Kraken

Pen and wash drawing by malacologist Pierre Dénys de Montfort, 1801, from the descriptions of French sailors reportedly attacked by such a creature off the coast of Angola.

A kraken is an imaginary sea monster of huge size, said to have dwelt off the coasts of Norway, Greenland, and Iceland. The legend may actually have originated from sightings of real giant squid. They are estimated to grow to 13–15 m (40–50 ft) in length, including the tentacles.

The mysterious sea monster started to be talked about in literary works as far back as 1180, according to paleontologist Rodrigo Brincalepe Salvador.

Kraken Media

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  Old school Scandinavian drag (grapnel anchor) made from the top of a tree, historically known as krake or krabbe in the Scandinavian languages, probably the root for the naming of the mythological monster.

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  Two monsters, the ferocious toothed "swine whale", and the horned, flashy-eyed "bearded whale" on Olaus's map, given specific names by Gesner. The "bearded" is possibly a kraken. Olaus Magnus, Carta marina (1539)

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  —Pierre Denys-Montfort (1810)

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  The Niagara sighting. 60-metre (200 ft) creature allegedly seen afloat in 1813, depicted as octopus by a naturalist

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  Sea-grapes, or cephalopod eggs

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  "Kraken of the imagination". John Gibson, 1887.

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