Worm, wurm or wyrm (; ; ), meaning serpent, are archaic terms for dragons ( ) in the wider Germanic mythology and folklore, in which they are often portrayed as large venomous snakes and hoarders of gold. Especially in later tales, however, they share many common features with other dragons in European mythology, such as having wings.
Prominent worms attested in medieval Germanic works include the dragon that killed Beowulf, the central dragon in the Völsung Cycle – Fáfnir, Nidhogg (), and the great world serpent, Jǫrmungandr, including subcategories such as lindworms and sea serpents.
Terminology
Etymology In early depictions, as with dragons in other cultures (compare ), the distinction between Germanic dragons and regular snakes is blurred, with both being referred to as: "worm" (; → ; ), "snake" (; , ; ), "adder" (; , ; ), and more, in writing; all being old Germanic synonyms for serpent and thereof. "Worm", in Old Germanic, specifically meant "long legless animal" in general, thus extending to serpents as well as invertebrates, with the latter later becoming the primary sense in modern English, etc.
The descendant term worm remains used in modern English to refer to dragons, such as those similar to snakes or without wings, while the Old English form wyrm has been borrowed back into modern English to mean "dragon". The word also appear archaically in the original broader sense, for example in the names for the common legless lizard: blindworm, hazelworm, slowworm, including the form deaf adder etc (compare , , "common legless lizard", from , , "adder"). The Nordic descendants of – , , , , – beyond being the common word for snake in Faroese, Norwegian and Swedish, in Danish and Icelandic instead being more ambiguous with invertebrate worms, remain a poetic or archaic word for dragon and similar mythological serpentine creatures. A similar theme can be seen in German, with surviving compositions such as and etc.
The word "dragon", contemporaneously also appear: , ; Old West Norse: , Old East Norse: ; Old Swedish: draki; Old Danish: draghæ; , , , ; ; ; , meaning "dragon, sea serpent or sea monster" etc, stemming from , meaning "big serpent or dragon", itself from (drákōn) of the same meaning.
The Old West and East Norse forms differ quite remarkably, as the Western form, dreki, features an initial e-vowel, largely unique among the Germanic forms, which otherwise feature an a-vowel, indicating an early adoption which then had time to shift, potentially from the Old English form dræce. Old Swedish, and Old Danish, both East Norse languages, instead exhibit forms on /a/: draki/draghæ, indicating a Central European root. When the term entered the East Norse language is unknown. The form "dragon", in modern English, stems from , while the Germanic Old English form survives as drake.
A poem, by 11th-century Icelandic skáld Þjóðólfr Arnórsson, manages to use all four above mentioned terms in a single poem about Sigurd the dragon slayer, based on a fight between a blacksmith and a leather worker, which Arnórsson supposedly composed spontaneously upon request:
Related are also the French guivre/vouivre (from Old French for "snake") and English wyvern (, from ), ultimately deriving from ("viper"). Other words include Knucker, a dialect word for a sort of water dragon in Sussex, England.
Written corpus Early corpus In the 10th century Old English epic poem Beowulf, probably composed a century or two earlier, "the dragon" is referred to as both a and a . Within Beowulf, there is a story of Sigemund the Wælsing featuring a treasure-hoarding dragon slain by the aforementioned hero (paralleling Beowulf himself), and which scholars suggests comes from an older tradition of dragonslayers within Germanic pagan mythology.Edda. Die Lieder des Codex Regius nebst verwandten Denkmälern. Volume 1: Text. Heidelberg: Winter, 1914. Volume 2: Kommentierendes Glossar. 1927. (Revised editions ed. Hans Kuhn)
In the eddic poem Völuspá, dating back to the 10th century, the dragon Nidhogg (), is foretold to show himself at the dawn of the new world, revealing himself to be a "flying dragon" (), and a "shimmering adder" (), flying over the land, carrying the dead between his "feathers".
In the Middle High German epic poem Nibelungenlied, written around 1200, the unnamed dragon ("Fáfnir") is referred to as a ("lin-drake", ie, lindworm), which associate professor of German, George Henry Needler (1866–1962), translated as "worm-like dragon". The Old Norse Eddic poem Fáfnismál, written around 1270, tells an alternate version of the same root story as Nibelungenlied, were the dragon, Fáfnir, is described as flightless and snake-like, and is referred to as an . In the later, late 13th century Icelandic saga, Völsunga saga, Fáfnir is instead described with shoulders, suggesting legs, wings or both, and is referred to as both a (dragon) and an (worm). Both of these descriptions are consistent with 11th century depictions of Fáfnir as a runic animal on various picture stones, sometimes being limbless and other times featuring various forms of limbs. Such stones are collectively called Sigurd stones, after Fáfnir's killer, Sigurd, who often acts as the indicator for the motif.
Later corpus In the later, 14th century, Icelandic sagas: Ketils saga hœngs, and Konráðs saga keisarasonar, ormar and drekar are portrayed as distinct beings, with winged dragons sometimes specified as , "flying dragon" (), however, in contrast, the term , "flyging serpent", is also recorded. The Icelandic written corpus still describe dragons as very serpentine-like, however. Their tail, for example, is often called a sporðr, a word for "fish tail, serpent tail and thereof" (a tail for swimming). The 13th century saga, Bjarnar saga Hítdœlakappa, writes the following:
The later, 14th century saga, Ketils saga hœngs, specifically refers to sporðr as the tail of a serpent, and also describes the dragon as having a "coil" () like a serpent, but "wings like a dragon":
The evolution of wingless and legless worms and lindworms to flying, four-legged romanesque dragons in Germanic folklore and literature is most likely due to influence from continental Europe that was facilitated by Christianisation and the increased availability of translated romances. It has thus been proposed that the description in Völuspá of Níðhöggr with feathers and flying after Ragnarök is a late addition and potentially a result of the integration of pagan and Christian imagery.
Old Icelandic was later literarily borrowed into Old Swedish as flughdraki and floghdraki, which then became a term for a Swedish type of wingless, limbless, flying dragon – Flogdrake – said to soar across the skies as a fiery or golden stripe that stretches across the sky (compare the Swedish lindworm, which lacks both limbs and wings, also the analog European firedrakes). Old Swedish floghdraki was also, as a partial calque, borrowed into Finnish, as , "louhi-serpent", which later folk-etymologically morphed into ("salmon serpent"), Finnish for dragon.wikt:lohikäärme
Technical terminology To address the difficulties with categorising Germanic dragons, the term drakorm (Swedish for "dragon serpent") has been proposed, referring to beings described as either a dragon or worm. Irish historian A. Walsh used the term "worm-dragon" already in 1922 to describe the runic dragon like ornament found side by side with the Celtic interlaced patterns on the Cross of Cong from 1123.
There are also dragon-like monsters in Germanic folklore which continue the use of worm or other synonyms in the ambiguous sense of either dragon or snake, such as lindworm (, ) and sea serpent (, ), the latter popularized by Swede Olaus Magnus through his Carta marina (1539) and A Description of the Northern Peoples (1555), in the latter describing a sea serpent found in Bergen, Norway. Olaus gives the following description of a Norwegian sea serpent:
List of Germanic dragons in legend
Named dragons is a widely attested dragon that has a prominent role in the Cycle. Fafnir took the form of a dragon after claiming a hoard of treasure, including Andvaranaut, from his father. He was later killed by a Völsung (typically Sigurd), who in some accounts hid in a pit and stabbed him from underneath with a sword. , one of the dragons at the roots of the world tree, a son of Jörmungandr, according to Grímnismál. ("grayback"), one of the dragons at the roots of the world tree, a son of Jörmungandr, according to Grímnismál. ("grave traveller"), one of the dragons at the roots of the world tree, according to Grímnismál. , also known as the Midgard Serpent, or the "Midgard worm" (), is described as a giant, venomous beast and the child of Loki and Angrboða. King Lindworm, of Scandinavian folklore, features a lindworm as one of the main characters. , one of the dragons at the roots of the world tree, a son of Jörmungandr according to Grímnismál. Nidhogg () is a dragon attested in the Eddas that gnaws at the roots of Yggdrasil and the corpses of Náströnd. ("inciter), one of the dragons at the roots of the world tree, according to Grímnismál. ("big serpent"), a gigantic evil sea serpent of Orcadian folklore. ("sleep bringer"), one of the dragons at the roots of the world tree, according to Grímnismál.
Unnamed dragons In the middle of Beowulf, an unnamed treasure-hoarding dragon is killed by Sigemund the Wælsing. An unnamed dragon is the third and last of the central monsters in Beowulf, ultimately fighting and killing the titular hero. The contains a description of a dragon killed by Frotho I. The dragon is described as "the keeper of the mountain." After Frotho I kills the dragon, he takes its hoard of treasure. Also found in the Gesta Danorum is another story where Friðleifr slays a dragon with similarities to the story of Frotho I.
Furthermore, there are many sagas with dragons in them, including Þiðreks saga, Övarr-Odds saga, and Sigrgarðs saga frækna.
Local legends and tales Klagenfurt lindworm, Austria Knucker of Lyminster, England Lagarfljót Worm, Iceland () Lambton Worm, England Selma (lake monster), Norway (, "Seljord worm"). Storsjöodjuret, Sweden Worm of Linton, Scotland
Common traits, roles and abilities Guarding treasure and supernatural properties
The association between dragons and hoards of treasure is widespread in Germanic literature, however the motifs surrounding gold are absent from many accounts, including the Sigurd story in Þiðreks saga af Bern.
A motif could potentially be an old myth in Germanic folklore, where it is said 'that which lies under a lindworm will grow at the rate of the snake', thus they brood over treasure to get richer. Here follows a revolving quote from Fru Marie Grubbe, by Danish author Jens Peter Jacobsen (1876), given in its Swedish (1888), and English (1917), translation, due to availability. Of note: the book does not cover mythology, rather, the segment is spontaneous and written like something commonplace for the reader, used as a parable in an otherwise unrelated story. The English translation, while fairly direct, does not use the word lindworm (), instead opting to translate it as serpent and reptile.
Swedish EnglishStill it was not done, and he could not rid himself of a sense that these unspoken accusations lay like serpents in a dark cave (Swedish: like lindworms laying in their dark dens), brooding over sinister treasures, which grew as the reptiles grew, blood-red carbuncles rising on stalks of cadmium, and pale opal in bulb upon bulb slowly spreading, swelling, and breeding, while the serpents lay still but ceaselessly expanding, gliding forth in sinuous bend upon bend, lifting ring upon ring over the rank growth of the treasure.