4 ms·

Sea monsters and their inspiration: serpents, mermaids, the kraken and more

53 points by benbreen 5y ago

eric4smith 5y ago
Jack Vance's "The Blue World" is to my mind, the seminal work of fiction on Kraken interaction with humans. I's also interesting that the protagonist Sklar Hast has a Scandinavian origin name but, that also the Kraken (Kragen in the book) originated from Scandinavian folklore. Well worth the read.
teorema 5y ago
I'm surprised there wasn't more discussion of environmental and industrial change. Some of the examples are closer to pure fantasy, but I suspect there were larger, and more larger, specimens of animals in the sea, 150 years ago than today. Probably greater diversity as well. I know this is true in the areas I'm familiar with, that imagining wild areas 200 years ago is somewhat difficult because there's so many things you wouldn't even imagine because your frame of reference is distorted. Trees were much much larger and more abundant, and there were a lot more, and much larger fish and molluscs, than is the case today. It seems that squid and oarfish might provide similar examples. I also wonder about the role humans played in that people were probably smaller on average, in smaller boats etc. The same squid is going to be more of a threat if everyone is smaller, on what today would be considered a smaller boat, and those are the limits of the human world.
CTDOCodebases 5y ago
Interesting read. Sometimes I wonder if the folklore of dragons were perhaps inspired by dinosaurs.
Fnoord 5y ago
I also enjoyed 'Ten animals named after mythological creatures' [1] linked at the bottom. [1] https://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/animals-named-after-mythological-creatures.html https://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/animals-named-after-mythologi...
thobond 5y ago
Some of these animals are like beings of a lost world. We don't know for sure, but who knows what kind of creatures live on the ocean's dark depths.
xaedes 5y ago
They should have mentioned the Beluga. Their body can deceptively look like humans in tight whole body suits. Just look for images "beluga mermaid".
Rd6n6 5y ago
With all the news about doom and disaster, it’s really nice to find an article about fun monsters

53 points by benbreen 5y ago

Jack Vance's "The Blue World" is to my mind, the seminal work of fiction on Kraken interaction with humans. I's also interesting that the protagonist Sklar Hast has a Scandinavian origin name but, that also the Kraken (Kragen in the book) originated from Scandinavian folklore. Well worth the read.

teorema 5y ago

I'm surprised there wasn't more discussion of environmental and industrial change. Some of the examples are closer to pure fantasy, but I suspect there were larger, and more larger, specimens of animals in the sea, 150 years ago than today. Probably greater diversity as well. I know this is true in the areas I'm familiar with, that imagining wild areas 200 years ago is somewhat difficult because there's so many things you wouldn't even imagine because your frame of reference is distorted. Trees were much much larger and more abundant, and there were a lot more, and much larger fish and molluscs, than is the case today. It seems that squid and oarfish might provide similar examples. I also wonder about the role humans played in that people were probably smaller on average, in smaller boats etc. The same squid is going to be more of a threat if everyone is smaller, on what today would be considered a smaller boat, and those are the limits of the human world.

CTDOCodebases 5y ago

Interesting read. Sometimes I wonder if the folklore of dragons were perhaps inspired by dinosaurs.

Fnoord 5y ago

I also enjoyed 'Ten animals named after mythological creatures' [1] linked at the bottom. [1] https://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/animals-named-after-mythological-creatures.html https://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/animals-named-after-mythologi...

thobond 5y ago

Some of these animals are like beings of a lost world. We don't know for sure, but who knows what kind of creatures live on the ocean's dark depths.

xaedes 5y ago

They should have mentioned the Beluga. Their body can deceptively look like humans in tight whole body suits. Just look for images "beluga mermaid".

Rd6n6 5y ago

With all the news about doom and disaster, it’s really nice to find an article about fun monsters