The following podcast may not be for all listeners.
Listener discretion is advised. For centuries, sailors have
whispered of a terror lurking beneath the Ocean's surface, a
beast so massive its tentacles could shatter ships and drag men
screaming into the abyss. In this episode, we descend
beneath the waves into the oldest and darkest corners of
the sea to awaken something ancient, something monstrous,
something they once called the Kraken.
Was this just a tale to scare cabin boys, or could the myth be
rooted in something real? I invite you to descend into the
dark sea with me. The Kraken awaits us below.
The earliest whispers of the Kraken crawl out of the shadows
of 13th century Icelandic sagas. There they called it the
Havgufa. This Norse myth described a
beast so massive that sailors mistook its back for an island,
only to realize too late that the land itself was shifting
beneath the waves. The havgufa didn't just haunt
the margins of old maps, it created chaos, churning the sea
into violent maelstroms that sucked down entire Shoals of
fish and, on darker days, claimed ships and souls that
strayed too close. Centuries later, the terror only
grew. In the 1700s, Eric Pontopidon,
the Bishop of Bergen, had a taste for the macabre and gave
the Kraken its modern form, describing it in his book
Natural History of Norway as a beast so enormous that it could
pull entire ships under with its tentacles or drag them down in
the Whirlpool it left behind. He insisted this was not a myth.
Sailors swapped stories of ships vanishing in seconds, dragged
below by arms thick as tree trunks.
The Kraken became a fixture in Europe's imagination, its legend
inked into sailors journals, grotesque sketches of writhing
limbs, quailing around masts, splintering decks and pulling
entire crews to a watery grave. Yet behind every myth, there's a
flicker of doubt, a question that gnaws at the edges of
reason. Were these tales just the fever
dreams of frightened men? Were Did something ancient and
monstrous truly lurk in the black depths beneath their
keels? As for the origins, some
historians believe the Kraken legend originated as a way for
ancient Norwegians to explain the mysterious disappearances of
ships and perhaps even the occasional sighting of a giant
squid. These days, we don't flinch at
giant monsters. The giant squid argatothes
ducks, is real, and stretches more than 40 feet from tip to
tentacle. Not to be outdone by the
colossal squid, which skulks even deeper, it's bulk and hooks
edging closer to nightmare than science.
Both hunt the Ocean's floor, so far beneath the surface that
sunlight barely scratches the darkness.
Most of what we know comes from the corpses washed ashore or
tangled in Nets, their living forms rarely glimpsed by human
eyes. And yet, when you read old
sailors tales of the Kraken, those stories of vast,
unblinking eyes, whip like arms and a burst of speed that could
splinter a hole, they start to sound less like fantasy and more
like a game of telephone with a giant squid at the other end.
Maybe the men who told those stories weren't just spinning
yarns. Maybe when they stared into the
abyss, the abyss looked back. In the waning days of November
1861, the French ship the Electon, Not through the
Atlantic swell. Nearly 120 miles northeast of
Tenerife, the ship was bound for South America, its crew likely
lulled by a routine and the endless horizon.
But the waters around the Canary Islands have always been
restless, and on this stretch of open sea, the ordinary would
soon give way to the extraordinary.
They reportedly opened fire with cannonballs on a giant squid.
The creature slipped back into the depths, leaving only
questions in its wake. For centuries, the squid was
little more than a rumor and a terrifying tale.
Until 2004, the line between legend and reality blurred when
a team of Japanese researchers managed to capture the first
ever photographs of a live giant squid in its natural habitat.
For centuries, sightings of these elusive creatures had been
dismissed as fisherman's tall tales, fuel for stories of the
Kraken. But these images, taken nearly
3000 feet below the surface, revealed a massive squid
stretching over 25 feet in length, its tentacles coiling in
the inky darkness. The discovery didn't just prove
that giant squids were real, it gave a face to the monster that
had haunted sailors dreams for generations.
Suddenly the old stories didn't seem quite so far fetched.
It was proof that monsters do exist.
Long before these monsters became real to us, they prowled
the pages of books. Writers like Jules Verne and HP
Lovecraft latched onto this fear, transforming it into
literary monsters that hinted at ancient, intelligent creatures
lurking in the depths. In Verne's 20,000 Leagues Under
the Sea, the crew of the Nautilus face off with a
colossal squid, its writhing arms battering the submarine
with almost supernatural force. Verne wasn't just borrowing from
sailor's tails, he was tapping into something primal, the
terror of the unknown lurking just beneath their surface.
HP Lovecraft took that fear even further, weaving it into his
mythos of cosmic horror. For him, the ocean was more than
a setting, it was a gateway to realms inhabited by being so old
and fast that human minds could barely comprehend them.
His creatures, like the infamous Cthulhu, weren't just monsters,
they were reminders of our insignificance, of a universe
that's ancient and utterly indifferent to human existence.
Through their stories, both authors ensured that the terror
of the deep didn't just haunt sailors, but anyone whoever
cracked open a book and imagined what might be staring back from
the blackness below. These days, over 80% of the
ocean is unexplored, a blind spot on our own planet.
If the colossal squid, a beast larger and stranger than anyone
dare to imagine, can lurk unseen for so long, who's to say what
else is out there? Fishermen still find deep,
ragged scars etched into the flesh of whales.
Boats return to port with unexplained drag marks gouged
across their hulls. Sonar sweeps pick up massive
shapes moving far below, too large and too alive to fit any
catalog. Maybe these are just errors,
glitches in sonar, shadows in the deep.
Or maybe the old stories are still writing themselves, 1
ripple at a time. Perhaps the Kraken isn't just a
memory. Maybe it's still waiting.
We may never know what awaits us in the depths, but the Kraken
reminds us that we haven't conquered the sea.
We float on the surface, blind to the world's below.
And that's it for this journey into the depths of the sea.
Maybe the Kraken is just a story, or perhaps it's something
the sea's not quite ready to give up.
Either way, next time you're staring out at the endless
ocean, remember some myths never die.
They just sink until they're ready to rise.
Don't forget to subscribe, like and share, and keep your eyes on
the horizon. Until next time, stay curious my
friends.