Dragon Week: Guest Post from Author Daniel E. Olesen
I am so excited for Dragon Week! There is an amazing lineup of massively talented authors! You can’t go wrong with any of their books.
I’m happy to kick off the week with a guest post from Daniel E. Olsen, author of the Firebrand series.
The Wyrms of the North
by Daniel E. Olesen
Dragons exist in various forms across many cultures, including that of the Old Norse people, better known as Vikings. They called them either simply “ormr” or “linnormr”, though the exact origin of both the word and the stories are unclear, being older than a thousand years. To the Norse people, “ormr” could mean a rainworm, a snake, or a creature of such giant proportions, it could encompass the entire world.
For the sake of brevity and clarity, we will assume that the different mentions of worms and lindworms in Scandinavian sources of myths and heroics refer to the same overall tradition of these monstrous beings. And while they don’t appear often, lindworms are among the most famous creatures in Scandinavian mythology, oral history, and folklore, and I’ll give an example from each of these three to illustrate what we know.
The most famous of all such giant snakes would be Jǫrmungandr, the World Serpent. A child born to Loki, the trickster, he was thrown by Oðinn into the vast sea that encompasses all the lands of humanity, where he grew to such size, he eventually spanned the entirety of the world, until his head reached his tail (thus making him an example of the ouroboros, a snake eating its own tail, and a symbol of eternity, renewal, and also associated with alchemy and the philosopher’s stone, i.e. the quest for eternal life – snakes often have such associations because of their ability to shed their skin and thus renew themselves, which we shall return to).
Jǫrmungandr is an enemy to the gods, and while today, we might find such a creature fascinating, the Norse people viewed him with fear and trepidation. At Ragnarǫk, the final battle of the gods, Jǫrmungandr will fight Thórr, the thunder god and their strongest champion. While Thórr is victorious, he will only take nine steps before the poison or venom (the Norse word can mean either) of the serpent kills him as well.
This might suggest Jǫrmungandr to be a venomous snake with fangs, however, there is another possibility as illustrated in our second example, the tale of Ragnar Loðbrok. Here, a rich man gives his daughter a small worm as a pet that rests upon a pile of gold. It grows and grows, as does the gold on which it sleeps, until it reaches such proportions, it encircles the house where the daughter lives (notice the similarity with Jǫrmungandr encircling the whole world of humanity).
His daughter now a prisoner, the rich man promises her hand and all the gold the lindworm sleeps on to any who can slay the beast (a classic motif that combines two story threads from European folklore – a king offering the princess and half the kingdom to the hero who can accomplish a quest, and the reward of a dragon’s hoard for slaying it).
Our hero, Ragnar, decides to answer the call, but first, he makes curious preparations. He removes the nail that keeps his spearhead fixed to the haft, and he makes himself a strange suit of untreated furs, covering it in tar and then sand. Wearing this oddity as his armour, he battles the lindworm and strikes his spear deep into it, killing it. As he pulls his weapon back, the spearhead remains in the wound, being not affixed to the haft. However, the death throes of the beast push the spearhead out, and a stream of blood strikes Ragnar. Thankfully, his curious clothing protects him, as he knew what you’re about to learn: the blood of a lindworm is poisonous to the touch, perhaps like being struck with acid. It is possible that the old myths suggest that this is the manner in which Thórr will die; after killing Jǫrmungandr, its poisonous blood kills him in turn.
The curious fur suit is what Ragnar’s epithet refers to, Loðbrok meaning something like “hairy clothes”. Kinder people might have nicknamed him “Dragonslayer”, but the Norse people preferred humour to praise, it would seem.
The last example is from folklore. A fairytale known as “King Lindworm” tells of a queen desperate for children. A crone gives her advice on how to conceive, but in her eagerness, she overdoes it and ends up having twins; worse, one of the children is a monster, part man, part lindworm. As he grows to maturity, he demands a wife, but every woman he weds, he consequently eats.
A shepherd’s daughter, given advice by the same crone, weds the prince and appears in his chamber wearing all her dresses. He bids her remove one of her dresses, and she bids him remove one of his layers – like a snake shedding its skin. They continue, each shedding a dress or a layer, nine times, until she is wearing her tenth and last dress, while he is naked and a snake no longer, only his human form remaining. In this manner, the curse on him is lifted.
The experienced fantasy reader may already have noticed how this could have inspired some of the biggest classics of the genre. In J. R. R. Tolkien’s “The Hobbit”, Smaug sleeps on a pile of gold. In C. S. Lewis’ “Voyage of the Dawntreader”, Eustace is turned into a dragon who must shed layer after layer of skin until his final self is revealed. And in Ursula K. Le Guin’s “The Farthest Shore”, the mightiest of dragons is known as Orm Embar, evoking the Norse word.
About the Author:
Daniel E. Olesen is a Danish author with a master’s degree in Comparative Literature. He has just finished the six book series Firebrand , a magic school story with Roman and Norse influence, currently being published by Aethon Books, who will also publish his other series, The Chronicles of Adalmearc, next year. Purchase link: Amazon
