The Snowflake Chronicles

November Fantasy Newsletter

Research

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kraken
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/kraken
https://www.ranker.com/list/scary-sea-monster-legends/edira-putri
https://www.tor.com/2012/08/13/sea-monsters-a-z/
https://www.theoi.com/articles/list-of-legendary-mythical-sea-creatures/

Editor's Picks

1. Halloween Battle at Shibuya
2. A Question of Pursuit
3. The Temple
4. Grandmother Keeper
5. The Kraken's Prisoners - Chapter 1
6.
7.
8.
9.

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Krakens and Other Sea Monsters

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Are sea monsters real or myths?

Hook

Is the Kraken or other sea monsters just sailors' superstitions?

About This Newsletter

I remember reading a fantasy-horror story about a Kraken, a huge cephalopod similar to squids. I don't remember the name of the story or the author, but I do remember the Kraken. It rose up from the ocean, wrapped its tentacles around a sailing ship, and pulled the ship, along with its cargo and crew to the bottom of the ocean.

Letter From the Editor

The Kraken is a gigantic sea monster from Scandinavian folklore, and resembles a giant squid. According to Wikipdia, can be forty to fifty feet long. The folk tales about the Kraken, suggests that it gets large enough to pull down or swallow a large sailing ship. The Kreken is not the only frightening sea monster. All sea fairing civilizations have myths of sea monster.

The Qalupalik, a frightening Inuit myth, is a mermaid-like creature with long, malformed fingernails and green skin, who lures children into the sea. Two Scary sea monsters from Japan are the Umibozu, whose dark form rises from calm seas, and the Ningen, whose appearance frightens sailors. Other sea monsters are the Leviathan, a serpent-like creature, and the Cirein Croin, of Scottish folklore.

Sea monsters come in all shapes, with some of them resembling serpents and other are human shaped. The Vodyanoy, a Slavic myth, has a horrifying frog-like appearance, and the ability to transform itself into a handsome man. The sea monsters listed here are only a few of the dozens of water dwelling monsters from mythology. Some of the monsters, like the Kraken, are well known and used in many stories. Others, such as the Vodyanoy, are little known and used rarely or not at all in stories.

What sea monsters have you used in stories? Does your country or cultural myths have sea monsters that you could use in a story? Do you have a story about one of these monsters that you would like to share?

Editors Picks

STATIC

Halloween Battle in Shibuya  (13+) A demon witch from another world comes to conquer. #2235098 by Kotaro

Excerpt: For my last mission I was Ty Cobb. Including myself, six of us had been ordered to prepare for a battle against alien demonic forces. All of us had agreed to choose the essence of a great baseball player to add to our positronic brains; everything else was identical. We loved winning and the best win was victory in a battle to the death.

Invalid Item  This item number is not valid. #2228001 by Not Available.

Excerpt: Why do I follow?
         Beads of sweat punctuated his doubt.
         His tongue tasted the metallic rust of dehydration.
         The tear tracks of his frustration gathered
         the sand in clumps as though they were
         his own jagged wrinkles.

STATIC

The Temple  (13+) A homeless man maintains a temple to an unlikely God accepting extreme sacrifices. #2191232 by J.B. Ezar

Excerpt: “Behold, this is my temple,” the man said with a wide swing of an arm.

Grandmother Keeper  (E) Sometimes remembering comes at a price. #2237726 by Oran Kell

Excerpt: The keening echoed off cracked canyon walls and crawled across the skin of my ears like sand fleas.

STATIC

The Kraken's Prisoners - Chapter 1  (13+) Aira and Gretchen think they are safe with the dryads until woodcutters fell the forest #2235922 by HollyMerry

Excerpt: Aira headed for the crab apple tree, humming. After years of toiling as a servant for humans, helping the dryads in their forest home had to be one of the easiest jobs the brownie girl had done. The dryads admired her care for their trees and how she helped woodland creatures find the autumn bounty that they provided.

Submitted by Readers

Activities, Groups, and Contests

Feedback "Fantasy Newsletter (October 28, 2020)" 

s writes: I recently used the Hunter's Moon in a story, and its name made me change the timing of the story to October from later in the year. I went down a rabbit hole. Hunter's Moon seems to be across many northern hemisphere cultures - last hunt before winter migrations take food supplies away it seems. November was not the Beaver Moon in the European stuff I looked at! It had many names, and the only one I remember is the Owl Moon.

Cool coincidence of my research, though.

WakeUpAndLive️~🚬🚭2024 writes: Thanks for the NL. I definitely am going to use that list of Moon names in one of my stories. It will be so cool to describe January till March as in Woolf to Worm.

brom21 writes: I found this fascinating. I have heard some of the names of these moons. I wonder how these cultures came up with these names. This was an Easter egg. I will certainly come up with moon names in my fantasy. Thanks or the NL.

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