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Kraken
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Kraken
The kraken (/ˈkræ.kən/; from Norwegian: kraken, /ˈkrɑː.kən/) is a legendary sea monster of enormous size, per its etymology something akin to a cephalopod, said to appear in the Norwegian Sea off the coast of Norway. It is believed that the legend of the Kraken may have originated from sightings of giant squid, which may grow to 10.5 metres (34 ft) in length.
The kraken, as a subject of sailors' superstitions and mythos, was first described in a Norwegian glossary by Christen Jensøn in 1646. Later this creature appears in a travelogue by Francesco Negri in 1700, 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 Danish bishop Pontoppidan (1753). 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.
The great man-hunting octopus entered French fiction when Victor Hugo introduced the pieuvre octopus of Guernsey lore in his 1866 novel Toilers of the Sea, which he identified with the kraken of legend. 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. Linnaeus wrote about the Microcosmus genus (an animal with various other organisms or growths attached to it, comprising a colony). Subsequent authors have referred to Linnaeus's writing, and the writings of Thomas Bartholin's cetus called hafgufa, and Christian Franz Paullini's monstrum marinum as "krakens". That said, the claim that Linnaeus used the word "kraken" in the margin of a later edition of Systema Naturae has not been confirmed.
The word "kraken" in English (in the sense of the sea monster) derives from Norwegian: kraken or krakjen of the same sense, which are the definite forms of krake (kraken = "the krake").
According to a Norwegian dictionary, the root meaning of krake is "malformed or overgrown, crooked tree". It originates from Old Norse kraki, which is etymologically related to Old Norse krókr, lit. 'hook', cognate with "crook". This is backed up by the Swedish dictionary SAOB, published by the Swedish Academy, which gives essentially the exact same description for the word in Swedish and confirming the lead krak as a diminutive form of krok, Norwegian and Swedish for 'hook/crook'; krake thus roughly translate to "crookie". With time, "krake" has come to mean any severed tree stem or trunk with crooked outgrowths, in turn giving name to objects and tools based on such, notably for the subject matter, primitive anchors and drags (grapnel anchors) made from severed spruce tops or branchy bush trunks outfitted with a stone sinker, known as krake, but also krabbe in Norwegian or krabba in Swedish (lit. 'crab'). Old Norse kraki mostly corresponds to these uses in modern Icelandic, meaning, among other things, "twig" and "drag", but also "pile barrage-pole" and "boat hook". Swedish SAOB gives the translations of Icelandic kraki as "thin rod with hook on it", "wooden drag with stone sinker" and "dry spruce trunk with the crooked, stripped branches still attached".
Kraken is assumed to have been named figuratively after the meaning "crooked tree" or its derivate meaning "drag", as trunks with crooked branches or outgrowths, and especially drags, wooden or not, readily conjure up the image of a cephalopod or similar. This idea seems to first have been notably remarked by Icelandic philologist Finnur Jónsson in 1920. A synonym for kraken has also been krabbe (see below), which further indicates a name-theme referencing drags.
Besides kraken, the monster went under a variety of names early on, the most common after kraken being horven ("the horv"). Icelandic philologist Finnur Jónsson explained this name in 1920 as an alternative form of harv (lit. 'harrow') and conjectured that this name was suggested by the inkfish's action of seeming to plough the sea.
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Kraken
The kraken (/ˈkræ.kən/; from Norwegian: kraken, /ˈkrɑː.kən/) is a legendary sea monster of enormous size, per its etymology something akin to a cephalopod, said to appear in the Norwegian Sea off the coast of Norway. It is believed that the legend of the Kraken may have originated from sightings of giant squid, which may grow to 10.5 metres (34 ft) in length.
The kraken, as a subject of sailors' superstitions and mythos, was first described in a Norwegian glossary by Christen Jensøn in 1646. Later this creature appears in a travelogue by Francesco Negri in 1700, 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 Danish bishop Pontoppidan (1753). 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.
The great man-hunting octopus entered French fiction when Victor Hugo introduced the pieuvre octopus of Guernsey lore in his 1866 novel Toilers of the Sea, which he identified with the kraken of legend. 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. Linnaeus wrote about the Microcosmus genus (an animal with various other organisms or growths attached to it, comprising a colony). Subsequent authors have referred to Linnaeus's writing, and the writings of Thomas Bartholin's cetus called hafgufa, and Christian Franz Paullini's monstrum marinum as "krakens". That said, the claim that Linnaeus used the word "kraken" in the margin of a later edition of Systema Naturae has not been confirmed.
The word "kraken" in English (in the sense of the sea monster) derives from Norwegian: kraken or krakjen of the same sense, which are the definite forms of krake (kraken = "the krake").
According to a Norwegian dictionary, the root meaning of krake is "malformed or overgrown, crooked tree". It originates from Old Norse kraki, which is etymologically related to Old Norse krókr, lit. 'hook', cognate with "crook". This is backed up by the Swedish dictionary SAOB, published by the Swedish Academy, which gives essentially the exact same description for the word in Swedish and confirming the lead krak as a diminutive form of krok, Norwegian and Swedish for 'hook/crook'; krake thus roughly translate to "crookie". With time, "krake" has come to mean any severed tree stem or trunk with crooked outgrowths, in turn giving name to objects and tools based on such, notably for the subject matter, primitive anchors and drags (grapnel anchors) made from severed spruce tops or branchy bush trunks outfitted with a stone sinker, known as krake, but also krabbe in Norwegian or krabba in Swedish (lit. 'crab'). Old Norse kraki mostly corresponds to these uses in modern Icelandic, meaning, among other things, "twig" and "drag", but also "pile barrage-pole" and "boat hook". Swedish SAOB gives the translations of Icelandic kraki as "thin rod with hook on it", "wooden drag with stone sinker" and "dry spruce trunk with the crooked, stripped branches still attached".
Kraken is assumed to have been named figuratively after the meaning "crooked tree" or its derivate meaning "drag", as trunks with crooked branches or outgrowths, and especially drags, wooden or not, readily conjure up the image of a cephalopod or similar. This idea seems to first have been notably remarked by Icelandic philologist Finnur Jónsson in 1920. A synonym for kraken has also been krabbe (see below), which further indicates a name-theme referencing drags.
Besides kraken, the monster went under a variety of names early on, the most common after kraken being horven ("the horv"). Icelandic philologist Finnur Jónsson explained this name in 1920 as an alternative form of harv (lit. 'harrow') and conjectured that this name was suggested by the inkfish's action of seeming to plough the sea.
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