For many years, the kraken, a terrible sea monster that attacks ships and drags them under the water, was considered such a fairy tale as the Bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monster. But time has made its own adjustments.
Stories from time immemorial
The Kraken has been known since antiquity. The sailors had no doubts about its existence. Heart-chilling stories were passed from mouth to mouth, like a giant monster, wrapping its tentacles around the ship, overturning it and pulling it into the cold sea depths. Kraken as a very real being was described by Aristotle and Pliny the Elder. In the Chinese treatise The Catalog of Mountains and Seas, the kraken was described as a “fish-hill” with a human face, arms and legs.
In Europe, the kraken became famous thanks to the Scandinavians. This formidable sea monster was described in the 13th century Norwegian treatise "The King's Mirror", and in the work of the Swedish educator Olaf Magnus (1490-1557) it was first referred to as "Kraken". Let's open the book on the page we're interested in.
“His appearance is terrible. The head is spiny, horns stick out from it in all directions, which is why the kraken looks like a tree uprooted. The length of the body is 15 cubits, the head is 12. The eyes are red, fiery, at night it seems as if a flame is burning in the depths of the sea. The width of each eye is 1 cubit. (For reference: the Scandinavian cubit is 0.5938 m. According to the treatise, the length of the kraken is about 27 m.)
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When he floats, his tentacles rise above the water like masts, with which he can drag even the largest ship to the bottom. Sinking to the bottom, it generates the strongest whirlpool and the ship caught in it has no chance of salvation."
However, until the middle of the 19th century, the kraken did not find a place for itself in the pages of encyclopedias. Scientists are distrustful people, stories are not enough for them, give me skin and bones. Soon they received both.
Material evidence
In November 1861, the steamer Alekton met a Kraken in the Canary Islands. Worried about the fate of the ship, the captain ordered to open fire from cannons at the monster. They tried to lift the killed monster on board, but this venture was quickly abandoned: the weight of the monster was about 2 tons.
The story could become another story, but the sailors brought with them fragments of the body, with a total weight of 20 kg, which were provided to the French Academy of Sciences. According to the conclusion of the academics, the terrible kraken was a giant squid. The French Academy acknowledged their existence with great reservations.
Recognition of the Kraken by Science
The real breakthrough came in 1873. In the Newfoundland area, fishermen stumbled upon a giant floating carcass that did not show any signs of life. One of the daredevils poked her with a hook and immediately regretted it. The carcass came to life. With long tentacles, the kraken grabbed the boat overboard and began to plunge into the sea. One of the fishermen grabbed an ax and began chopping off the tentacles. The kraken released an ink cloud and disappeared into the depths. A fragment of the tentacle of a mythical animal, already quite suitable for study, fell into the hands of scientists.
Literally a month later, in the same area, a whole copy was already caught on the network. For several hours there was a struggle between man and animal, man won. Scientists have already received a whole 10-meter monster. Soon there were dozens of such cases. Unknown reasons caused a massive pestilence among marine life, and the sea more and more often threw giant carcasses ashore.
The Kraken has been studied, measured, and described. It turned out to be a giant squid, a cephalopod mollusc and was named architeutis. The size ranges from 2.5 to 12m. In 1887, on the coast of New Zealand, the sea threw a specimen 17.4 m long.
So one less legend? Are sailors' stories about how the kraken sinks ships - a fairy tale? Do not hurry.
Recent attacks on ships
In January 2003, in the waters of Madeira, a giant squid attacked the yacht Jerome. “The monster sucked to the stern, several tentacles (each thicker than my leg!) Thrown overboard and began to pull the ship with all its might to the bottom. I do not know what happened, but for some unknown reason, the monster released the ship and went into the depths. If the monster kept trying, I wouldn't be here. This is how the yachtsman Olivier de Cursoison shared his impressions of the experience.
In 2011, in the Gulf of California, in front of people, a squid attacked a 12-meter fishing boat. With tentacles, he grabbed people and pulled them under the water. At the end, he grabbed onto the side with his tentacles and began to rock the ship until he turned it over. According to the testimony of zoologists, the ship was attacked by the carnivorous Humboldt squid that lives in these waters. As a result of uncontrolled fishing, food in the sea is decreasing. The appearance of man-eating squids in the sea is a bad sign. There have already been recorded cases of squid attacks on divers and scuba divers.
There is a kraken
As for the possible sizes of giant squids, there is evidence of the observation of squid 20 m long. Zoologists admit the existence of individuals up to 50 m long in the depths of the ocean. Scientists assume that all specimens of giant squids (12-15m) found are young. The size of their suckers is 5 cm. And on many whales, traces of suckers up to 20 cm in diameter are found. Here, take and multiply 15 by 4. Impressive?
Author: Klim Podkova