Why this exists
Kraken Legends is a private atlas of fishing: the fish and the ways they are taken, the waters they are taken from, and the stories people tell about both.
It was not assembled for money or for traffic. It was assembled because no systematic collection of fishing folklore exists anywhere: the material is scattered across scholarly collections, local histories and spoken accounts that nobody writes down. So let it be here.
The purpose is educational: to preserve, to translate, to bring together — and to name the source.
Where the texts come from
Three things need to be told apart.
A folk plot belongs to no one. The story of a ship that bears down to ram and vanishes before it strikes has been told for centuries by hundreds of people. It has no author.
A particular recording does belong to someone. If a folklorist transcribed an account, a translator rendered it and a publisher printed it, then that transcription, translation and commentary have a rights holder.
So we retell rather than reprint. The texts on this site are written afresh, in our own words. We do not publish anyone else’s text in full.
How we handle sources
Every entry names its source: who told it, who wrote it down, where it was printed and when. This is not politeness but the point of the project — a tale without a provenance is worth nothing.
Quotations are kept short, in quotation marks, with the author and edition named — in a length justified by the purpose of quoting.
Where sources disagree or a fact is contested, we say so in the text rather than picking the prettier version.
Images
Public domain only. Under every engraving we name the artist, the year and the collection the scan came from: Wikimedia Commons, museum and library digitisations.
If we have misjudged the rights status of an image, write to us and we will sort it out.
If you hold the rights
The rule is simple: we will not argue.
If you believe something on this site touches your rights, write to hello@krakenlegends.com. Give the link to the page and say what exactly is wrong.
We will reply within seven days and do one of three things, whichever you prefer:
- take the material down;
- correct or extend the attribution;
- add a link to your source.
No documentary proof of ownership is required. The atlas’s clean reputation matters more to us than any single entry.