49 Fun Facts About Kraken

In Game of Thrones, a golden kraken is the sigil of which noble house of the Iron Islands?

House Greyjoy. Its ironborn are sea raiders who take what they want rather than farm for it, which is why the words beneath the kraken read 'We Do Not Sow'.

Per lore recorded by Hans Egede, how could a fisherman escape a kraken tangled on his hooks?

Speak its name aloud: on hearing it, Egede wrote, the beast sank back as softly as it had risen. Left alone, a hooked kraken rose slowly to the surface and seized the whole crew.

The kraken's name apparently comes from a Norwegian word for which many-armed shape?

A crooked tree. The '-n' on the end is simply Norwegian for 'the', so anyone who says 'the kraken' is really saying 'the the krake'.

An 18th-century account said the kraken's arms could drag even what down to the sea bed?

The largest warship. The account added that the danger was just as great when the beast sank again, because the whirlpool it left drew everything down with it.

Who is usually credited with the first detailed description of the kraken, published in 1753?

Bishop Erik Pontoppidan was more cautious than his reputation: he guessed the monster was some giant polyp or starfish and invited better-informed readers to correct him.

In 18th-century Norwegian lore, the back of a surfacing kraken looked at first like what?

Small islands. Fishermen were glad to find the beast, since fish swarmed above it, but they rowed away fast the moment the water under their boats began to grow shallower.

The whirlpool left by a sinking kraken was likened to which tidal maelstrom off Norway's Lofoten Islands?

The Moskstraumen is the original Maelstrom. Edgar Allan Poe sent a fisherman down it in an 1841 tale, in which the man survives by clinging to a barrel.

In DreamWorks' 2023 film Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken, which sea creatures are the krakens' power-hungry enemies?

Mermaids. The film flips the usual fairy tale: its krakens are sworn protectors of the oceans, and the popular new girl at Ruby's school just happens to be a mermaid.

Hans Egede, who wrote down Norwegian kraken lore, was a missionary famous for his work in which land?

Greenland. The 'Apostle of Greenland' sailed there in 1721 hoping to find the lost Norse settlers; he found only Inuit, stayed 15 years and founded the future capital, Nuuk.

Which Swedish writer's 1539 Carta marina shows a tentacled sea monster sometimes read as the kraken?

Olaus Magnus was a Catholic churchman exiled from newly Lutheran Sweden, which is why his map of the North, twelve years in the making, was printed in Venice.

In both Clash of the Titans films, which Greek hero defeats the Kraken?

Perseus turns it to stone with Medusa's severed head. In the Greek myth the monster he saves Andromeda from is called Cetus; the 1981 film borrowed the Norse kraken's name instead.

Which actor played Zeus and growled 'Release the Kraken!' in the 2010 remake of Clash of the Titans?

Liam Neeson. His delivery in the trailers turned the line into an internet meme, and Time magazine listed it among the year's top buzzwords.

The giant squid, the kraken's likely inspiration, has copper-based blood that turns which colour when it carries oxygen?

Blue. Squid and octopuses carry oxygen with copper-rich haemocyanin rather than iron-rich haemoglobin, and three hearts keep it moving: two feed the gills and one the rest of the body.

Denys de Montfort blamed giant octopuses for sinking British warships; what really did?

A hurricane. The ships, among them prizes just taken from the French, were lost when a storm off Newfoundland scattered their convoy in September 1782, as survivors told the Admiralty.

Denys de Montfort's famous engraving shows a colossal octopus doing what?

Attacking a three-masted ship. He said it showed a real attack on a Saint-Malo vessel off Angola, and reportedly joked that if the picture was believed, his octopus would overthrow a whole fleet next.

Who composed 'The Kraken', the sea monster's theme on the Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest soundtrack?

Hans Zimmer. This was the first Pirates score released under his own name: the original film's music had been credited to his younger colleague Klaus Badelt, with Zimmer listed as producer.

In 1873, fisherman Theophilus Piccot fought off a giant squid in Conception Bay and proved it by doing what?

Hacking off two tentacles. Part of one reached the naturalist Moses Harvey, and once scientists had measured it, doubts that giant squid really existed began to fade.

A team from which country took the first photographs of a living giant squid in its natural habitat in 2004?

Japan. Tsunemi Kubodera and Kyoichi Mori hooked it on a baited line 900 metres down off the Ogasawara Islands; after four hours it tore free, leaving a tentacle behind.

Tentacles included, a big giant squid stretches about as long as which of these?

A city bus. For all that size, nobody photographed one alive in its deep-sea home until 2004; almost everything known before then came from dead or dying animals.

Which cephalopod of Antarctic waters has eyes the size of dinner plates, among the largest in the animal kingdom?

The colossal squid. One study argues that eyes this big, nearly three times as wide as those of any animal outside its close kin, evolved to spot a very large predator coming through the dark in time to flee.

A giant squid named 'Archie', caught off the Falklands in 2004, is displayed at a natural history museum in which city?

London. A trawler hauled the 8.62-metre squid up from 220 metres down, a rare near-complete catch for the Natural History Museum: most giant squid reach scientists only as damaged remains.

Which poet published 'The Kraken', a 15-line sonnet about the sleeping monster, in 1830?

Alfred Tennyson. His kraken sleeps on the sea bed until the fires of the Last Day, when it will rise roaring to the surface, be seen once by men and angels, and die.

Which H. P. Lovecraft story has a scholar traced to an 1830 sonnet about a sleeping kraken?

The Call of Cthulhu. Lovecraft scholar Robert M. Price called the poem a major inspiration: both monsters lie sleeping under the sea for ages, fated to rise in an apocalyptic last age.

In Moby-Dick, which of the Pequod's crew says few whale-ships see the great live squid and return to port?

Starbuck. A lookout cries out for Moby Dick and the boats lower, only to find a giant squid; the first mate says he would almost rather have fought the whale than seen it.

Which 1866 Victor Hugo novel introduced the man-hunting giant octopus into French fiction?

Its hero Gilliatt kills the beast with a knife; the book directly inspired Jules Verne's version four years later.

In Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas, a school of giant squid attacks which vessel?

The Nautilus. Captain Nemo has to bring the submarine to the surface so his crew can fight the creatures off by hand, and one sailor is carried away.

Which star plays Ned Land, who harpoons the giant squid in Disney's 1954 film 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea?

Kirk Douglas. The squid fight was shot twice: Walt Disney disliked the first version, filmed on a calm sea at dusk, so it was restaged at night in a storm that also hid the model's cables.

In the 1981 film Clash of the Titans, who speaks the famous line 'Release the Kraken' as Zeus?

Laurence Olivier. His Zeus first has Poseidon loose the monster on Argos, to punish its king for casting his own daughter and her baby into the sea.

In the 2010 remake of Clash of the Titans, which god, rather than sea-ruler Poseidon, created the Kraken?

Hades. The film has him create the monster to help the gods overthrow the Titans, then threaten to loose it on Argos unless Princess Andromeda is sacrificed.

In Dead Man's Chest, the Kraken hunts sailors who bear what mark of a debt to Davy Jones?

The Black Spot. The film borrowed it from Treasure Island, where pirates press a blackened scrap of paper into the hand of a shipmate they have judged and condemned.

Who plays Davy Jones, master of the Kraken, in Dead Man's Chest?

Bill Nighy. He acted on set in a grey motion-capture suit, and the animators then replaced him so completely that not even the character's eyes are his own.

In Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End, what has happened to the Kraken?

It has been beached and killed. Lord Cutler Beckett, who by then held Davy Jones's heart, forced Jones to destroy the monster he himself called the captain's pet.

In Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation, the singing Kraken is voiced by which pop star?

Joe Jonas. His Kraken sings the monsters into Atlantis, and when the villain later turns it against them with music, Johnny wins it back by playing the Macarena.

What did Kerbal Space Program's developers call the fix for the ship-destroying bug players named 'the Kraken'?

Krakensbane. Rounding errors at high speed shook ships to pieces, so the fix stopped moving the ship through space and began moving the universe around the ship instead.

In the pirate game Sea of Thieves, the Kraken turns up as what?

A random event. It can strike any crew in open water: the sea around the ship turns inky black, and tentacles rise to wrap the hull and snatch pirates off the deck.

The Seattle Kraken joined the NHL in 2021 and play home games in which arena?

Climate Pledge Arena. Amazon bought the naming rights in 2020 and, instead of its own name, put a climate promise on a building first raised for Seattle's 1962 World's Fair.

Which defending Stanley Cup champion did the Seattle Kraken upset in their first playoff series in 2023?

Colorado Avalanche. Seattle had finished last in its division the season before, its first in the league, then knocked out the reigning champions in seven games.

The Kraken cryptocurrency exchange, founded in 2011, is based in which country?

United States. Founded in San Francisco in 2011, it outlived its hacked rival MtGox, whose bankruptcy trustee then picked Kraken to help process the claims of 127,000 creditors.

Kraken Mare, the largest known sea of liquid hydrocarbons, lies on which moon?

Titan. Saturn's largest moon is so cold, about -179 °C, that water ice is as hard as rock there, while methane falls as rain and pools into seas.

Which space probe discovered the methane sea Kraken Mare?

Cassini. Its radar found no bottom in the sea's main basin, which astronomers estimate is at least 300 metres deep, deep enough for the robot submarine NASA has studied sending.

The Kraken roller coaster, which opened in 2000, is at which theme park?

SeaWorld Orlando. It is a floorless coaster, with riders' legs dangling above the track through seven inversions; a 2017 virtual-reality upgrade was pulled after two seasons of technical trouble.

Which Hollywood producer co-founded the NHL's Seattle Kraken?

Jerry Bruckheimer. He produced Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest, in which a kraken drags Jack Sparrow's ship under, and now co-owns a hockey team named after the monster.

Kraken Rum was first made with molasses-based rum from which Caribbean island?

Trinidad. The island's rum was the base, but the brand belongs to Proximo Spirits, the New Jersey company better known for Jose Cuervo tequila.

After the 2020 US election, which attorney vowed to 'release the Kraken', meaning supposed evidence of fraud?

Sidney Powell. She took the cry from the film Clash of the Titans, and it stuck: the election lawsuits she went on to file became known as the 'Kraken' suits.

The Kraken Regiment was formed as a volunteer special unit of which country's military intelligence?

Ukraine. Veterans of the Azov Regiment formed the unit in Kharkiv as Russia invaded in 2022 and took the sea monster's name.

According to legend, what did the kraken spend several months doing after months of feeding, drawing fish to it?

Emptying its excrement. The cloud was said to smell so good to fish that they gathered right above the beast, which then opened its arms and swallowed them; a Victorian naturalist took it for squid ink.

Which author wrote the 1953 novel The Kraken Wakes?

John Wyndham. No kraken ever appears in it: the invaders who settle the ocean deeps are never seen at all, and the title simply borrows from a famous poem about the sleeping monster.

Kraken Catena, a chain of craters named after the sea monster, lies on Triton, the largest moon of which planet?

Neptune. Triton circles it backwards, against the planet's own spin, which is why scientists think it is a captured Kuiper belt object rather than a moon born alongside Neptune.

Giant squid, the likely source of the kraken legend, are hunted in the deep by which animal?

Sperm whales. They can dive a kilometre or more after their prey, and many carry circular scars around the head, left by the suckers of squid that fought back.