kraken

The kraken is a legendary sea monster of enormous size said to appear in the sea between Norway and Iceland. Kraken, the 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 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.