Jörmungandr

The Serpent Around the World

Jörmungandr is the World Serpent, an enormous creature who lies in the ocean around Midgard. He is a child of Loki and the jötunn Angrboda, and brother to Fenrir and Hel. Odin throws him into the sea, where he grows until his body circles the human world and his mouth reaches his own tail. His greatest enemy is Thor. Their meetings build towards Ragnarok, when each will kill the other. Jörmungandr is terrifying, but I also feel the gods create part of the danger by trying to remove him before he has done anything wrong. Snorri’s Prose Edda says the gods take Loki’s three children because prophecies warn of trouble. Fenrir is raised in Asgard and later bound, Hel is sent to rule the dead, and Jörmungandr is cast into the deep ocean.

There the serpent becomes so vast that he forms a living boundary around Midgard. One of his names, Miðgarðsormr, simply means Midgard Serpent. Thor first encounters him during a visit to the giant Útgarða-Loki. The giant gives Thor apparently simple challenges that are secretly impossible. He asks Thor to lift a grey cat. Thor strains but can raise only one paw. Later, Útgarða-Loki reveals that the cat was Jörmungandr disguised by magic. Lifting even part of the World Serpent frightens everyone watching because Thor has disturbed the shape of the world. Their most famous meeting happens on a fishing trip with the giant Hymir. Thor uses the head of Hymir’s largest ox as bait and rows far beyond the usual fishing grounds. Jörmungandr bites. Thor pulls so fiercely that his feet smash through the bottom of the boat and brace against the sea floor.

He raises his hammer, ready to strike the serpent. The ending varies. In Snorri’s account, Hymir panics and cuts the line, allowing Jörmungandr to sink away. Thor throws Hymir overboard. In the poem Hymiskviða, the exact action is compressed and debated, while skaldic poems celebrate the dangerous struggle. Images on Scandinavian stones may also show the ox head, fishing line and monster. The scene clearly mattered long before Snorri wrote it down. Thor and Jörmungandr meet for the final time at Ragnarok. The serpent leaves the sea, lashes the waves and blows poison over land and sky.

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