The Kraken is a legendary sea monster of enormous size 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 1752. The English word "kraken" (in the sense of sea monster) derives from Norwegian "kraken" or "krakjen," which are the definite forms of "krake" ("the krake"). The Kraken was described as a many-headed and clawed creature by Egede (1741), who stated it was equivalent to the Icelanders hafgufa, but the latter is commonly treated as a fabulous whale. Pontoppidan described the Kraken as "round, flat, and full of arms… the largest and most surprising of all the animal creation". Legends hold that no ship could stand up to the Kraken, which could easily sink ships by wrapping its many arms around them. However, the Kraken legends may have been based on a real creature: the giant squid, which can grow up to 40-50 feet in length and usually lives deep in the sea but has been known to surface and attack ships from time to time.