Who is Jormundgand?

BigSnakeStoneWhen Loki the Trickster god lay with his first wife, Angrboda the Chieftess of the Iron Wood, they brought forth three children. The first was Hela, Goddess of Death. The second was Fenrir, God of Destruction. The third was a magical serpent who poured from Angrboda’s womb, with no name, no language of words, and neither male nor female – or perhaps both. The Serpent quickly grew to the point where it graduated from pond to lake. When Odin tried to seize Angrboda’s children in order to curtail their power, he threw the Serpent into the ocean and laid a spell on it. The Serpent circles Midgard forever, a living boundary of protection for the human inhabitants of that realm. It is known as the Midgard Serpent or World Serpent, which is the translation of its title Jormundgand.

The Serpent appears periodically in myths, mostly as an enemy of Thor. Its first appearance in a myth is when Thor, with a few companions, runs across the giant-sorcerer Utgard-Loki (not to be confused with the regular Loki). The sorcerer-king invites them in and dares them to compete against his minions in feats of strength and might. He tells Thor to pick up his cat. Thor tries, but the cat is so heavy that he can barely get one paw off the ground. After he fails, Utgard-Loki tells him that it was actually a spell of illusion, and the “cat” was the Midgard Serpent, which he was not expected to lift … and the one paw he got off the ground was causing great tidal waves as the World Serpent thrashed.

Thor and HymirIn another myth, Thor gets into a boat with the giant Hymir and fishes, using the chopped-off head of Hymir’s ox for bait (taken without Hymir’s consent, but he could not fight the thunder god). Thor accidentally hooks the Serpent, who comes up out of the water and fights Thor. A battle ensues, which Hymir ends by cutting the line, and the Serpent vanishes beneath the water. Eventually, according to the prophecies of the Volva, if Ragnarok comes to pass, Thor will seek out Jormundgand and slay him, and be slain by him in turn.

Giant sacred serpents appear in other myths as well, similar to Jormundgand. The Greeks had Ouroboros, circling eternally with its tail in its mouth. The ancient Sumerians had the dragon/serpent Tiamat, who – like the Norse Ymir – was a primal figure who was murdered, and her body chopped up to make the various continents. In one myth of Shiva, a large poisonous snake threatened the world with a flood of its venom. The other Gods didn’t know what to do, but Shiva drank all the snake’s poison and transmuted it to harmlessness with his own body. After this, the snake was harmless and friendly, and Shiva wears it around his neck to this day.