World of Myth

Jörmungandr

Jörmungandr Fast Facts

Names: Midgard Serpent, Midgard Snake, or Midgard Worm; the meaning of his name is jormun (huge, immense) and gandr (monster, creature, supernatural being)

Domain: The sea

Powers: Unlimited growth, earthquakes, venom

Place: At the edge of the sea which surrounds the world

Appearance: A snake or sea serpent with venomous fangs, who can be seen biting his own tail, forming the shape of an ouroboros

Primary Texts: Hauksbók, Voluspa in the Poetic Edda

Thor Battering the Midgard Serpent, 1790 | Henry Fuseli RA. (Royal Academy of the Arts)

-Korwin Briggs (Veritable Hokum)

Jörmungandr Student Research

Jörmungandr is similar to other mythological serpents in that he is an agent of bringing about change. In the Bible, there is the snake in the Garden of Eden, who brings Adam and Eve to a new consciousness and contributes to the loss of Eden. In Egyptian mythology, Apophis is a serpent who tries to kill the sun god, Ra, every night. Like Jörmungandr and his siblings, Ra is an agent of chaos who works in opposition to the order created by the gods. The gods, the souls of the justified dead, and the living worked together to defend the Barge of Ra.

Robbie (Matthew) Millin

Alternative Name & Translations

Miðgarðsormr – ‘Snake of Miðgarðr’, the world-serpent

Jörmungandr – The giant serpent, also known as:

The Midgard Serpent

The Midgard Snake

The Midgard Worm

– Norse Mythology A to Z, Kathleen N. Daly

–The Poetic Edda: A Dual-Language Edition, Edward Pettit

Jörmungandr's Origin Story

Loke had yet more children. A giantess in Jotunheim, hight Angerboda. With her he begat three children. The first was the Fenris-wolf; the second, Jormungand, that is, the Midgard-serpent, and the third, Hel. When the gods knew that these three children were being fostered in Jotunheim, and were aware of the prophecies that much woe and misfortune would thence come to them, and considering that much evil might be looked for from them on their mother’s side, and still more on their father’s, Alfather sent some of the gods to take the children and bring them to him. When they came to him he threw the serpent into the deep sea which surrounds all lands. There waxed the serpent so that he lies in the midst of the ocean, surrounds all the earth, and bites his own tail.

-Sturluson, Snorri. The Younger Edda; Also Called Snorre’s Edda, or The Prose Edda

Ragnarok, lithograh on paper, glued on cardboard | L. M. Moe, 92. Text: Danmarks Historie i Billeder VII. Ragnarok. Alfred Jacobsens litogr. Etablissement, København K. (Creative Commons)

Jörmungandr in the Historical Record

Archaeological Record

Runestone Sö 320 in Årdala parish, Flen, Södermanland, Sweden. (Creative Commons)

Paleontological Record

Jormungandr walhallaensis

Jormungandr walhallaensis was first discovered in North Dakota in 2015 and is an extinct mosasaurid from the early Campanian period dating to ~80 million years ago.

EXCERPT:

Jormungandr is a large mosasaur. The Jorgie skull measures 72 centimeters (28 in) in total length and the lower jaw is 80.8 centimeters (31.8 in) long. Based on these measurements, Zietlow and colleagues [PhD student who studied the fossils] estimated a total body length of 5.4–7.3 meters (18–24 ft).

–Source