kraken ?
 

what is a kraken ? in the site , there and back again, in the lore section, and under maiar spirits, it says kraken, although you cant select it to read about it. wasnt this in the story with medusas head, that could kill the kraken, in greek mythology ? where in tolkiens writings does he speak of this ?

I think it's some sort of sea monster (I get this because Sea World has a roller coaster by that name & it has something to do with sea monters).
It's a long shot-but who knows [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img]

Ha! Well, what do ya know... I was right! And I was just guessing because of a roller coaster name! [img]smilies/biggrin.gif[/img]

A Kraken is a large sea monster (giant squid/octopus)...i remember reading it somewhere...

could the watcher in the water be a kraken then ?

Yeah, never thought of that actually...it could be. Or is it another one of Tolkien's creatures?

does anyone have anything where this is mentioned in any tolkien writinngs ?

I am pretty sure that somewhere it says that one name for the watcher in the water is kraken. I have no idea where. Wait, my little bro says that it says that in the apendix of LOTR. But then he has been known to be wrong. Oh well.

Little siblings are not to be trusted [img]smilies/wink.gif[/img]
Anywho, I always thought of a kraken as a kind of general term for a giant squid, so in my mind, the Watcher in the Water fell under the catagory of "kraken"...

It is a giant squid.
There's a very famous poem entitled The Kraken, and Tolkien probably took inspirtation from that. Other than that, it's a sort of 'bogey-man' child's monster that they use in Norway. My mum's from there, so I got told the same stories about 'The Kraken will get you' etc...

A kraken is a giant sea monster of some sort, and I remember reading somewhere (not in anything by Tolkien, sadly) that they takes thousands and thousands of years to grow to their full size, so that might apply to the Watcher in the Water. Also, it said that it had 'eight, wavery, wobbly, legs', so that's a further implication.

Not to mention that Tolkien liked to steal ideas from the norse myths

Tsss...not stealing (shame on you Orome [img]smilies/wink.gif[/img]), he got inspiration from it. [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img] Well, uh, that´s my opinion anyway.

Very true, very true. Besides, can you really say that he "stole" elves and dwarves?

I believe the watcher is a Kraken. Now how does a sea monster get into a small inland lake?

true you cant say he stole the elves and dwarves, but his myths did have a tendency to inclued things that are strikingly similar to various norse myths. the Kraken could have gotten there as a itty bitty kraken and then grown up. it may have been rained down like frogs and salamanders do sometimes

LOL! Raining frogs!!

It's not much fun when it's raining giant seamonsters [img]smilies/confused.gif[/img] [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img]

True, but I think I'd like to see it rain frogs sometime. Raining worms just isn't the same [img]smilies/frown.gif[/img]