonomy of legendary beings that spans arthropods, birds, fish, mammals, molluscs, reptiles, and even artificial creatures of mechanical or alchemical origin. It is one small line in a structure that also catalogs owl-humanoids like the Sirin, bat-spirits like Camazotz, bear-kings like the Bjarndyrakongur, and mammoth-explaining monsters like the Quugaarpak. The list explicitly draws a boundary: it includes creatures from mythology, folklore, and fairy tales, while excluding those born of modern fantasy fiction and role-playing games. The Kraken, as a squid monster, falls squarely within the older, oral, and literary traditions that this catalog is designed to preserve. Its presence among such a vast and varied menagerie—ranging from the tiny Lavellan water shrew of Scotland to the world-scale World Turtle—underscores how a single cephalopod legend can occupy the same taxonomic shelf as creation myths and elemental deities.

The Cephalopod Thread in Folklore

Within the mollusc section of this catalog, the Kraken belongs to a broader cephalopod thread that runs through multiple cultures. Akkorokamui, the Ainu octopus monster, and Amikuk, the Yup'ik four-armed shapeshifter that swims through solid ground, represent the same family of soft-bodied, multi-limbed sea creatures that the Kraken embodies as a squid. Together, these entries reveal a recurring mythological impulse: the real-world cephalopod, with its alien intelligence, many arms, and capacity for enormous size, becomes a natural wellspring for monsters that embody the ocean's hidden terrors. The Kraken's simple designation as a squid monster places it in this lineage without the elaborate narrative scaffolding given to, say, Lou Carcolh's man-eating snail or Shen's mirage-creating clam-dragon. Its power in the catalog lies in its brevity and its worldwide reach—a creature so widely known that a single descriptor suffices.

Common Misconceptions (Editorial)

- Some believe the kraken is purely a myth invented by sailors, but the legend may have originated from sightings of real giant squid, which can grow to 10.5 meters (34 feet) in length. - A common misconception is that the kraken has always been depicted as a giant squid; however, early descriptions, such as those by Hans Egede and Denys-Montfort, described it as a giant octopus, and Jules Verne also depicted it as a cephalopod without distinguishing between octopus and squid.

Why It Matters (Editorial)

The kraken endures because it represents humanity's fascination with the unknown depths of the ocean, where real creatures like the giant squid still evoke wonder and fear. Its evolution from folklore to literature, including works by Jules Verne and Victor Hugo, shows how a regional legend can become a global symbol of the sea's mysteries and dangers.