Phyllis Beveridge Nissila

Kraken?

These days when evil seems to be metastisizing like stage 4 cancer, fattening on power, insolence, and presumption, I am reminded of “The Kraken,” both the sea monster from Scandinavian folklore and Alfred Lord Tennyson’s poem of the same name.

I am reminded that although evil does spread as fast and as wild as evil-mongers can get away with, like cancer, it only has so much “margin” to invade and destroy before it perishes, too, lacking else to overcome or overcome itself by a power greater.

I am also reminded that evil, lacking the wisdom of restraint and/or prodded by fear, always overplays its hand.

In the meantime, however, it enlarges…

From the folklore: “The Kraken is a legendary cephalopod-like sea monster of giant size in Scandinavian folklore. According to the Norse sagas, the kraken dwells off the coasts of Norway and Greenland and terrorizes nearby sailors.”

From Tennyson’s poem: This Kraken sleeps beneath the waters fattening (“battening”) on “huge sea worms” in his sleep, “(until) the latter fire shall heat the deep […] once by man and angels to be seen [until] roaring he shall rise and on the surface die.”

This sea monster is a type of evil.

Which brings me to the present time when, you might say,

The kraken fattens cell by cell,

by thought by word and deed.

In murky depths,

shadowed grots and caves

to seed and feed and breed.

But comes an afternoon or morn

or silent moonless night,

the ne’er-sated beast

will surface break

to twist and roar and die.

No longer will the cancer spread

to unsuspecting parts

but the power greater,

truth in hand,

will vanquish rotted hearts.

Or you could say, “The LORD works out everything to its proper end– even the wicked for a day of disaster’ (Proverbs 16:4, NIV).