Kraken is a legendary sea monster of enormous size that is said to appear in the sea between Norway and Iceland. It is the subject of sailors superstitions and mythos and was first described in the modern era in a travelogue by Erik Pontoppidan in 1753. The word "kraken" (in the sense of sea monster) derives from Norwegian "krake" which means "the krake". The creature was described as a many-headed and clawed creature by Egede in 1741, who stated it was equivalent to the Icelanders hafgufa, but the latter is commonly treated as a fabulous whale. Pontoppidan, who popularized the kraken to the world, noted that it was multiple-armed according to lore, and conjectured it to be a giant sea-crab, starfish, or a polypus (octopus) .

Legends hold that no ship could stand up to the kraken. The creature could easily sink ships by wrapping its many arms around them. The ship’s crew would either drown or be eaten by the monster. These are certainly mythical tales, but the kraken legends may have been based on a real creature: the giant squid. Giant squid have long tentacles and can grow up to 40-50 feet in length. They usually live deep in the sea, but they’ve been known to surface and attack ships from time to time.

In more recent times, the kraken directly inspired novelists, like Jules Verne in his classic tale 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, and likely influenced the works of H.P. Lovecraft, albeit a little more abstractly. Today, the kraken has a more impressive filmography than most living movie stars. It has been featured in both versions of The Clash of the Titans, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest, Hotel Transylvania 3, Godzilla, and many more. In 2021, Seattle, Washington, gained a professional hockey team, which it named the Seattle Kraken after the legendary sea monster and the giant Pacific octopus found living in the waters of Puget Sound, where Seattle is situated.