The human being has always feared what the water hides. Mythology and fiction have not been sparing in creating amazing aquatic creatures. Sometimes, aesthetic delight and mythological ingenuity generate terrible and terrifying monsters that, why not?, are especially attractive to the imagination.
The symbols of these aquatic monsters have accompanied human beings throughout our entire cultural trajectory. The representation of such fearsome beings has had both religious and literary functions, as well as they have served as images that delineate cultural traditions and their own ways of thinking. Such monstrosities have instilled tremendous terror in unfortunate travelers as well as in the most daring and intrepid navigators.
1. Leviathan
This marine beast belongs to Hebrew mythology and is mentioned in various places in the Old Testament (such as the Book of Isaiah, the Book of Job or the Book of Psalms). It is a creature conceived by God in Creation. The image of Leviathan has been so widespread in Western culture that its name has come to be used as a generic term to designate any sea monster.
This lavish marine beast is characterized as the most fearsome and powerful animal and does not hesitate to face the divinity itself. He is credited with incredible and terrifying abilities such as spitting flames, hardened skin, and extraordinary strength. When he gets up he causes huge waves and weapons do not deal damage to him. In the sacred texts it is also said that Yahweh will slay “the dragon that is in the sea.” The philosopher Thomas Hobbes uses the image of the excessive power of this biblical monster to theorize the modern State and social organization using theories such as the social contract. This treatise is one of the foundational works of modern political theory.
2.Cthulhu
This being is a gigantic fictional monster created by the writer H. P. Lovecraft. This author is one of the most prominent in the horror genre and in his stories a “horror mythology” is formed whose most characteristic creature is Cthulhu.
Lovecraft plays with the notions of chaos, of existence before time and of realities parallel to the common one. The knowledge of these secrets drives many of the characters in his stories to madness, since it is a terrifying knowledge that we cannot assimilate. The awesome Cthulhu represents and comes from this secret world, which is why he is sometimes worshiped as a deity. He is a creature whose size is compared to a mountain and has the body of a winged dragon with the head of a squid or octopus.
The real name of this being cannot be pronounced with the physiological capacities of the human being (this is one more expression of its strangeness and its alterity with respect to our reality), for this reason there is no valid pronunciation and the term is an ambiguous and approximate transcription. The story The Call of Cthulhu is highly recommended.
