Kraken

Legendary Norwegian sea monster of enormous size, said to rise from the deep and seize ships, rooted in Norse seafaring lore. Bishop Erik Pontoppidan gave the first sustained description in “Det forste Forsog paa Norges naturlige Historie” (1752 to 1753; English edition “The Natural History of Norway,” 1755), calling it the largest creature in the sea and roughly a mile and a half across. Tennyson’s sonnet “The Kraken” (1830) and Melville’s allusion in “Moby-Dick” (1851) carried the legend into literature. The folk monster is now usually linked to real giant and colossal squid.