A long necked aquatic cryptid reported to inhabit Loch Ness in the Scotish Highlands.
Off the cost of Norway and Greenland is said to dwell the “The Kraken”. No creature of maritime legend was more feared by ancient sailors.
Early descriptions of the Kraken told of a creature so large it would be mistaken by sailors for an island. Even as late as 1752, the Bishop of Bergen, Erik Ludvigsen Pontoppidan, wrote in The Natural History of Norway that the kraken was "incontestably the largest Sea monster in the world" with a width of one and a half miles. The Bishop also noted that the colossal beast had starfish like extremities, but these weren’t the most dangerous aspect of the creature. Instead, due to its utterly gigantic size , any time the beast submerged beneath the water it would generate a whirlpool that would smallow vessels whole.
Later legends would downsize the beast considerably. They tell instead of a creature that could reach to the top of a ship's highest mast with its tentacles. These same limbs would wrap around the hulls of ships before capsizing them.