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Worm, wurm or wyrm (; ; ), meaning snake, 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 European dragon, 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 and .
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 Archaism 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 , nädra, "common legless lizard", from , naðra, "adder"). The Nordic countries descendants of – , , , , – beyond being the common word for snake in Faroese, Norwegian and Swedish, in Danish and Icelandic instead being more ambiguous with worm, 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 Lindwurm and Tatzelwurm etc.
The word "dragon", contemporaneously also appear: , dræce; Old West Norse: dreki, Old East Norse: *draki; Old Swedish: draki; Old Danish: draghæ; , tracho, tracko, trakko; ; ; , 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 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 (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.
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" (dreki), and a "shimmering adder" (naðr), 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 lintrache ("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 ormr. 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 dreki (dragon) and an ormr (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.
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" (lykkja) like a serpent, but "wings like a dragon":
The evolution of wingless and legless worms and 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 flugdreki 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 louhikäärme, " louhi-serpent", which later folk-etymologically morphed into lohikäärme ("salmon serpent"), Finnish for dragon.
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:
Furthermore, there are many sagas with dragons in them, including Þiðreks saga, Övarr-Odds saga, and Sigrgarðs saga frækna.
A motif could potentially be an old myth in Germanic folklore, were 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.
In the Völsung Cycle, Fáfnir, upon claiming a hoard of treasure, including the ring Andvaranaut, transforms into a dragon to protect and brood over it. Fáfnir's brother, Regin, reforges the sword Gram from broken shards, and gives it to the hero Sigurd, who uses it to kill the dragon by hiding in a hole in its path to drink water, waiting until the worm slithers over and exposes his underbelly. While dying, Fáfnir speaks with Sigurd and shares mythological knowledge. Sigurd then cooks and tastes the dragon's heart, allowing the hero to understand the speech of birds who tell him to kill Regin, which he does and then takes the hoard for himself. In the Nibelungenlied version of the story, it is said Sigurd (Sigfried) bathed in the blood of the dragon, making him invincible against all weapons, however, while bathing in the dragon's blood, a leaf fell from a tree onto his back, directly between his shoulder blades, keeping the blood from that one spot, allowing weapons to hurt him there, which later became his doom. In Beowulf, it is Sigmund (the father of Sigurd in Old Norse tradition) who kills a dragon and takes its hoard.
In Beowulf, the dragon slain by the poem's eponymous hero, is awoken from the burial mound in which it dwells when a cup from its hoard is stolen, leading it to seek vengeance from the Geats. After both the dragon and Beowulf die, the treasure is reinterred in the king's barrow. The Old English poem, Maxims II, further states that the dragon was left in or on the mound, potentially as to increase its grave goods (, "frood, treasure proud", could potentially indicate this):
In Ragnars saga loðbrókar, Thóra, the daughter of a Geatish earl, is given a snake by her father which she puts on top of a pile of gold. This makes both the snake and the treasure grow until the dragon is so large its head touches its tail. (2026). 9781624666346, Hackett. ISBN 9781624666346 The Ouroboros eating its own tail is also seen with Jörmungandr. (1992). 9780520273054, University of California Press. ISBN 9780520273054 The hero Ragnar Lodbrok later wins the hand of Thóra and the treasure by slaying the dragon. The motif of gold causing a snake-like creature to grow into a dragon is seen in the Icelandic tale of the Lagarfljót Worm recorded in the 19th century.
In Eddic poetry, both the sea serpent Jörmungandr, and Fáfnir in dragon-hamr, are described as having attery breath. In Gylfaginning, it is told that during the final battle at Ragnarök (the end of the word), Thor will kill Jörmungandr; however, after taking nine steps, he will be in turn killed by the worm's atter. A similar creature from later Orcadians folklore is the attery stoor worm which was killed by the hero Assipattle, falling into the sea and forming Iceland, Orkney, Shetland and the Faroe Islands. As in the English tale of the Linton worm, the stoor worm is killed by burning its insides with peat. (2026). 9781841580487, Birlinn. ISBN 9781841580487
Beowulf is one of the earliest examples of a fire-breathing dragon, yet it is also referred to as attorsceaðan, (infinitive) or 'the atter scather'. After burning homes and land in Geatland, it fights the eponymous hero of the poem who bears a metal shield to protect himself from the fire. The dragon wounds him but is slain by the king's thane Wiglaf. Beowulf later succumbs to the dragon's atter and dies. The other dragon mentioned in the poem is further associated with fire, melting from its own heat once slain by Sigmund. Both fire and atter are also spat by dragons in the Chivalric saga Sigurðr saga þögla and in Nikolaus saga erkibiskups II, written around 1340, in which the dragon is sent by God to teach an English deacon to become more pious.
Atter breathing worms remained in the collective European folklore long into the second millennium. The Tatzelwurm of Alps folklore is said to have poisonous breath. Part of a quote from Bridget of Sweden (1303–1373), which uses an atter beathing serpent as an analogy, goes:
Stave churches are sometimes decorated by carved dragon heads which has been proposed to have originated in the belief in their apotropaic function.Bugge (1994), s. 48
The fishing trip described in Hymiskviða in which Thor catches Jörmungandr has been linked to a number of stones in Scandinavia and England such as the Altuna Runestone and the Hørdum stone.Meulengracht Sørensen (1986) p. 260, (2002) p. 123.
Wooden carvings from the Hylestad Stave Church of scenes from the Völsunga saga include Sigurd killing Fáfnir, who is notably shown with two legs and two wings.Gunnar Nordanskog, Föreställd hedendom: tidigmedeltida skandinaviska kyrkportar i forskning och historia, 2006, p. 241.
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