Draugr

For the exoplanet, see PSR B1257+12 A. "Draug" redirects here; for the 2018 film, see Draug (film); for the Norwegian role-playing game, see Draug (role-playing game).

Modern art, depicting a draugr haunting in enormous shape

The draugr or draug (Old Norse: draugr; Icelandic: draugur; Faroese: dreygur; Danish and Norwegian: draug; Swedish: dröger, drög) is a corporeal undead creature from the sagas and folktales of the Nordic countries with varying ambiguous traits. In modern times, they are often portrayed as Norse supernatural zombies, as depicted in various video games such as Skyrim and God of War, loosely based on the draugr as described in early medieval Icelandic sagas, however, in myth and folklore they compromise several complex ideas which change from story to story, especially in surviving Norwegian folklore, where the draugr remains a staple (see sea draugr).

In the Icelandic sagas, of which most modern interest is garnered from, draugrs live in their graves or royal palaces, often guarding treasure buried in their burial mound. They are revenants, or animated corpses, rather than ghosts, which possess intangible spiritual bodies.

Commentators extend the term draugr to the undead in medieval literature, even if it is never explicitly referred to as such in the text, and designated them instead as a haugbúi ("barrow-dweller") or an aptrganga ("again-walker"). Compare Icelandic: afturganga ("after-walker"), Swedish: gengångare ("again-walker").

Terminology

Old Norse draugr is defined as "a ghost, spirit, esp. the dead inhabitant of a cairn". Often the draugr is regarded not so much as a ghost but a revenant, i.e., the reanimated corpse of the deceased inside the burial mound (as in the example of Kárr inn gamli in Grettis saga).

The draugr was referred to as a "barrow-wight" in the 1869 translation of Grettis saga, long before J. R. R. Tolkien employed this term in his novels, though "barrow-wight" is actually a rendering of haugbúinn "howe-dweller", otherwise translated as "barrow-dweller".

Cognates and etymology

In Old Norse, draugr also meant a tree trunk or dry dead wood, or in poetry could refer to a man or warrior, since Old Norse poetry often used terms for trees to represent humans, especially in kennings, referencing the myth that the god Odin and his brothers created the first humans Ask and Embla from trees. There was thus a connection between the idea of a felled tree's trunk and that of a dead man's corpse.

The Old Norse word draugʀ, in the sense of the undead creature, is hypothetically traced to a unrecorded Proto-Germanic: *draugaz, meaning "delusion, illusion, mirage" etc, from a *dreuganą ("to mislead, deceive"), ultimately from a Proto-Indo European stem *dʰrowgʰos ("phantom"), from *dʰréwgʰ-s ~ *dʰrugʰ-és ("deceive"). Cognate is Swedish: bedraga ("to deceive"), Low German: drog ("impostor, scoundrel"), dregen ("to deceive"), Old High German: bitrog ("delusion"), gitrog ("illusion, mirage, ghost"), German: Trug ("deception, delusion, illusion"), Dutch: bedrog ("deceit, deception"), Old Saxon: gidrog ("delusion"), Welsh: drwg ("bad, evil"), Irish: droc ("bad, evil"), Breton: droug, drouk ("bad, evil"), Sanskrit: द्रुह्, drúh ("injury, harm, offence"), द्रोघ, drógha ("deceitful, untrue, misleading"), Old Persian: 𐎭𐎼𐎢𐎥, drauga ("deceit, deception"), 𐎭𐎼𐎢𐎩𐎴, draujana ("deceptive, deceitful, misleading"), ultimately from the same root as 'dream', from a Proto-Indo European *dʰrowgʰ-mos ("deceit, illusion").

The modern Swedish word for the undead creature of the Norse sagas is draug, a modern loanword from West Norse draugʀ, however, the surviving native forms of the Old Norse word in Swedish are dröger and drög, including the archaic form draugr in the province of Närke, which, according to old dictionaries, carries the meaning of "pale, powerless, slow human, striding forward", or just ghost or undead. Compare with Norwegian: draug, drauv, drog ("ghost, undead"). Scots: drow, trow ("evil spirit, troll"), appears related, possibly via a unrecorded Norn: *drog ("draugr"), but also effected by Old Norse: trǫll ("troll"), which at the time was different and more ambiguous than today and rather meant something akin to magical creature of ill will, even being used figuratively for draugr. Swedish drög has also acquired the meaning of "nut" (idiot), which can be compared to Danish: drog ("a good-for-nothing"), Scots: draighie, draich, draick ("a lazy, lumpish, useless person"), draich ("slow, spiritless").

Beings in British folklore such as "shag-boys" and "hogboons" derive their names from haugbui.

Broadened usage

Unlike Kárr inn gamli (Kar the Old) in Grettis saga, who is specifically called a draugr, Glámr the ghost in the same saga is never explicitly called a draugr in the text, though called a "troll" in it. Yet Glámr is still routinely referred to as a draugr by modern scholars.

Beings not specifically called draugar, but only referred to as aptrgǫngur "revenants" (pl. of aptrganga) and reimleikar "haunting" in these medieval sagas, are still commonly discussed as a draugr in various scholarly works, or the draugar and the haugbúar are lumped into one.

A further caveat is that the application of the term draugr may not necessarily follow what the term might have meant in the strict sense during medieval times, but rather follow a modern definition or notion of draugr, specifically such ghostly beings (by whatever names they are called) that occur in Icelandic folktales categorized as "Draugasögur" in Jón Árnason's collection, based on the classification groundwork laid by Konrad Maurer.

Overall classification

Ghost with physical body

The draugr is a "corporeal ghost" with a physical, tangible body and not an "imago," and in tales, it is often delivered a "second death" by the destruction of the animated corpse.

Vampire

The draugr has also been conceived of as a type of vampire by folktale anthologist Andrew Lang in late 1897, with the idea further pursued by more modern commentators. The focus here is not on blood-sucking, which is not attested for the draugr, but rather, contagiousness or transmittable nature of vampirism, that is to say, how a vampire begets another by turning his or her attack victim into one of his kind. Sometimes the chain of contagion becomes an outbreak, e.g., the case of Þórólfr bægifótr (Thorolf Lame-foot or Twist-Foot), and even called an "epidemic" regarding Þórgunna (Thorgunna).

A more speculative case of vampirism is that of Glámr, who was asked to tend sheep for a haunted farmstead and was subsequently found dead with his neck and every bone in his body broken. It has been surmised by commentators that Glámr, by "contamination," was turned into an undead (draugr) by whatever being was haunting the farm.

Physical traits

Modern depiction of a Norse warrior turned draugr.

Draugar usually possessed superhuman strength, and were "generally hideous to look at", bearing a necrotic black or blue color, and were associated with a "reek of decay" or more precisely inhabited haunts that often issued foul stench.

Draugar were said to be either hel-blár "death-blue" or nár-fölr "corpse-pale". Glámr when found dead was described as "blár sem Hel en digr sem naut (black as hell and bloated to the size of a bull)". Þórólfr Lame-foot, when lying dormant, looked "uncorrupted" and also "was black as death [i.e., bruised black and blue] and swollen to the size of an ox". The close similarity of these descriptions have been noted. Laxdæla saga describes how bones were dug up belonging to a dead sorceress who had appeared in dreams, and they were "blue and evil looking".

Þráinn (Thrain), the berserker of Valland, "turned himself into a troll" in Hrómundar saga Gripssonar, was a fiend (dólgr) which was "black and huge.. roaring loudly and blowing fire", and possessed long scratching claws, and the claws stuck in the neck, prompting the hero Hrómundr to refer to the draugur as a sort of cat (Old Norse: kattakyn). The possession of long claws features also in the case of another revenant, Ásviðr (Aswitus) who came to life in the night and attacked his foster-brother Ásmundr (Asmundus) with them, scratching his face and tearing one of his ears.

Draugrs often give off a morbid stench, not unlike the smell of a decaying body. The mound where Kárr the Old was entombed reeked horribly. In Harðar saga Hörðr Grímkelsson's two underlings die even before entering Sóti the Viking's mound, due to the "gust and stink (ódaun)" wafting out of it. When enraged Þráinn filled the barrow with an "evil reek."

Magical abilities

Draugar are noted for having numerous magical abilities referred to as trollskap resembling those of living witches and wizards, such as shape-shifting, controlling the weather, and seeing into the future.

Shape-shifting

The undead Víga-Hrappr Sumarliðason of Laxdaela saga, unlike the typical guardian of a treasure hoard, does not stay put in his burial place but roams around his farmstead of Hrappstaðir, menacing the living. Víga-Hrappr's ghost, it has been suggested, was capable of transforming into the seal with human-like eyes which appeared before Þorsteinn svarti/surt (Thorsteinn the Black) sailing by ship, and was responsible for the sinking of the vessel to prevent the family from reaching Hrappstaðir. The ability to shape-shift has been ascribed to Icelandic ghosts generally, particularly into the shape of a seal.

A draugr in Icelandic folktales collected in the modern age can also change into a great flayed bull, a grey horse with a broken back but no ears or tail, and a cat that would sit upon a sleeper's chest and grow steadily heavier until their victim suffocated.

Other magical abilities

Draugar have the ability to enter into the dreams of the living, and they will frequently leave a gift behind so that "the living person may be assured of the tangible nature of the visit". Draugar also can curse a victim, as shown in Grettis saga, where Grettir is cursed to be unable to become stronger. Draugar also brought disease to a village and could create temporary darkness in daylight hours. They preferred to be active during the night, although they did not appear vulnerable to sunlight like some other revenants. Draugr can also kill people with bad luck.

A draugr's presence might be shown by a great light that glowed from the mound like foxfire. This fire would form a barrier between the land of the living and that of the dead.

The undead Víga-Hrappr exhibited the ability to sink into the ground to escape from Óláfr Hǫskuldsson the Peacock.

Some draugar are immune to weapons, and only a hero has the strength and courage to stand up to a formidable opponent. In legends, the hero often wrestled a draugr back to his grave to defeat them since weapons would do no good. A good example of this is found in Hrómundar saga Gripssonar. Iron could injure a draugr, as with many supernatural creatures, although it would not be sufficient to stop it. Sometimes, the hero must dispose of the body in unconventional ways. The preferred method is to cut off the draugr's head, burn the body, and dump the ashes in the sea—the emphasis being on making sure that the draugr was dead and gone.

Behaviour and character

Any mean, nasty, or greedy person can become a draugr. As Ármann Jakobsson notes, "most medieval Icelandic ghosts are evil or marginal people. If not dissatisfied or evil, they are unpopular".

Greed

The draugr's motivation was primarily envy and greed. Greed causes it to attack any would-be grave robbers viciously, but the draugr also expresses an innate envy of the living stemming from a longing for the things of life which it once had. They also exhibit an immense and nearly insatiable appetite, as shown in the encounter of Aran and Asmund, sword brothers who swore that, if one died, the other would sit vigil with him for three days inside the burial mound. When Aran died, Asmund brought his possessions into the barrow—banners, armor, hawk, hound, and horse—then set himself to wait the three days:

During the first night, Aran got up from his chair and killed the hawk and hound and ate them. On the second night he got up again from his chair, and killed the horse and tore it into pieces; then he took great bites at the horse-flesh with his teeth, the blood streaming down from his mouth all the while he was eating…. The third night Asmund became very drowsy, and the first thing he knew, Aran had got him by the ears and torn them off.

Bloodthirst

The draugr's victims were not limited to trespassers in its home. The roaming undead devastated livestock by running the animals to death either by riding them or pursuing them in some hideous, half-flayed form. Shepherds' duties kept them outdoors at night, and they were particular targets for the hunger and hatred of the undead:

The oxen which had been used to haul Thorolf's body were ridden to death by demons, and every single beast that came near his grave went raving mad and howled itself to death. The shepherd at Hvamm often came racing home with Thorolf after him. One day that Fall neither sheep nor shepherd came back to the farm.

Animals feeding near the grave of a draugr might be driven mad by the creature's influence. They may also die from being driven mad. Thorolf, for example, caused birds to drop dead when they flew over his bowl barrow.

Sitting posture and evil eye

The main indication that a deceased person will become a draugr is that the corpse is not horizontal. It is found standing upright (as with Víga-Hrappr), or in a sitting position (Þórólfr), indicating that the dead might return. Ármann Jakobsson suggests further that breaking the draugr's posture is a necessary or helpful step in destroying the draugr, but this is fraught with the risk of being inflicted with the evil eye, whether this is explicitly told in the case of Grettir who receives the curse from Glámr, or only implied in the case of Þórólfr, whose son warns the others to beware while they unbend Þórólfr's seated posture.

Annihilating

The draugr needing to be decapitated to hinder them from further hauntings is a common theme in the family sagas.

Means of prevention

The Nørre Nærå Runestone is interpreted as having a "grave binding inscription" used to keep the deceased in its grave.

Traditionally in Iceland, a pair of open iron scissors was placed on the chest of the recently deceased, and straws or twigs might be hidden among their clothes. The big toes were tied together or needles were driven through the soles of the feet to keep the dead from being able to walk. Tradition also held that the coffin should be lifted and lowered in three directions as it was carried from the house to confuse a possible draugr's sense of direction.

The most effective means of preventing the return of the dead was believed to be a corpse door, a special door through which the corpse was carried feet-first with people surrounding it so that the corpse couldn't see where it was going. The door was then bricked up to prevent a return. It is speculated that this belief began in Denmark and spread throughout the Norse culture, founded on the idea that the dead could only leave through the way they entered.

In the "Eyrbyggja saga," draugar are driven off by holding a "door-doom." One by one, they are summoned to the door-doom, given judgment, and forced out of the home by this legal method. The home is then purified with holy water to ensure that they never come back.

Similar beings

A variation of the draugr is the haugbui (from Old Norse haugr "howe, barrow, tumulus"), which was a mound-dweller, the dead body living within its tomb. The notable difference between the two was that the haugbui cannot leave its grave site and only attacks those who trespass upon their territory.

Folklore

Icelandic sagas

One of the best-known revenants in the sagas is Glámr, who is defeated by the hero in Grettis saga. After Glámr dies on Christmas Eve, "people became aware that Glámr was not resting in peace. He wrought such havoc that some people fainted at the sight of him, while others went out of their minds". After a battle, Grettir eventually gets Glámr on his back. Just before Grettir kills him, Glámr curses Grettir because "Glámr was endowed with more evil force than most other ghosts", and thus he was able to speak and leave Grettir with his curse after his death. (Note that the saga does not actually use the term draugr for Glámr, per above.)

A somewhat ambivalent, alternative view of the draugr is presented by the example of Gunnar Hámundarson in Njáls saga: "It seemed as though the howe was agape, and that Gunnar had turned within the howe to look upwards at the moon. They thought that they saw four lights within the howe, but not a shadow to be seen. Then they saw that Gunnar was merry, with a joyful face."

In the Eyrbyggja saga, a shepherd is assaulted by a blue-black draugr. The shepherd's neck is broken during the ensuing scuffle. The shepherd rises the next night as a draugr.

Sea draugr

A "draug" from modern Scandinavian folklore aboard a ship, in sub-human form, wearing oilskins

In later Scandinavian folklore, the draug (modern continental Scandinavian spelling), or dröger and drög in archaic Swedish, became synonymous with regular ghosts and thereof in general, sometimes with no clear distinction at all.

In Norway, however, the term draugr instead became associated with ghosts (and thereof) of people lost at sea, sometimes specified as "sea draugr" (Norwegian: havdraug, sjødraug) relative to "land draugr". The sea draugr occurs in legends along the coast of Norway, either at sea or along the beach. In later folklore, it became common to limit the figure to a ghost of a dead fisherman who had drifted at sea and who was not buried in Christian soil. It was said that he wore a leather jacket or was dressed in oilskin, but had a seaweed vase for his head. He sailed in a half-boat with blocked sails (Bø Municipality in Norway has the half-boat in its coat of arms) and announced death for those who saw him or even wanted to pull them down. This trait is common in the northernmost part of Norway, where life and culture was based on fishing more than anywhere else. The reason for this may be that the fishermen often drowned in great numbers, and the stories of restless dead coming in from sea were more common in the north than any other region of the country.

A recorded legend from Trøndelag tells how a corpse lying on a beach became the object of a quarrel between the two types of draug (headless and seaweed-headed). A similar source even tells of a third type, the gleip, known to hitch themselves to sailors walking ashore and make them slip on the wet rocks.

But, though the draug usually presages death, there is an amusing account in Northern Norway of a northerner who managed to outwit him:

It was Christmas Eve, and Ola went down to his boathouse to get the keg of brandy he had bought for the holidays. When he got in, he noticed a draugr sitting on the keg, staring out to sea. Ola, with great presence of mind and great bravery (it might not be amiss to state that he already had done some drinking), tiptoed up behind the draugr and struck him sharply in the small of the back, so that he went flying out through the window, with sparks hissing around him as he hit the water. Ola knew he had no time to lose, so he set off at a great rate, running through the churchyard which lay between his home and the boathouse. As he ran, he cried, "Up, all you Christian souls, and help me!" Then he heard the sound of fighting between the ghosts and the draugr, who were battling each other with coffin boards and bunches of seaweed. The next morning, when people came to church, the whole yard was strewn with coffin covers, boat boards, and seaweed. After the fight, which the ghosts won, the draugr never came back to that district.

Use in popular culture

The modern and popular connection between the draug and the sea can be traced back to authors like Jonas Lie and Regine Nordmann, whose works include several books of fairy tales, as well as the drawings of Theodor Kittelsen, who spent some years living in Svolvær. Up north, the tradition of sea-draugar is especially vivid.

Arne Garborg describes land-draugs coming fresh from the graveyards, and the term draug is even used of vampires. The notion of draugar who live in the mountains is present in the poetic works of Henrik Ibsen (Peer Gynt), and Aasmund Olavsson Vinje. The Nynorsk translation of The Lord of the Rings used the term for both Nazgûl and the dead men of Dunharrow. Tolkien's barrow-wights bear obvious similarity to, and were inspired by the haugbúi.

In video game series such as The Elder Scrolls, draugr are the undead mummified corpses of fallen warriors that inhabit the ancient burial sites of a Nordic-inspired race of man. They first appeared in the Bloodmoon expansion to The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, and would later go on to appear all throughout The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. Draugar are a common enemy, the first encountered by the player, in the 2018 video game God of War, with a variety of different powers and abilities. In 2019, a spaceship named Draugur was added to the game Eve Online, as the command destroyer of the Triglavian faction. Draugr appear as an enemies in the 2021 early access game Valheim, where they take the more recent, seaweed version of the Draug.

The Draugr is one of the Norse myth units of the New Gods Pack: Freyr DLC of Age of Mythology: Retold, associated to the god Ullr, fighting with bows and arrows.

In Draug (film), a group of Viking warriors encounter the draugr while searching for a missing person inside a vast forest. The draugr are depicted as blue-black animated corpses wielding many magical abilities.

In the movie The Northman, Amleth enters a burial mound, in search of a magical sword named "Draugr". Amleth encounters an undead Mound Dweller inside the grave chamber, which he has to fight to obtain the blade.

Season two episode two of Hilda, entitled "The Draugen," involved draugen as the ghosts of sailors who died at sea. While their form was ghostly, the captain could wear a coat, and had a shock of seaweed for hair.

The exoplanet PSR B1257+12 A has been named "Draugr".

See also

• Gjenganger
• Norse funeral
• Selkolla
• Spriggan
• Wiedergänger

References

General and cited references

Primary sources

• Boer, Richard Constant, ed. (1900). Grettis saga Ásmundarsonar. Halle an der Saale: Max Niemeyer.
• [Chadwick, N. K.]=Kershaw, Nora (1921). "The Saga of Hromund Greipsson". Stories and Ballads of the Far Past. Cambridge University Press. pp. 58–78.
• Eiríkur Magnússon; Morris, William (trr.) (1869). Grettis Saga. The Story of Grettir the Strong, translated from the Icelandic. London: F. S. Ellis.
• Fox, Denton; Pálsson, Hermann (trr.) (1974). Grettir's Saga. University of Toronto Press.
• Pálsson, Hermannn; Edwards, Paul (trr.) (1973). Eyrbyggja Saga. Edinburgh: Southside Publishers. ISBN 9780900025075.
• Fox, Denton; Pálsson, Hermann (trr.) (1969). Laxdaela Saga. Penguin. ISBN 9780140442182.
• Scudder, Bernard (tr.) (2005) [1997]. The Saga of Grettir the Strong. Penguin. ISBN 9780141937922.

Secondary sources

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• Ármann Jakobsson (2009). "The Fearless Vampire Killers: A Note about the Icelandic Draugr and Demonic Contamination in Grettis Saga". Folklore. 120 (3): 307–316. doi:10.1080/00155870903219771. JSTOR 40646533. S2CID 162338244.
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• Boer, Richard Constant, ed. (1898). "Zur Grettissaga". Zeitschrift für deutsche Philologie. 30: 1–72.
• Caciola, Nancy (August 1996). "Wraiths, Revenants and Ritual in Medieval Culture". Past & Present (152): 3–45. JSTOR 651055.
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• —— (2007). Troublesome Corpses: Vampires & Revenants, from Antiquity to the Present. Desert Island Books. pp. 29–35. ISBN 9781905328307.
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