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InNordic folklore, thedraugr, ordraug (Old Norse:draugr;Icelandic:draugur;Faroese:dreygur;Norwegian:draug, drauv;Swedish:drög, dröger;Northern Sami:rávga),[a] is an oldarchaic term for amalevolentrevenant with varying ambiguous traits. In modern times, they are often portrayed asNorsesupernaturalzombies, loosely based on the draugr as described in early medievalIcelandic sagas. However, in myth and folklore, they comprise several complex ideas which change from story to story, especially in surviving Norwegian folklore, where the draugr remains a staple – see§ Norwegian folklore.[1][2]
In the Icelandic sagas, from which most modern interest is garnered,draugrs live in their graves or royal palaces, often guarding treasure buried in their burial mound. They arerevenants, or animated corpses, rather than ghosts, which possess intangible spiritual bodies.
The Old Norse worddraugr (initiallydraugʀ, seeʀ), in the sense of the undead creature, is hypothetically traced to an unrecordedProto-Germanic: *draugaz, meaning "delusion, illusion, mirage" etc., from*dreuganą ("to mislead, deceive"), ultimately from aProto-Indo European stem*dʰrowgʰos ("phantom"), from*dʰréwgʰ-s ~ dʰrugʰ-és ("deceive"),[3] ultimately from the same root as 'dream', from aProto-Indo European*dʰrowgʰ-mos ("deceit, illusion").[4][5]
Cognates includesSwedish: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 (/druug/, "bad, evil"),Irish:droch ("bad, evil"),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").[4][5]
Recorded descendants of draugr include:
Descendants of draugr also exist inShetlandic andOrcadian dialect, stemming fromInsular Scots, which ultimately got it from an unrecordedNorn: *drau, or*drog (cf. 18th centuryNorwegian:drau →drov), but also being effected byNorn:trǫll ("troll") by linguistic and figurative convergence;[4]Norn being theOld Norse descendant spoken in theNorthern Isles andCaithness until the early modern period:
Cognates of the draugr also exist in theSámi languages (reconstructedProto-Samic:*rāvkë,*rāvkkē), suggesting a common loan fromProto-Norse.[16]
Similarly, the reconstructedProto-Finnic:*raukka may also (at least partially) derive from the same root as Old Norse:draugr and the Sámi cognates:
Such may also be effected bySwedish:rackare, "someone dealing with cleaning filth", such as a gravedigger, execution assistant, skinner, castrator, chimney sweeper, etc, also being derogatory to some degree, meaning "blighter, gypsy, the devil", fromMiddle Low German:racker with similar meaning (related to "rake"). Other potentially related words to either case includes:Danish:drog ("a good-for-nothing");Scots:draighie,draich,draick ("a lazy, lumpish, useless person"),draich ("slow, spiritless");[4][22]Swedish:drög ("nut, idiot").[4]
One of the earliestnonfiction literature to mention the draugr is by Danish-NorwegianHans Egede (1686–1758), during his time as the bishop of Greenland. In his book,The New Perlustration of Greenland (Danish:Det gamle Grønlands nye Perlustration), published in 1741, he describes the Norwegian myth of theKraken, and follows up with a comment of thesea draugr:
"They also tell of another sea troll and spectre, which they calldrauen (the drow), which is said to have no specified form or description; but shows itself in one or another appearance."
One of the earliest dictionaries for draugr, or rather its descendants, was Swedish linguist and priestJohan Ernst Rietz's (1815–1868) dialect dictionary of Swedish vernacular (1862–1867), which listed the Swedish descendants of Old Norsedraugr asdröger anddrög (cf.Icelandic:draugur vsdröger,Norwegian:drøg vsdrög), including the archaic formdraugr in the province ofNärke. He also included Norwegiandraug,drauv anddrog for comparison, giving the definition for both Swedish and Norwegian as:
"pale, powerless, slow human, striding forward", alternatively just "ghost or undead".[4]
Around the same time, although published a few years later, English philologistRichard Cleasby (1797–1847), and Icelandic scholarGuðbrandur Vigfússon (1827–1889), in "An Icelandic-English dictionary" (1873), defined Old Norsedraugr as:
"a ghost, spirit, especially the dead inhabitant of acairn"[23]
This description was repeated almost word for word by Icelandic linguistGeir T. Zoëga (1857–1928), in his book "A concise dictionary of old Icelandic" (1910).[6]
Norwegian journalist, author, and editorJohan Christian Johnsen (1815–1898), in his Norwegian dictionary (1881–1888), gave a different, more specific definition for Norwegiandraug than Rietz did in the 1860s, defining it as:
"(really a revenant) in Norwegian folk superstition, a supernatural being that dwells on and by the sea. It appears most frequently as a man dressed in sea clothes with a bundle of seaweed instead of a head, sailing in half a boat, always proclaiming that the person or someone from the boat to whom it appears will perish".[8]
In the written corpus, thedraugr is regarded not so much as a ghost, but a corporealundead creature, orrevenant,[24] i.e., the reanimated corpse of the deceased, for example inside the burial mound or grave[25] (as in the example of Kárr inn gamli inGrettis saga).[24][26] Commentators extend the termdraugr to the undead in medieval literature, even if it is never explicitly referred to as such in the text, and designated them instead as ahaugbúi ("barrow-dweller") or anaptrganga ("re-walker") – seeGjenganger (cf.Icelandic:afturganga, "after-walker";Swedish:gengångare, "again-walker").
Unlike Kárr inn gamli (Kar the Old) inGrettis saga, who is specifically called a draugr,[27][30] Glámr the ghost in the same saga is never explicitly called a draugr in the text,[31] though called a "troll" in it.[c][32] Yet Glámr is still routinely referred to as adraugr by modern scholars.[34] Beings not specifically calleddraugr, but only referred to asaptrgǫngur "revenants" (pl. ofaptrganga) andreimleikar "haunting" in these medieval sagas,[d] are still commonly discussed as adraugr in various scholarly works,[35][36][25] or the draugr and thehaugbúi are lumped into one.[37]
A further caveat is that the application of the termdraugr 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 ofdraugr, specifically such ghostly beings (by whatever names they are called) that occur in Icelandic folktales categorized as "Draugasögur" inJón Árnason's collection, based on the classification groundwork laid byKonrad Maurer.[38][39]
In Old Norse,draugr also meant a tree trunk or dry dead wood (then a cognate of "drought", related to "drain"),[40] which in poetry could refer to a man or warrior,[41] sinceOld Norse poetry often used terms for trees to represent humans, especially inkennings, referencing the myth that the godOdin and his brothers created the first humansAsk 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. Similarly, the termkraki (Norwegian:krake,Swedish:krake) can refer to a branchy tree, as well as a meager creature, such as a corpse.[42]
Also, one of thenames for Odin wasDraugadróttinn, "Lord of the draugr", in theYnglinga saga, chapter 7.
Haugbúi (Danish:højbo,Norwegian:haugbonde,Swedish:högbo) is a variation of thedraugr. It means "mound dweller", i.e. the dead body living within itsmound (tomb), compoundinghaugr ("mound"), also found in dialectal English as "how, howe" (related to "height"), andbúi ("dweller, inhabitant, resident"), frombúa ("dwell, reside, inhabit"), related to "by, be";lit. 'howe-by:er'. The notable difference from a draug is that a mound dweller doesn't leave its grave site and only attacks those who trespass upon their territory.[43]
Beings in British folklore such asLincolnshire "shag-boy" andScots "hogboon" derive their names fromhaugbui.[44]
A modern rendering is alsobarrow-wight, popularized byJ. R. R. Tolkien in his novels, however, initially used for the draugr inEiríkur Magnússon's andWilliam Morris' 1869 translation ofGrettis saga, long before Tolkien employed the term;[47] rendering Icelandic"Sótti haugbúinn með kappi" as "the barrow-wight setting on with hideous eagerness".[28][27][48]
The termdraugr is partially synonymous withtroll, and both share many similarities and features in older folklore. Rather than the modern depiction of monstrous humanoids with big noses, trolls were originally rather esoteric malevolent supernatural beings, by analogy synonymous with 'demon,devil, and thereof malignant spirits', including ghosts, but also branching into the concept of esoteric fairytale races, likejötunns andhidden people/troll-folk, etc. For comparison, the word "troll" is part of one of the common words for magic in theNordic languages: "troll-dom" (Old Norse:trolldómr,Danish:trolddom,Norwegian:trolldom,Swedish:trolldom).[49][50]
Examples of direct draug/troll synonymity: the algae speciesnostoc commune have historically carried the namedraugspy ("draug puke") in Norway, andtrollspy ("troll puke") inGötaland, Sweden;[51] and the Norwegiansea draugr have historically often been called a "sea troll".[10][1] The synonymity have been noted by scholars already in the Old Norse written corpus, such asGrettis saga, where Glámr the ghost is called a "troll", but not a draugr, despite showing similarities to Kárr the old, which is called a draugr.[31] Glámr, in spite of this, is still routinely referred to as adraugr by modern scholars.[52] Icelandic scholarÁrmann Jakobsson notes that in this and comparable instances, the term "troll" designates some sort of revenant, or more specifically the human undead, and since the term can also mean "demon", the sense is ambiguous.[32]
The notion of draugrs who live in mountains, akin to trolls, is present in Norwegian poetry, such asHenrik Ibsen's (1828–1906)Peer Gynt,[53] and works ofAasmund Olavsson Vinje (1818–1870),[citation needed] but also in Faroese folklore, where thedreygur share many traits seen in later troll-lore, such as inhabiting mountains and hills,[54] and described as large, strong creatures with pale skin and long, dark hair, and often depicted as beingcannibalistic.[55] Further comparisons can be made to English derivatives of§ mound dweller: theLincolnshire "shag-boy",Caithness-Orkneyan "hogboon", andShetland "hjogfinni", which have been compared togoblins andbrownies,[56] but also old Nordic traditions of the dead and mountains.[57]
Northern Isle descendants,drow andtrow, mainly refer to a race of folkloric beings, cognate to the Nordic trolls, wights, and gnomes, and further, inShetland, analog to the concept of thehidden people (also referred to as "troll-folk") inNordic folklore,[14] a loose race or conglomeration offairies,wights,gnomes, ortrolls, etc, who live underground in an analog plane of existence, who may appear and disappear at will. It is thought that the formtrow stems fromL-vocalization ofNorn:troll, and then intermixing withdrow via linguistic and figurative convergence.[4] However, the sense of "ghost" also survives in Shetland.[13]
The sense of "devil", or "the devil" (Satan), survive sporadically as well.Scanian indefinite descendants:dråe,dråker,dråkel, mean "devil", while some forms only survive in definite form:drån,dronn,dröken, meaning "the devil".[7][11][12] InOrkney, the descendantdrow can also be used to refer to "the devil".[15]
The Icelandic sagas are the earliest written material of draugren masse, describing draugr as dangerous corporeal undead which protect their burial mounds. They have magical abilities and can shapeshift, including changing size and mass.
One of the best-known revenants in the sagas isGlámr, who is defeated by the hero inGrettis 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",[29] and thus he was able to speak and leave Grettir with his curse after his death. Do note, however, that the saga does not actually use the termdraugr for Glámr.[citation needed]
A somewhat ambivalent, alternative view of the draugr is presented by the example ofGunnar Hámundarson inNjáls 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."[58][better source needed]
In theEyrbyggja 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.[43]
The draugr has been explained as a "corporeal ghost"[26] with a physical, tangible body, and not an "imago".[59] In tales, it is often delivered a "second death" by the destruction of the animated corpse.
"The will appears to be strong, strong enough to draw thehugr [animate will] back to one's body. These reanimated individuals were known asdraugr. However, though the dead might live again, they could also die again.Draugrs die a "second death" as Chester Gould calls it, when their bodies decay, are burned, dismembered or otherwise destroyed".[25]
Draugrs usually possess superhuman strength,[60] and are said to be "generally hideous to look at", bearing a necrotic black or blue color,[61][62] and being associated with a "reek of decay"[63] (a common trait inghostlore), or more precisely, inhabited haunts that often issued foul stench.[64]
In the Old Icelandic sagas, Draugrs were said to be eitherhel-blár ("death-blue") ornár-fölr ("corpse-pale").[62] Glámr inGrettis saga, when found dead, was described as "blár sem Hel en digr sem naut (black as hell and bloated to the size of a bull)".[65][e] Þórólfr Lame-foot, when lying dormant, looked "uncorrupted" and also "was black as death [ie, bruised black and blue] and swollen to the size of an ox".[66] The close similarity of these descriptions have been noted.[25][67]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".[68][69]
Þráinn (Thrain), theberserker ofValland, "turned himself into a troll" inHrómundar 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).[70][71][72] 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.[f][73][74]
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.[75][76] InHarðar 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.[77][g] When enraged Þráinn filled the barrow with an "evil reek."[70]
Draugrs are noted for having numerous magical abilities referred to asOld Norse:trollskapr (lit. 'troll-ship', roughly "sorcery-ness") resembling those of living witches and wizards, such ashamr-shifting (shapeshifting in Nordic folklore), controlling the weather, and seeing into the future.[78] The prefix,Old Norse:troll-, which is the same word as the creaturetroll, which initially meant something akin to "malevolent esoteric supernatural being" (demon, devil, ghost, jötunn etc.), was by extension, specifically in compounds, also a word for the sorcery and dark arts of said beings;[49]cf.Swedish:trolla ("to perform sorcery"),trolleri ("sorcery"),[79]trollkarl (lit. 'troll-man', "sorcerer"),[79]trollgumma,trollpacka (lit. 'troll-lady', "witch"),[49][80]
Icelandic linguistGeir T. Zoëga (1857–1928), in his book "A concise dictionary of old Icelandic" (1910), definedOld Icelandic:trollskapr as: "nature of a troll, witchcraft".[81] TheSwedish Academy expands on this for their description of the Swedish cognate:trollskap:
(ability or power to exercise) witchcraft/sorcery; also of (especially evil) action arising from such ability, etc.; earlier also concretely, about objects or tools and the like equipped with or produced by such ability and so on...[82]
Synonyms totrollskapr andtrollskap include:Old Icelandic:trolldómr andSwedish:trolldom,Swedish:trollkonst andtrollkraft etc. ("sorcery").[49][50][79]
The undead Víga-Hrappr Sumarliðason ofLaxdaela 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.[83] 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.[84] The ability to shapeshift has been ascribed to Icelandic ghosts generally, particularly into the shape of a seal.[85][86][87]
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.[88]
Draugrs have the ability to enter into the dreams of the living,[78] and they will frequently leave a gift behind so that "the living person may be assured of the tangible nature of the visit".[89] Draugrs also can curse a victim, as shown inGrettis saga, where Grettir is cursed to be unable to become stronger. Draugrs 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 likefoxfire.[90] This fire would form a barrier between the land of the living and that of the dead.[91]
The undead Víga-Hrappr exhibited the ability to sink into the ground to escape fromÓláfr Hǫskuldsson the Peacock.[92]
Some draugrs 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 inHrómundar saga Gripssonar. Iron could injure a draugr, as with many supernatural creatures, although it would not be sufficient to stop it.[93] 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.[94]
The draugr has been conceived of as a type ofvampire by folktale anthologistAndrew Lang in late 1897,[95] with the idea further pursued by more modern commentators. The focus here is not onblood-sucking, which is not attested for the draugr,[96] but rather, contagiousness or transmittable nature of vampirism,[97] 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),[97][98] and even called an "epidemic" regarding Þórgunna (Thorgunna).[h][99][100]
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.[101][i] It has been surmised by commentators that Glámr, by "contamination," was turned into an undead (draugr) by whatever being was haunting the farm.[103]
Any mean, nasty, or greedy person can become a draugr. AsÁrmann Jakobsson notes, "most medieval Icelandic ghosts are evil or marginal people. If not dissatisfied or evil, they are unpopular".[104]
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.[105]
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.[106]
Animals feeding near the grave of a draugr might be driven mad by the creature's influence.[43] They may also die from being driven mad. Thorolf, for example, caused birds to drop dead when they flew over hisbowl barrow.
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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.[108] 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 theevil 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.[108]
The draugr needing to be decapitated to hinder them from further hauntings is a common theme in thefamily sagas.[33]
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.[109] 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[by whom?] that this belief began inDenmark 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," draugrs 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.
In Faroese folklore, the draugr (Faroese:dreygur) is said to be a type of undead being that inhabits the mountains and hills of the Faroe Islands.[54] It is typically described as a large, strong creature with pale skin and long, dark hair. It is often depicted as beingcannibalistic.[55]
In contrast to the Icelandic sagas, in laterScandinavian folklore (Norway, Sweden), the termdraugr is described akin to spirits, ghosts or revenants in general, sometimes with no clear distinction at all.[7] In Norway, however, the term draugr (Norwegian:draug,drøg,drog, anddrauv,drøv,drov), beyond meaning revenant in general, have also taken on a specific sense of revenants of people lost at sea, sometimes specified as "sea draugr" (Norwegian:havdraug, sjødraug) relative to "land draugr". A similar motif can be seen in theSami tradition but with inland bodies of water.
The sea draugr (Norwegian:havdraug, sjødraug) occurs in legends along the coast of Norway, either at sea or along the beach. Such have also variously been called "sea troll" (sjøtroll), among others, then in the older sense of "evil malevolent being" or spectre, as opposed to the modern sense of a specific fairy tale creature.
One of the earliest recordings of the sea draugr was by Norwegian priestHans Egede, who mentioned it in passing when writing about the Norwegian "kraken" in the early 18th century. He wrote that kraken fell under the general category of "sea spectre" (Danish:søe-trold og [søe]-spøgelse, "sea trolls and sea spooks"), adding that "the Drow" (Drauen, definite form ofdrau,cf.drauv) was another being within that sea spectre classification (cf.Norwegian:drauv).[10]
"They also tell of another sea troll and spectre, which they calldrauen (the drow), which is said to have no specified form or description; but shows itself in one or another appearance."[j]
In later folklore, it became common to limit the figure to a ghost of a deadfisherman 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 inoilskin, but had a bundle ofseaweed for his head. He sailed in a half-boat with blocked sails (Bø Municipality inNorway 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 fromTrøndelag tells how acorpse 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, thegleip, known to hitch themselves to sailors walking ashore and make them slip on the wet rocks.[citation needed]
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The modern and popular connection between the draug and the sea can be traced back to authors likeJonas Lie and Regine Nordmann, whose works include several books of fairy tales, as well as the drawings ofTheodor Kittelsen, who spent some years living inSvolvær. Up north, the tradition ofsea draugr is especially vivid.[111]
The land dwelling draugrs of Norwegian folklore are essentially just the regular dead, ierevenants.Arne Garborg (1851–1924) describes land-draugrs as coming "fresh from the graveyards" in his poetry collectionHaugtussa from 1895,[112] and the termdraugr is even used ofvampires, in the sense that they are revenants. Norwegian philologistOla Raknes (1887–1975) translated English "vampire" intoNynorsk as "blood-sucking draugr" (blodsugar-draug) in his English to Norwegian dictionary from 1927.[113]
The notion of draugrs who live in the mountains is present in the poetic works ofHenrik Ibsen (1828–1906), such asPeer Gynt,[53] andAasmund Olavsson Vinje (1818–1870).[citation needed] A comparison can be made to the§ Faroese draugr,§ mound dweller, as well as mountain trolls, and old Nordic traditions of the dead and mountains.[57]
One of Vinje's poems,Det fyrste du har å gjera (1858), goes:
- Det fyrste du har å gjera, Mann,
- det er å døy,
- når ikkje du længer elska kan
- den fagre Møy.
- For då er det ute med spræke Gut
- og Mannes Værd,
- for då er Livet alt brunni ut,
- det Oske er.
- Og derfor stødt som det beste galdt
- eit Hjartelag,
- Og derfor Mannen han elskar alt
- til Døyan Dag,
- Og lever der Nokon, som ikkje Liv
- af Kjærleik saug,
- då gjeng han atter og sviv og sviv
- som bleikeDraug.[114]
- The first thing you have to do, Man,
- is to die,
- when you no longer can love
- the beautiful Maiden.
- For then it is over with the eloquent Boy
- and the worth of Man,
- for then Life is all burned out,
- what Ashes are.
- And therefore struck as the best thing,
- a heart beat,
- And therefore the Man he loves all
- until the Day of Death,
- And does Anyone live there, who does not live
- of Love's thurst,
- then he walks beyond and swivel and swivel
- like the bleekDraugr.
Both the sea draugr and land draugr have ties with the NorwegianChristmas tradition, in turn related to the broader Nordic Christmas tradition involving taking care of the dead, as they visit their relatives during the festivities, and beyond.[115] Sea draugrs and drowned people are mentioned as being part of theWild Hunt in Norway,[116] and the old Nordic Christmas tradition of leaving out food and beer on Christmas night, as to welcome spirits of the deceased,household spirits and thereof into the house (compare the US tradition of leaving milk and cookies forSanta Claus), which in Norway includes draugrs; the beer left out being called "draug-beer" (Norwegian:drøv-øl).[117][116]
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Although the sea draug usually presages death, there is an amusing account inNorthern Norway of a northerner who managed to outwit him on Christmas:
It wasChristmas Eve, and Ola went down to his boathouse to get thekeg ofbrandy 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 withcoffin 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.[118]
Cognates of the draugr also exist in Sámi folkore (Southern Sami:raavke;Pite Sami:rávvga;Lule Sami:rávgga;Northern Sami:rávga;Kildin Sami:роа̄ввк,roāvvk), suggesting a common loan fromProto-Norse.[16]
InSouthern Sami (spoken in Central Scandinavia), andKildin Sámi (spoken on theKola Peninsula of northwestern Russia), the cognates are said to mean vision, phantom, ghost,geist,[16][21] which is analog to the Swedish cognates.[7]
InPite Sami,Lule Sami, andNorthern Sami, the cognates are more analog to the Norwegiansea draugr,[17][18] in Northern Sami also calledčáhcerávga (lit. 'water rávga').[20] They are said to be the shadows of drowned people, living in a lake or stream. They were considered very dangerous, as they tried to pull the living into the water.[19][119] Akin to other stories, they can shapeshift, and may turn into a big fish such as apike, or other marine animal, like aseal.[120] Akin to thenixie in Nordic folklore, these stories are used like aboogieman to scare children from visiting potentially dangerous water areas.[20]
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TheexoplanetPSR B1257+12 A has been named "Draugr".
TheNynorsk translation ofThe Lord of the Rings used the term for bothNazgûl and the dead men ofDunharrow. Tolkien's barrow-wights bear obvious similarity to, and were inspired by the haugbúi.
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Season two episode two of the 2018 TV-seriesHilda, 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.
In the 2018 filmDraug, 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 2022 movieThe 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.
The 2024 Icelandic horror filmThe Damned features a draugr tormenting the inhabitants of an isolated, winter, fishing post after they let the survivors of a shipwreck drown.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link){{cite web}}:Check|url= value (help){{cite book}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)Årsaken var at også de underjordiske skulle få noe å bite i. På Nordmøre ble det som var igjen i ølkruset julaften, kalt «drøv-øl» (draug-øl). Ølet sto fremme for dødningene, og ingen måtte drikke av det.