Category: Vikings

Frost Giants of Norse Mythology

It is common to hear the Norse giants referred to as frost giants or ice giants.  The Prose Edda seems to refer to Jötnar as frost giants (hrimþursar) much of the time.  This is only part of the story, though. 

The association between giants and ice is understandable considering that the giants first arose from the meeting of fire and ice in the yawning void at the dawn of time and because the giants live beyond the realm of gods and mortals.  People living as close to nature as Vikings did usually associated intense cold with death and hardship.  The inhabited parts of the Viking world were hemmed by glaciers and frozen mountains.  Meanwhile, the Giants were said to live in Jotunheim or Utgard (which means a place outside or beyond the boundaries of the worlds of humans and gods).  One Eddic poem describes a hall in Utgard this way:

I saw a hall that stands far from the sun
On the beaches of corpses the doors face north
Drops of poison fall from the roof
The walls are encircled by serpents

(Voluspa, verse 37, Crawford’s 2015 translation)

Despite these associations with cold and ice, not all giants are “frost giants” as such.  One of the most feared giants of all is Surt, a massive being of fire that will bring great destruction to the world at Ragnarok.  The Poetic Edda mentions Thor killing “lava giants” as well as frost giants, and sometimes presents them in juxtaposition, as in the poem For Skirnis: “hear me, giants, hear me, frost-trolls, hear me, fire-trolls!”  In this same poem, some giants are presented as radiantly beautiful, while others are ghastly and horrifying.  Indeed, the Jötnar may be the most diverse of all the beings that haunt the Viking imagination.

Source: Sons of Vikings

In Norse mythology, giants are the original “founding” beings at the top of the Norse family tree. The more commonly known gods (such as Odin, Thor) are all direct or indirect descendants of these giants. Giants were called Jötunn (singular) or Jötnar (plural). The word Jötunn originally came from the Proto-Germanic word that meant “devourer.”

Another name for them was þursar or þurs (pronounced thurss), which means something like “powerful and injurious one” or simply something like “piercer” or “thorn.”  In the rune poems, the Thurisaz rune is associated with the Jötnar (giants), as well as sickness, tragedy, and pain.

The very first giant, Ymir (pronounced EE-mir), arose from primordial chaos when the worlds of fire and of ice came together in a tremendous, hissing scream.  His offspring, the Jötnar, were spirits of this chaos, representing the destructive cycle of the natural universal order.

The Aesir and the Vanir tribes of gods also arose partially from this same race of giants (though they also had another ancestor, Buri – a being of unknown origin that had been bounded in ice until he was eventually set free from Ymir’s cow named Auðumbla who licked at the ice for three days). By the gods’ own nature and choice, the giants became the positive or creative aspect of universal order.  In Viking lore, it is not so much that the gods are good and the giants evil, but rather that the gods and giants are in opposition and balance.  This is not to say that Norse belief observed a strict dualism (as some ancient religions did), but they understood their world through their stories of struggle between the gods and the Jötnar, between creation and destruction,   

Sometimes, the difference between giants and gods is itself obscure.  For example, Loki is often thought of as the Viking god of trouble.  He was an adopted member of the Aesir tribe of gods and blood-brother to Odin, but Loki was the son of giants and is only ambiguously called a god in the primary sources.  None of his offspring are gods but are giants or supernatural beasts.  Similarly, Jörð (a “Mother Earth” figure) and Skadi (the ski-borne goddess of the wild) appear in the Eddas as Jötunn in origin. They are later called goddesses, but then often excluded from lists or gatherings of goddesses in Asgard. 

Some experts see in this interplay between gods and giants a parallel of how the Vikings themselves interacted with the cultures around them. Whether this is accurate or not, the lore is clear that the gods and giants are not distinct races of beings but rather opposing and competing forces. These competing forces’ cosmic nature can easily be inferred from the names, attributes, and actions of the individual members within these “warring tribes.”

Source: Sons of Vikings

Ghosts and the Undead

Most people have heard that for the Vikings, brave warriors went to Valhalla while everyone else went to Hel (the underworld), but actual Norse beliefs were more complicated and less standardized than that. To the Viking mind, there were different layers of self and different time frames. These elements could move on – as well as various places they could go. This left plenty of room for ghosts and the undead in the Norse imagination.

Stories of ghosts occur in many of the sagas and Eddic poems. They sometimes visit the living in dreams or can be found haunting their burial mounds. One reference in Njal’s Saga speaks of a ghost who sits atop his burial mound singing by night, seemingly content. This offers a glimpse of how the Vikings felt their ancestors were always with them.

The Eddic poem, Helgaknitha Hundingsbana II (The Second Poem of Helgi Killer of Hunding), paints a darker picture of such a haunting. Helgi, the slain hero, returns to his burial mound from Valhalla on one magical night. Helgi’s ghost has physical substance and still bleeds from his battle wounds. His grieving widow, Sigrun, spends the night in his arms within the cold tomb. Sigrun returns to the burial mound night after night, though it is unknown if Helgi ever returns. She eventually dies from her sorrow. The poem ends with the lines, “all the dead are more powerful by night than they are by bright day.”

Some ghosts are not lost loved ones visiting from beyond the grave, though. The Vikings believed in beings called Draugr (also called an Aptrganga or “after-walker”), a malicious ghost with physical form. This undead being usually had been a bad man who died in a bad way. They were recognizable as the dead man but had grotesque features, bluing skin, and eyes that could render humans immobile with fear. They had otherworldly strength. They could sometimes appear much larger than they had been when alive and were usually described as inexplicably heavy.

Sometimes the Draugr was content to guard his treasure in his burial mound, but others terrorized farms or haunted a specific area. An embodiment of the bad luck that could plague the farms of the Viking world, the Draugr would kill livestock, horses, or pets. They could cause roofs to collapse or other disasters. Sometimes, the Draugr would kill people directly, especially if he was challenged. Shepherds, servants, or cattle-drivers would be found dead, and when their bodies were inspected, it was found that every bone – big and small – was broken.

One of the most detailed accounts of these “Viking zombies” is in Grettir’s Saga. Grettir is an outlaw and an antihero, but he is a fearless Viking of great physical strength. Early in his life, he faces a Draugr in a burial mound and kills it, winning the short sword (seax) that was buried with it. Years later, though, Grettir faces Glam, a very dangerous, malevolent Draugr. Grettir decapitates Glam, but not before Glam places a heavy curse on him. This curse causes Grettir trouble and tragedy for the rest of his life, and ever-after the mighty Viking is afraid of the dark.

According to Grettir’s Saga and some other sources, the Viking method for killing the undead was not a stake through the heart or fire, but rather by cutting off the fiend’s head and place it next to its ass. Interestingly, archaeologists have found several Viking Age graves in which the skull was found between the skeleton’s legs, just below the pelvis. Other remains have been found weighed down by heavy stones to keep the dead where they were.

Source: Sons of Vikings

Werewolves

Vikings believed that some gods, giants, dwarves, elves, spirits, and even human beings could change shape. Examples of such shape-shifting includes Odin turning into an eagle to steal the mead of poetry; Loki turning into a mare and becoming mother to the 8-legged horse, Sleipnir; Fafnir, a dwarf whose greed turned him into a massive dragon; and other incidents of characters becoming salmon, snakes, otters, falcons, seals, swans, or bears. But one of the most common – and most terrifying – of these shapeshifters were werewolves.

Stories of werewolves and similar human-animal shapeshifters have been around for thousands of years and are found throughout the world, and so it could hardly be said that the Norse invented them. Yet, the werewolf holds a very special place in Viking lore. In their stories, we see these dark manifestations of humankind’s animal nature better explored than ever before.

The Vikings had different types of werewolves. Several appear in The Volsunga Saga.  In the fifth chapter of this long epic, Sigmund and 9 other sons of the heroic Volsung family have been captured by an evil king and bound in massive timber stocks out in the wild, black forest. Every night, an enormous she-wolf comes and devours one of the brothers while the others watch helplessly. This continues until Queen Signy – the wife of the evil king and the sister of the hapless Volsungs – smears her favorite brother’s face with honey. When the demonic wolf comes to kill Sigmund, she is distracted by the honey, and – as she licks her victim’s face and sticks her long, lolling tongue in his mouth, Sigmund bites hard and holds on. As the wolf thrashes to get free, she smashes Sigmund’s fetters – and rips her own tongue out. The hero breaks loose as the creature bleeds to death. It is later revealed this unworldly wolf is the mother of the evil king who had transformed her shape using dark arts.

Later in The Volsunga Saga, Sigmund and his son, Sinfjotli, are outlaws in the woods. Using enchanted wolf skins, Sigmund and Sinfjotli become werewolves for 9 nights at a time. While thus enchanted, young Sinfjotli is so terrifying and powerful that he can kill 11 armed men at once. This transformation affects more than just their physical strength though – in a fit of savage rage while in wolf form, Sigmund rips his own son’s throat out. Realizing what he has done, Sigmund uses all his willpower, magic, healing skill, and a little help from the gods to break out of his wolf trappings and heal his son before it is too late. The two burn their wolf mantles after that and do not go back to being werewolves.

The Volsunga Saga is one of the legendary sagas, and so is full of dragons, dwarves, and the like. Did the Vikings really believe these things, or for them, was it just a good story? Werewolves also appear in the more “realistic” Islandasagur sagas, suggesting that Vikings (or at least, many of them) did really believe in the existence of werewolves. For example, in Egil’s Saga, the hero’s father is called Kveldulf (“Evening Wolf”) for his lupine personality and the rumors that he runs with wolves by moonlight.

There were also real-world examples of Viking “werewolves.” Viking warbands featured berserkers – the frenzied bear-inspired warriors devoted to Odin. They also had another type of elite known as úlfheðnar (literally, “wolf-skins”). Not much is known about these Viking wolf warriors, aside from what clues appear in poetry or in art from the Viking Age and earlier Vendel period. In the depictions, these warriors appear as fearless and savage in the extreme. They take on all the qualities of the wolf and strike dread into the hearts of their enemies.

So, the Viking image of werewolves is diverse and ranges in its believability. Missing in Norse lore is the direct association between werewolves and a full moon. Indeed, one does not become a werewolf by being bitten by another werewolf. In the stories, though, one sees a clear relationship between the wolf nature and night. Especially in the case of Kveldulf, we see the “werewolf personality” of a mysterious, reclusive, abrasive, dangerous loner. As in the story of Sigmund and Sinfjotli, we see how the savage nature of the wolf takes over human nature and how the human spirit struggles to achieve some kind of control over it. All these themes are still present in the better werewolf tales of today.

Source: Sons of Vikings