Draugr

[dev]

A draugr... is a corporeal undead from Norse mythology. The original norse meaning of the word is ghost, and on older literature one will find clear distinctions between Sea-draug and land-draug. Draugar were believed to live in the graves of dead Vikings, being the body of the dead. - source

I've stumbled upon this creature a few weeks ago and have never heard about them before. I would love some thoughts, if there are any, from Foxy Fox or Ratty Rat!



If there are any thoughts to be made that is...

[Talkingfox]

There’s loads of stuff on the Draugr in the sagas, particularly the Icelandic ones.

Hilda Ellis-Davidson did a bunch of work in her “The Road to Hel” (Westport, CT, Greenwood Press 1943) as well.

The Draugr are actually considered to be less like what is a normal conception of a ghost and more like animated corpses of immense physical strength and often shapeshifting ability. In short, Nordic Undead.

There are several kinds. The haugbui are more common in Norwegian Myth and are pretty much home bodies, rarely found far from their burial place and don’t threaten anyone that’s not actually hanging out on their burial mound….kind of like a wight that way.
Draugr are more common in Icelandic myth and roam around. Another name for these guys is Aptrgagnger (lit: ‘after goer’)

Whatever they’re called they differ from ghosts in that they have a physical presence, usually huge and sometimes partially rotted.


There’s also tales that speak of these walking corpses having knowledge of the future and other magical abilities, such as ‘swimming’ through solid stone.

The over all feeling in the sagas about the Draugr is an overwhelming resentment and jealousy of the living, leading to physical and magical attacks.

They are also portrayed as having insatiable hunger, perhaps a reflection of their desire for life.

[dev]

They sound cool!



Some vampire-like zombie creature!

How can they be destroyed, or exorcised?

[Talkingfox]

They sound cool!



Some vampire-like zombie creature!

How can they be destroyed, or exorcised?

It was believed that the dead could die again…

“I can tell with truth, I say,
For I have seen all the worlds
'neath the welkin.
Niflhel beneath nine worlds I saw,
There men die out of Hel.”
(Hollander, "Vafthruthnismal," The Poetic Edda, p. 50)

Not my favorite translation, but the one I had at hand.


It seems that in the mythic that getting rid of these beasties was a royal pain in the ass.
Iron weapons could harm them but were not always fatal.

OK..first is a hand to hand wrestling match until the draugr is subdued.
Then, decapitation with a sword from its own burial mound. In some traditions this is easier said than done as the hero was required to leap between the body and the severed head before it hit the ground, or walk widdershins 3 times around the head and body or slam a stake through the headless body, at least according to Saxo Grammaticus.

Then, the entirety of the lifeless bits must be burned to cold ash and the ashes buried in a remote spot or thrown out to sea. Apparently if all this mucking about isn’t followed they tend to be repeaters.

[Dragon]

Sounds complicated...I'd pack a lunch.

Great work on these threads TF, you and Rk both.

Thanks.

~D~

[Talkingfox]

Sounds complicated...I'd pack a lunch.

Great work on these threads TF, you and Rk both.

Thanks.

~D~

Ah thanks Dragon.

Don't these draugr guys sniff a bit like the Buddhist Hungry Ghosts w/ a great deal of grumpiness thrown in to you?

[Naomi]

More like zombies TalkingFox...the Hungry Ghosts are non-coporeal and you can appease them easily with burned hell bank notes and offerings of food...

These sound like Night of the Living Dead to be honest, kind of scary. Still they could be the same thing depending on where this legend is coming from, visionary work or scrying the local astral fields are possible.

Maybe I'll have to cancel my graveyard ceremony experiments in case of them actually working.

I have seen spirits that resemble devouring monsters, I used to work closely with this sort, they're very easy to find. I don't recall any corpses, but there have been trance visions where I was exploring some neighborhood houses and stumbled upon the dead, I banish them to the source....

They don't come near me hardly at all anymore, as I grew into my magick i noticed they kept getting more dangerous (ie from bigger, deeper sources than just humans) and the little ones just stay away. This is one of the advantages of raising the internal fires.

Thanks for sharing, these are very creepy monsters.

[Talkingfox]

Yeah I guess that the Draugr are more like human Trolls than Hungry Ghosts.

But, Draugr become Draugr due to unwillingness to accept their Wyrd and I mean Wyrd in the truest sense ie meaning to 'turn into or transorm by twisting' rather than the carved in stone fate thing that's been popular as of late.

I guess where I saw the similarities is in the mind process that gets them to their respective states.

The Nordic stuff is chock full of creepy huge ass monsters btw.

[Naomi]

I saw Beowulf and listen to Wagner but otherwise I have no idea what you are talking about lady, what's a Wyrd?

[Talkingfox]

This is a pretty good definition from Wiki.

"In a simple sense, Wyrd refers to how past actions continually affect and condition the future, but also how the future affects the past. Indeed, for a true comprehension it is key for the Wyrd to be embraced as a conceptual mystery, wherein the tides and tidings of time and timelessness flow and weave always, all ways, entwining the reticulum of the fabric of being and non-being.[1] The Wyrd also foregrounds the interconnected nature of all actions and how they influence each other. Wyrd, though conceptually related, is not congruent with predestination. Unlike predestination, the concept of Wyrd allows for one's wyrd or agency: albeit agency 'constrained' (Proto-Germanic: Naudiz) by the wyrds (the intentions and activities) of others, but nevertheless capable of weaving reality. This view is also prominent in the concept of Karma, as used in Indian religions. Wyrd is "inexorable"[2] and "goes as she shall"[3], the fate (Norse ørlǫg) woven or scored by the Norns. Indeed, the term's Norse cognate urðr, besides meaning "fate", is the name of one of the Norns, closely related to the concept of necessity (skuld). The name of the younger sister, Verðandi, is strictly the present participle of the verb cognate to weorþan.
According to Voluspa 20, the three Norns "set up the laws", "decided on the lives of the children of time" and "promulgate their Ørlǫg"[4]. Frigg, on the other hand, while she "knows all ørlǫg", "says it not herself" (Lokasenna 30)."


Orlog is, btw, sort of the external law of the Universe. (literal trans. ancient or beyond age law) To greatly understate it, Orlog is the ultimate purpose, or great plan, of Creation, sometimes seen as a Goddess.

Wyrd is seen as a daughter of Orlog in some (but not all) Norse creation myths.