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The Kraken

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Jennifer O'Dell
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« on: January 22, 2007, 12:21:54 am »

The Kraken

Probably no legendary sea monster was as horrifying as the Kraken. According to stories this huge, many armed, creature could reach as high as the top of a sailing ship's main mast. Kraken's would attack a ship, wrap their arms around the hull and capsize it. The crew would drown or be eaten by the monster. What's amazing about the Kraken stories is that, of all the sea monster tales we have, we have the best evidence that these are real.


Early stories about Kraken, from Norway in the twelfth century, refer to a creature the size of an island. Even in 1752, when the Bishop of Bergen, Erik Ludvigsen Pontoppidan, wrote his The Natural History of Norway he described the Kraken as a "floating island" one and a half miles across. He also noted: "It seems these are the creatures's arms, and, it is said, if they were to lay hold of the largest man-of-war, they would pull it down to the bottom." Later Kraken stories bring the creature down to a smaller, but still monstrous, size.



The Kraken of legend is probably what we know today as the giant squid. While a colossal octopus might also fit the description, the squid is thought to be much more aggressive and more likely to come to the surface where it might be seen by man. Though giant squids are considerably less then a mile and a half across, they are large enough to wrestle with a sperm whale. On at least three occasions in the 1930's they attacked a ship. While the squids got the worst of these encounters when they slid into the ship's propellers, the fact that they attacked at all shows that it is possible for these creatures to mistake a vessel for a whale.


What if a large squid, say a hundred feet long and weighing two or three tons, attacked a small sailing ship? (Remember many early vessels, even those that crossed the Atlantic, measured much less than one hundred feet in length) It might well have been able to turn it over.

http://www.unmuseum.org/kraken.htm
« Last Edit: January 22, 2007, 12:31:41 am by Jennifer O'Dell » Report Spam   Logged

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Jennifer O'Dell
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« Reply #1 on: January 22, 2007, 12:22:42 am »

The Kraken

Below the thunders of the upper deep,
Far far beneath in the abysmal sea,
His ancient, dreamless, uninvaded sleep
The Kraken sleepeth: faintest sunlights flee
About his shadowy sides: above him swell
Huge sponges of millennial growth and height;
And far away into the sickly light,
From many a wondrous grot and secret cell
Unnumbered and enormous polypi
Winnow with giant fins the slumbering green.
There hath he lain for ages and will lie
Battering upon huge seaworms in his sleep,
Until the latter fire shall heat the deep;
Then once by men and angels to be seen,
In roaring he shall rise and on the surface die.


http://www.ras.ucalgary.ca/~gibson/poems/tennyson1.html
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unknown
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« Reply #2 on: February 21, 2007, 09:02:14 pm »

Kraken Cool Cool
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"There exists an agent, which is natural and divine, material and spiritual, a universal plastic mediator, a common receptical of the fluid vibrations of motion and the images of forms, a fluid, and a force, which can be called the Imagination of Nature..."
Elphias Levi
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« Reply #3 on: February 23, 2007, 05:00:56 pm »

The most recent use of the Kraken, that I'm aware of, was in the movie Pirates/caribbean - dead mans chest. Can't keep a good monster down. Grin
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"I don't know what anything "is", I only know what it seems to me at the moment" -  Robert Anton Wilson
unknown
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« Reply #4 on: February 23, 2007, 08:37:32 pm »

Hey Zaphod

I just rented that, what a great movie, very clever.
« Last Edit: February 24, 2007, 06:41:44 pm by unknown » Report Spam   Logged

"There exists an agent, which is natural and divine, material and spiritual, a universal plastic mediator, a common receptical of the fluid vibrations of motion and the images of forms, a fluid, and a force, which can be called the Imagination of Nature..."
Elphias Levi
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« Reply #5 on: February 24, 2007, 09:51:26 am »

Hey Unknown,

I thought so too, I loved the twist at the end...
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"I don't know what anything "is", I only know what it seems to me at the moment" -  Robert Anton Wilson
unknown
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« Reply #6 on: February 24, 2007, 06:44:01 pm »

Disney has come a long way since the octopus in 20,000 leagues Under The Sea.

I wasn't really happy with the ending seemed like a convenient lead in to the next movie, but I do hope there is another Jack Sparrow movie.
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"There exists an agent, which is natural and divine, material and spiritual, a universal plastic mediator, a common receptical of the fluid vibrations of motion and the images of forms, a fluid, and a force, which can be called the Imagination of Nature..."
Elphias Levi
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« Reply #7 on: February 25, 2007, 01:44:04 am »

Yes, there is. It is due to come out this summer. I don't know the name of it though.
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"I don't know what anything "is", I only know what it seems to me at the moment" -  Robert Anton Wilson
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