26 
SECTION III. 
THE KRAKEN. 
Ancient Superstitions—Pontoppidan’s Account—Probable Explanation by 
Refraction—Modern Accounts and Inquiries—Possible Class of Animals 
—Echinodermata—N o such Creature as Pontoppidan’s Kraken—Strange 
Appearance in the Atlantic—Examination of that Account—Probable 
Association of Yigia with Sea Monsters. 
“ Monstrum, horrendum, informe, ingens, cui lumen ademptum.” 
“ There Leviathan, 
Hugest of living creatures, on the deep, 
Stretch’d like a promontory, sleeps or swims, 
And seems a moving land.” 
Milton. 
The term kraken, though probably of Scandinavian origin, seems to 
spring from a similar root as the old German word “ krdbben,” to crawl, 
(whence “ crab,”) and may be translated as ground-laying or crawling. 
The existence of the creature so called, we find first pointed at by Pliny; 
who briefly states, that there is a submarine tree growing in one of the 
straits at Cadiz, of such vast size and extent of branches, that, as it is 
believed, the channel cannot be entered. Allusions to some monstrous 
amorphous inhabitant of the sea, may also be met with in the mythic his¬ 
tories of the early Scandinavian races; hut the first and only account 
possessing any claim to the attention of science, is derived from the writings 
of the celebrated Norwegian bishop, Pontoppidan. As his description is, 
as it were, a text for all discussions on the kraken, it is only right to give 
it here. “ Our fishermen usually affirm,” says the bishop, “ that when 
they have rowed out several miles to sea, particularly in hot summer days, 
they are informed, by various circumstances, that the kraken is at the 
bottom. At such times they generally find the greatest quantity of fish, 
especially cod and ling: and instead of the depth of water being 80 or 
100 fathoms, as expected, they sound only 20 or 30. Knowing that it is 
the presence of the kraken which causes these unnatural shallows, they 
carefully observe whether the water becomes shallower. If this be the case, 
