The word kraken entered English from Scandinavian languages in the mid-eighteenth century, bringing with it one of the most powerful and enduring sea monster legends in world mythology. The Norwegian and Swedish kraken is the definite form of krake, a word meaning a twisted, unhealthy, or crooked creature, or alternatively a tree stump — suggesting something gnarled, enormous, and deeply unsettling.
The earliest detailed account of the kraken in European natural history literature comes from the Norwegian bishop Erik Pontoppidan, whose Natural History of Norway (1752-1753) described an enormous sea creature capable of dragging ships beneath the waves. Pontoppidan's account, while partly fantastic, was presented as natural history rather than pure myth, and it introduced the kraken to the English-speaking world. Earlier Scandinavian sources, including the medieval Norwegian text Konungs skuggsjá (King's Mirror, c. 1250), describe enormous
The kraken legend likely has a basis in real encounters with giant marine animals. Giant squid (Architeuthis dux) inhabit the deep waters of the North Atlantic, including the waters off Norway, and can reach lengths exceeding thirteen meters (over forty feet) including their tentacles. These animals occasionally surface or wash ashore, and their enormous size, multiple writhing arms, and alien appearance would have been deeply disturbing to pre-modern observers without any framework for understanding deep-sea biology.
The scientific establishment briefly gave the kraken official recognition. Carl Linnaeus, the father of modern taxonomy, included the kraken in the first edition of his Systema Naturae (1735), classifying it as a cephalopod under the name Microcosmus marinus. He removed it from subsequent editions, but its initial inclusion demonstrates how seriously the reports were taken even by rigorous natural historians.
The kraken entered mainstream English literary culture most memorably through Alfred, Lord Tennyson's 1830 sonnet "The Kraken," which imagines the creature sleeping in the deepest depths of the ocean, destined to rise only at the end of the world. Tennyson's poem captures the essential terror and grandeur of the legend — the idea of something immeasurably vast and ancient lurking in the lightless depths, below the reach of human knowledge.
In modern popular culture, the kraken has become one of the most recognizable mythological creatures, appearing in films, literature, video games, and other media. The phrase "Release the Kraken!" from the 1981 film Clash of the Titans has entered popular vernacular as an expression of unleashing destructive force. The kraken has also lent its name to a professional hockey team (the Seattle Kraken, established 2021), a brand of spiced rum, and various other commercial enterprises.