Hey everyone, Welcome to Mythology Explained. In today’s video, we’re going to discuss five
monsters in Norse mythology that killed gods and /or contributed to destroying the world.
Anything humanoid, such as Surtr, the chief of the fire giants, won’t be discussed in this video.
Let’s get into it.
Starting off our list are Skoll and Hati.
Skoll and Hati are two wolves, and their story revolves around the sun and moon. In the deep
past, there was a man named Mundilfari. He had two children, and he thought them so perfect
that he named them Mani, “Moon”, and Sol, “Sun”. The giving of these names,
high and mighty as they were, angered the gods, who punished Mundilfari for his
hubris by setting his children in the sky amongst the very heavenly objects they were named after.
Sol was made to drive the horses that pulled the chariot of the sun. Arvak and Alsvinn,
the two celestial steeds drawing the chariot, would have perished in flames,
but the gods took precautions and set bellows beneath their shoulders to keep them cool. Mani,
henceforth, guided the moon in its arc across the sky and controlled its waxing and waning.
Here is where Skoll and Hati come in. The sun and moon journeyed so swiftly across the sky
because they were in constant flight. Skoll was the wolf chasing the sun,
and Hati the moon. Tirelessly they pursued their quarry, relentlessly hunting.
Their mother was an ogress that dwelt to the East of Midgard
in a fell forest called the Jarnvid, the “Iron Wood”. The frightening women that
dwell within that dark forest were called the Jarnvidjur, “the Iron Wood Dwellers”.
It was said that from this ogress came many giant sons, all of them wolves.
When the cataclysm of Ragnarok breaks the world and ends the current age in the mythic future,
the long hunt will finally come to an end. The sun and the moon will be caught,
and without them, the sky will go dark.
Coming up next is the Nidhogg
A swarm of serpents lived amongst the roots of Yggdrasil,
the World Tree. Indeed, so many serpents seethed in the deep places of the universe
that it was said no tongue could count them. They constantly gnawed and clawed the tree’s roots,
maiming its subterranean sprawl, and in so doing, trying to destroy the tree itself - root, stem,
and branch - which, if they succeeded, would have apocalyptic consequences. The greatest of
these serpents was the Nidhogg. And as there were creatures that dwelt amongst the tree’s roots,
so were there creatures that dwelt amongst its branches. One of these was a great eagle. Perched
on a bough, its sight was keen and its knowledge deep. A hawk, Vedrfolnir, meaning “Wind Bleached”,
sat between the eagle’s eyes. Another animal, a mischievous squirrel called Ratatosk, meaning
“Drill Tooth”, scurried up and down the trunk of Yggdrasil, relaying insults between the Nidhogg
and the eagle, both of whom shared an acrimonious relationship, constantly trading gibes and jeers.
In Voluspa, the first poem in the Codex Regius of the Poetic Edda,
is a sort of summary of Norse mythology. Included in it is the creation,
destruction, and rebirth of the world. Several lines of verse are dedicated to the Nidhogg.
What its role is, exactly, isn’t elaborated on too much, but from what’s said,
it seems as though it played a part in the destruction of the world. Here are the quotes:
There Nithhogg sucks the corpses of the fallen,
snaps them in his jaws….Then the dark dragon will come flying down from the dark mountains,
that glistening serpent. Nithhogg will bear corpses in his wings as he flies over that valley.
At number 3 we have Garm
Garm was a great hound, the most powerful hound in Norse mythology.
In The Lay of Grimnir, several lines are dedicated to delineating the most powerful examples
of several things, hounds included. Here they are:
The ash Yggddrsil Is foremost of trees,
And Skidbladnir of ships, Odin of the Aesir
And of stallions, Sleipnir, Bifrost of bridges,
And Bragi of skalds, Habrok of hawks,
And of hounds, Garm.
Not much is known of Garm, though his identity as a powerful monster in Norse mythology
is beyond dispute. When Ragnarok happens, all bonds will be broken, meaning that anyone
imprisoned - incapacitated in any way, really - will be freed. This is how the likes of Garm,
Fenrir, and Loki will escape and wage war against Asgard. In Garm’s case, he’ll escape from the
underworld, of which he is the guard, a role that conjures up parallels between him and Cerberus,
the three-headed dog that guards the underworld in Greek mythology.
Here’s what’s said about Garm’s involvement in Ragnarok in the Prose Edda:
By now the hound Garm, who was bound in front of Gnipahellir,
[the cave in which Garm was bound,] will also have broken free.
He, the worst of monsters, will fight against Tyr, They will be each other’s death.
One interpretation is that Garm is actually another name for Fenrir,
the next entry we’re about to discuss.
Of all the monsters in Norse mythology, Fenrir, a monstrous wolf, was the chief bane of the gods.
Born to Loki and the ogress Angrboda, Fenrir was the oldest sibling of three monstrous children.
The middle spawn was Jormungandr, the Midgard Serpent, and the youngest was the goddess Hel
who presided over the underworld. Fenrir and his two siblings were prophesied to bring much
evil and destruction into the world, so Odin sent the gods to seize them and bring them before him.
In an effort to preempt the ruin this trio of monsters would unleash,
Odin dealt with each in turn. Jormungandr was cast down into the ocean; Hel was cast down
into the underground realm of the dead - though, perhaps this wasn’t the wisest decision; for this,
inadvertently, gave her great power and put her in position to cause problems later on - and Fenrir,
unlike his two younger siblings, wasn’t banished to some remote place.
No, the gods decided to raise him in the halls of Asgard. This burden fell mostly to Tyr,
the most intrepid of the gods, for only he was bold enough to feed Fenrir;
but each day the wolf grew - prodigious in both size and strength - and because he was destined
to deal death and destruction, the gods decided that he had to be bound. Using their guile,
they allayed Fenrir’s suspicions by presenting the chains they bound him with as a contest to
test his strength. Each time a chain broke, a subsequent stronger chain was used. But it
soon became apparent that no chain they produced could hold him. The gods turned to the dwarves,
who crafted a restraint of unconventional make with an appearance that belied just how
unbreakable it really was. Here’s the passage from the Prose Edda that describes how it was made:
It was constructed from six elements: the noise of a cat’s footsteps, the beard of a woman,
the roots of a mountain, the sinews of a bear, the breath of a fish, and the spittle of a bird.
This newest restraint was different from the previous ones. Soft, smooth, and supple, it
more so resembled a ribbon than a chain. Because of the dissimilarity, Fenrir became suspicious,
so he wouldn’t allow himself to be bound unless one of the gods placed a hand in his mouth.
Tyr, the only god bold enough to feed Fenrir, was the one who placed his hand in the wolf’s mouth.
What happened next played out predictably. Fenrir couldn’t break free; the gods wouldn’t let him go;
and finally, the sequence was punctuated by Fenrir biting off Tyr’s hand. The gods then wedged a
sword, hilt to point, in the wolf’s mouth, and the saliva that poured out created the river Van.
Fenrir breaks free of his bonds during Ragnarok. He charges forward - his lower jaw pressed against
the earth, his upper jaw pressed up against the sky - devouring everything in his path.
He kills Odin, who is later avenged by his son, Vidar, when he rips Fenrir’s head apart.
Taking up our last spot is Jormungandr.
Also known as the Midgard Serpent, Jormungandr, meaning “Mighty Snake”,
was one of three monstrous children born of the unholy union between Loki and the ogress Angrboda.
Jormungandr was cast down into the ocean that encircled Midgard, the realm of humanity,
and he grew to such an immense length that his bulk extended around the whole world
so that he could put the tip of his tail in his own mouth. And here,
it might be a good idea to quickly discuss how the world was conceptualized in Norse mythology.
It was believed that the earth was a flat disc that was surrounded by the ocean on all sides.
Following his birth and banishment, Jormungandr features almost exclusively as the arch-nemesis
of Thor. In the myth in which Thor and Loki journey to the land of the giants, they find their
way to Utgarda-Loki, an enormous fortress in the wilderness. Inside, they’re subjected to a series
of challenges; at the end of which, Thor is left defeated, having failed each challenge in which he
competed. At the end of the story, though, it’s revealed to him that the series of challenges
was actually a series of deceptions. In one, he couldn’t lift a giant cat off the floor,
but as it turns out, the giant cat was actually the world serpent disguised by magic. To Thor’s
eyes, he lifted the cat so that only one of its paws left the ground, but in reality, he lifted
the Midgard Serpent, its entire world-circling bulk, so high that it almost touched the sky.
In the next myth that features the Midgard Serpent, Thor goes fishing. He baits his
hook with the head of an ox, and what he catches is none other than Jormungandr.
Thor was about to strike a mighty blow with his hammer, but his companion,
the giant Hymir, cut the line so that the serpent sank back into the depths unscathed.
The finale encounter between Thor and the Midgard Serpent
occurs during Ragnarok. Thor strikes down his foe, but his victory is fleeting,
as he is covered in such a copious amount of venom that he drops dead after taking only nine steps.
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