Kraken - Canvas

Kraken, the subject of sailors' superstitions and mythos, was first described in the modern age at the turn of the 18th century, first in a travelogue by Francesco Negri in 1700, followed by writings by Dano-Norwegian natural history. Egede described the kraken in detail during 1741 and equated it with the hafgufa of medieval lore, but the first description of the creature is usually credited to the Norwegian bishop Pontoppidan in 1753. Pontoppidan was the first to describe the kraken as an octopus (polypus) of tremendous size, and wrote that it had a reputation of pulling down ships, but the French malacologist Denys-Montfort of the 19th century is better known for these.