SEA MONSTERS UNMASKED, 
THE KRAKEN. 
In the legends and traditions of northern nations, stories of 
the existence of a marine animal of such enormous stze 
that it more resembled an island than an organised being 
frequently found a place. It is thus described in an 
ancient manuscript (about A.D. 1 1 80), attributed to the 
Norwegian King Sverre ; and the belief in it has been 
alluded to by other Scandinavian writers from an early 
period to the present day. It was an obscure and 
mysterious sea-monster, known as the Kraken, whose form 
and nature were imperfectly understood, and it was pecu- 
liarly the object of popular wonder and superstitious 
dread. 
Eric Pontoppidan, the younger, Bishop of Bergen, and 
member of the Royal Academy of Sciences at Copenhagen, 
is generally, but unjustly, regarded as the inventor of the 
semi-fabulous Kraken, and is constantly misquoted by 
authors who have never read his work,* and who, one after 
another, have copied from their predecessors erroneous state- 
ments concerning him. More than half a century before him. 
Christian Francis Paullinus,t a physician and naturalist of 
Eisenach, who evinced in his writings an admiration of 
* ' Natural History of Norway.' A.D. 1751. 
t Born 1643 ; died 17 12. 
B 
