Of all the creatures belonging to Norse mythology, the Migard (Mith-gard) Serpent (Jrmungandr to give him his actual name) is undoubtedly amongst the most fearsome. An enormous snake big enough to circle the entire world, Jrmungandr is one of the three monstrous offspring of the trickster god Loki and the giantess Angrboa (Ang-r-botha, meaning Sorrow Bringer), the others being the great wolf Fenrir and Hel, the queen of the underworld. Realizing the threat of this giant snake, the father of the gods, Odin, “threw the serpent into the deep sea that surrounds all lands” (Prose Edda 34) where his thrashing and writhing caused the movement of the waves. Whilst imprisoned in the sea, Jrmungandr grew so large that he surrounded the world entirely with his tail in his mouth, and so is an example of an ouroboros (a snake eating its own tail, representing the mortal circle, life arising out of death).

There are three major stories in Norse mythology concerning the Migard Serpent, all of which are mentioned in the Prose Edda, the story of the Norse creation and gods, written by Snorri Sturluson in the thirteenth century. All of them include the god Thor, as the Migard Serpent (or Migarsormr as it was called in old Icelandic) was the god’s nemesis. The first story is the tale of Thor’s visit to the home of the giant Utgara-Loki. Thor is challenged to carry out several tasks, none of which are quite as they seem. One of them is to lift Utgara-Loki’s cat, and to Thor’s surprise he is only able to lift one paw of the cat. However, the next day his host reveals the truth, admitting “Truly all those who saw you raise one of the cat’s paws off the ground grew fearful, because that cat was not what it seemed to be. It was the Migard Serpent you pulled him up so high that he almost reached the sky” (Prose Edda 37).

The next tale of Jrmungandr is told in the next chapter of the Prose Edda, the so-called Hsdrpa (Hoos-drow-pa) poem, describing art on kitchen panels. In one of the images, Thor goes fishing in a boat with the giant Hymir. Using the head of Hymir’s largest ox, Himinhrjot (Him-in-hur-yot) as bait, Thor pulls the fearsome snake from the sea. The description of the beast is truly frightening, a huge, powerful snake that “spits out poison.” Hymir cuts the rope, preventing a battle between the two.

These two tales of the Migard Serpent are both told in the past tense, yet the third and final tale of the divine beast is a foretelling of what will come to pass at Ragnark, the Norse apocalypse. Finally, after the near miss on Hymir’s boat, it faces the god of thunder Thor, in a battle that will be the end of both of them. Enraged after watching his father Odin devoured by the wolf Fenrir, Thor meets his old adversary Jrmungandr who “spews out so much venom that it spatters throughout the air and into the sea” (Prose Edda 51). Fighting ferociously, Thor eventually overpowers Jrmungandr and slays him with his hammer, but is greatly poisoned in the process. Though the Migard Serpent will die facing its old adversary, Thor will only manage nine steps before succumbing to the venom and falling down dead. The end of Ragnark itself symbolises what the serpent itself came to represent as an ouroboros, for out of the ashes of the old, dead world, burned by the fire demon Surt, a new world arises, free from the evil of the old one.

So where did the myth of the Migard Serpent originate from? The main source we have for the Migard Serpent is the Prose Edda, which was not written until the thirteenth century. Before then it is certainly plausible that it existed in Norse mythology, but without specific references it is impossible to tell how long it has been part of it. It was definitely established in myth before Snorri Sturluson wrote the Prose Edda, as the story of Thor fishing and catching Jrmungandr is depicted on the Altuna Runestone (Altunastenen), an eleventh century pagan runestone in Sweden. It makes sense that it had existed long before this depiction, otherwise nobody would have recognised the story. Where, then, did the idea of a giant snake come from in the first place? The numerous similar beasts in other cultures, such as the Celtic Curruid and the Hebrew Leviathan, surely cannot be a coincidence? First of all, a giant serpent is the kind of creature that would easily spring into the imagination, and so it is not unlikely that many cultures would have them as part of their folklore. However, the Norse people did not live in a bubble, separate from the rest of the world, and it is far more likely that, through war and trade, they were able to share their ideas with other cultures and incorporate other societies’ myths into their own. It is fact, for example, that long before the Prose Edda existed the Vikings invaded Britain and so would definitely have come across Celtic myths. However this myth originated, it is impossible for us to tell where or how it actually began, and the most we can do is identify the connections between cultures and the similarities in their myths and folklore. One thing is for certain, and that is that Jrmungandr remains one of the most fearsome beasts of any folklore known to date.

Source used: - Trans. Byock, Jesse L (2005) Snorri Sturluson: The Prose Edda (London)