Source: Wikimedia Commons. Public domain.
The kraken is a giant squid of kilometre-scale dimensions. According to other versions, the kraken would resemble a cetacean or a turtle. In any case, of all sea monsters, the kraken was perhaps the most feared.
According to popular tradition, this enormous squid lacked a completely defined form, and when it surfaced it could occupy something over a couple of kilometres. Along its dorsal spine it revealed a hump and very long tentacles that could float like seaweed. Legends tell that sailors would often mistake it for an island on which they sometimes came ashore to rest. The kraken would then decide to return to the depths, taking the unsuspecting seafarers down with it. Thus, islands that appeared and disappeared in the North Sea were phenomena that even in the eighteenth century were attributed to the submersion of a kraken.