Probably the most horrifying legendary creature is the Kraken. It was suppose to have been a giant sea monster. This creature was huge, with many arms. Its arms could reach up to the top of a sailing ship’s main mast, when its arms were deployed.

     When the Kraken would attack a ship, it would wrap its arms around the ship and capsize it. The crew would either be eaten by the Kraken or drown. Fishermen around Scandainavia noticed this creature the most.

     Scylla is a monster that has six arms, six heads with four eyes on each. Then at the lower part of this monsters body is six beastly dogs, whose mouth contain razor-like teeth. Scylla is to approximately 15 feet tall.

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     This monster hides in caves at the bottom of cliffs. Scylla lets her head come out of the chasm, grabbing dolphins and humans that venture into its surroundings.

    The Sirens are better known as Mermaids. They are half-woman and half-fish. The Sirens were believed to have lived on the island of, Anthemoessa. Huge boulders surround this island so if ships ventured too close they would be destroyed.

      Aspidochelone is a fabled sea creature. It is described as a huge turtle, in fact it is suppose to be as large as an island. It rises from the sea and entices sailors to make landfall on its shell. Then it devours them.

The poem ‘The Kraken’ by Alfred Tennyson made the concept popular in the western world and inspired Jules Verne’s depiction of the (unrealistically) giant squid in Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea. The legend of the Kraken was also an inspiration for H.P. Lovecraft’s tentacled aquatic god Cthulhu in his short story Call of the Cthulhu. The Watcher in the Water in JRR Tolkein’s Lord of the Rings is depicted as a giant squid-like monster guarding the entrance to the mines of Moria. The Kraken appears in a myriad of other mediums, including in the Narnia series by CS Lewis, the Marvel comic franchise and most recently in the Pirates of the Caribbean series. In Dead Man’s Chest, the Kraken is the last of its kind and is used as a tool of Davy Jones to hunt and destroy rival/enemy ships.

The origin of this myth probably stems from several factors. A majority of legends originate from the ancient desire to explain natural phenomena. Many of the events which are associated with the appearance of a Kraken are explainable by volcanic activity, i.e. Bubbling water and sudden changes in currents. The appearance of the Kraken can be attributed to early sightings of giant squid or giant octopuses.

The largest octopus species in the world is Enteroctopus dofleini. These creatures can grow up to 7m in girth.

Giant squid can grow up to 13 metres in length and have been known to ‘attack’ ships. Their ten tentacles are lined with powerful suckers which are surrounded by a row of tiny teeth. Sperm whales have been discovered which bear scars inflicted by the suckers of giant squid, which gives you and idea of their size and ferocity. Giant squid have been described as early as the first century AD, by Pliny the elder. Giant squid may also be the inspiration for several other mythical sea monsters, including:

• Scylla: a six headed sea monster who would attack passing ships and kill six members of the crew.
• Charbydis: a monster who sucked in vast amounts of sea water before expelling it as a whirlpool.
• Aspidochelone: a giant sea monster commonly mistaken for an island.
• Hydra: this many-headed serpent could grow back a head that that been cut off.
• Cetus: a hideous sea monster, who was the personification of the dangers of the sea and unknown creatures.

Composed of three frightful sisters, namely: Stheno (”the mighty”); Euryale (”the far-springer”); and the best known and the only mortal among them, Medusa (”the queen”). They had glaring eyes, sharp fangs, brazen claws and hair of living, poisonous snakes; and anyone who glanced at them were turned to stone by their direct gaze. They figure mainly in the story of Perseus, who, with the aid of Athena and Hermes, was able to defeat Medusa by cutting off her head while looking at her reflection on a shield.

Pegasus

The majestic winged stallion that sprang from the blood from the decapitated head of Medusa. Pegasus created Hippocrene, a spring sacred to the Muses, when he struck his hoof on Mount Helicon. He was also the carrier of the Zeus’ thunderbolts on Mount Olympus.

Chimera

Fire-breathing she-monster, generally represented with a lion’s head, a goat’s body and a dragon’s tail. Its sighting was taken to be an omen of shipwrecks, storms and natural disasters particularly volcanic eruptions. The Greek hero Bellerophon was able to defeat it with the help of the winged horse Pegasus by running through it with a spear.

Centaur

A race of creatures that had the head and torso of a human being, and the lower body and legs of a horse. They were typically depicted as wild, violent and barbaric beings, indulgent of their own animal desires. A notable exception would be the intelligent, kind and civilized Chiron who tutored Theseus, Achilles and Heracles and was greatly revered as a teacher.

Minotaur

Monster with a human body with bull’s head and tail. It was born to Pasiphae, the queen of Crete, after she mated with a sacred bull. It dwelt in the labyrinth, which was a complicated maze constructed by Daedalus as commanded by King Minos of Crete. Seven young men and seven maidens were sent from Athens annually to be its prey. To stop the slaughter, Theseus volunteered to fight the Minotaur, and was able to slay the monster with the help of King Minos’ daughter Ariadne who gave him a magic sword and a ball of thread that allowed him to retrace his way out of the labyrinth.

Sphinx

A horrific monster, often depicted as a creature with the head and breast of a human female and the body of a lion with wings of an eagle. In the story of Oedipus, it sat on a high rock outside Thebes and accosted all passersby, carrying away and devouring anyone who could not answer its riddle: “What creatures walk on four legs in the morning, on two at noon, and on three in the evening?” Oedipus was able to answer correctly — human beings, who crawl on all four as infants, walk upright in maturity and use a walking stick in old age. It then threw itself from the high rock and died.

Geryon

A winged giant with three human bodies conjoined at the waist. He lived on the island of Erytheia and owned a herd of cattle that was guarded by his two-headed dog Orthrus, and a man named Eurythion. For his tenth labor, Heracles was to obtain this giant’s cattle; and succeeded in his task slaying Orthrus, Eurythion, and eventually the giant, tearing his body into three pieces.

Cerberus

The monstrous three-headed dog guarding the gate of Hades or the underworld to make sure that no dead could leave and no living could enter. But this brother of Orthrus was overcome several times when Orpheus used his beautiful singing voice to lull him to sleep in an effort to save his beloved Eurydice; and when Heracles, for his final labor, was able to capture this vicious hound by treating it with the first kindness it had ever received.

Hecatonchires

A trio of giants of incredible strength and ferociousness, consisting of Briareus (”The Vigorous”), Cottus (”The Furious”) and Gyges (”The Big-Limbed”). They had fifty heads and a hundred arms. In fact, the name means “The hundred handed.” Their father Uranus, who saw them as monsters, cast them into Tartarus (underworld). But Cronus, another son of Uranus, rescued them to help him overthrow their father. Subsequently, they would become the guards of the gates of Tartarus.

Cyclops

A race of giants that had a single eye in the middle of their forehead. They were great weapon makers who forged thunderbolts that Zeus used to overthrow Cronus and the Titans. In Homer’s “Odyssey,” Polyphemus was one such giant whose only eye was pierced with a hardened spear by Odysseus and his men.

Hydra

A water serpent which had breath that’s lethal to both man and beast, and possessed nine heads, eight of which were mortal, while the remaining middle one was immortal. Its lair was the lake of Lerna in the Argolid where it guarded an entrance to the underworld lying beneath its waters. Heracles was tasked to kill this serpent for his second labor, but everytime he cut off each head, two new heads would sprout in its place. So he sent for the assistance of his nephew Iolaus who would burn the neck stumps with a torch to prevent new heads from growing. He then ripped off the immortal head burying it deep in the ground, and placed a huge rock on it.

Echidna

Known as the “Mother of All Monsters” as she mothered with the giant Typhon almost every major monster in the Greek mythology including Geryon, Cerberus, Chimera, Hydra, and the Sphinx, among others. She was portrayed as having a beautiful woman’s face and a serpent’s body. Though she and Typhon rebelled against the Olympian gods, Zeus allowed her and her children to live to challenge to future heroes.

Harpies

Originally beautiful winged women but were altered into winged hags with sharp claws in later traditions. They were most known for continually stealing food from the hand of Phineus so that his hunger could not be satisfied, the punishment Zeus sentenced on him for his abuse of the gift of prophecy by revealing too much regarding the future.

Argus

The hundred-eyed giant that made a very effective watchman as only a few of its eyes would sleep at a time, while the rest would be wide awake. Hera commanded it to watch over a white heifer, and to keep it chained to an olive tree in her sacred garden, knowing fully well that the heifer was actually the nymph Io, with whom her philandering husband Zeus was having an affair. Zeus had Argus slain with the help of Hermes who put all his eyes to sleep with boring tales. As tribute to her faithful watchman, Hera preserved its hundred eyes in a peacock’s tail.

Scylla

A she-monster with the upper body of a woman, tail of a serpentine fish; and clustered around her waist were six long-necked ferocious dog-heads with mouth containing triple rows of razor-sharp teeth. She was once a beautiful nymph, who had a habit of showing contempt for her many suitors. One day, a fisherman-turned-sea-god Glaucus declared his love for her, but she immediately fled having mistaken him for a monster. Glaucus went to the witch Circe asking her to use magic herbs to make the nymph fall in love with him. However, Circe would fall in love with him and asked that he forget the nymph, a proposal Glaucus rejected and instead reaffirmed his eternal love for the nymph. Circe, out of jealousy and rage, turned the girl into a monster by poisoning the water in which the nymph used to bath.

Charybdis

She was originally a sea-nymph who flooded her father Poseidon’s underwater kingdom until Zeus turned her into a monster. She lived in a cave at the northern end of the Strait of Messina, opposite another sea-monster Scylla, where she would swallow huge amounts of water three times a day only to disgorge it back out again, thereby creating an enormous whirlpool which would devour passing ships.

Ladon

An ever-awake hundred-headed dragon with the ability to speak many languages in a multitude of voices. It guarded the garden of the Hesperides, where immortality-endowing golden apples grew.

Triton

A son of Poseidon and the messenger of the deep. He was usually pictured as a merman, living in a golden palace in the depths of the sea and carrying a trident like his father Poseidon. His special attribute was a twisted conch shell which he would blow either to calm or raise the waves.