The Walking Dead, Part 4

[Gunnora Hallakarva]

The Walking Dead:  Draugr and Aptrgangr in Old Norse Literature
 Part IV: Draugr Attacks and Slaying the Undead

        The dead budy was a vehicle of plague and illness, such as that
ofthe sorceror Mithothyn of Saxo Grammaticus, but in a day and age in which
germ theory was unknown, the causative agent was perceived to be the evil
intent of the draugr.  Thus it followed that the dead might also make
physical attacks against the living.  The draugr was believed to feel a
longing for the things of life, and even envy of those yet alive.  This
notion is poignantly described in Fridthjofs saga, when a dying king declared:

                My howe shall stand beside the firth.  And there shall be
but a short
                distance between mine and Thorsteinn's, for it is well that
we should
                call to one another (Ellis-Davidson, Road to Hel, p. 91).

The idea of dead friends calling greetings from gave to grave is a peaceful
one, exhibiting a wistful desire for the friendship experienced while yet
living.  However, this desire for the things of life often took on more
dangerous overtones as in the story of Killer-Hrapp, a brutal man who
declared to his wife on his deathbed,

                I want my grave to be dug under the living-room door, and I
am to be
                placed upright in it under the threshold, so that I can keep
an even
                better watch over my house.

The saga goes on to say that

                Hrapp soon died and all his instructions were carried out,
for Vigdis
                [his wife] did not dare do otherwise.  And difficult as he
had been to 
                deal with during his life, he was now very much worse after
death, for
                his corpse would not rest in its grave... (Magnusson and
Palsson,
                Laxdaela Saga, pp. 77-78).

The draugar who most dramatically demonstrate the desire for their past life
are those that appear in Eyrbyggja saga.  The ghosts of drwoned Thorodd and
his crew, dripping wet, and the mud-covered band of draugar led by Thorir
Wood-Leg invade the living-room of the hall at Frodriver:

                The people bolted out of the room, as you'd expect, and that
evening
                they had to do without light, heating-stones, anmd
everything else the
                fire could give (Palsson and Edwards, Eyrbyggja Saga, pp.
166-167).

These undead not only deprive the inhabitants of Frodriver of the benefits
of thei hall at night, while they are present the wage mud-fights, no doubt
damaging the hall and rendering it uninhabitable by day as well.

        In the sagas, "those who die have not gone to a better place, they
are on the contrary driven away from the comfort of their homes and the
company of their kin.  They feel cold and hungry" (Christiansen, "The Dead
and the Living," p. 10).  It is no wonder then that the draugr should come
to resent the living, and at times walk again to reclaim a place they feel
is rightfully theirs.  This envy of the living is related to the motive
driving the most powerful and dangerous of draugar: their insatiable hunger.
This hunger is seen in the encounter of Aran and Asmund, sword brothers, who
made an oath that if one should die, the other would sit vigil with him for
three days inside the burial mound.  This when Aran died, Asmund equipped
his brother's barrow with his possessions, his banners and armor, hawk,
hound, and horse.  Then Asmund 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, Aram had got him by the ears
and torn them 
                off (Palsson and Edwards, "Egils saga einhenda ok Asmundar saga 
                berserkjabana," in Gautrek's Saga and Other Medieval Tales,
pp. 99-101).

Saxo Grammaticus, who recounts the same basic story, adds, "... but horse
nor dog sated its hunger; swiftly it turned its lightning talons to slash my
cheek and take off my ear" (Saxo Grammaticus, Vol I, p. 151;  Other hungry
ghosts include Glamr of Grettirs saga and Thrain of Hromundar saga
Greipssonar, p. 67).  The implication is clear that the draugr, having
devoured the animals interred with him in the mound, had determined to make
Asmund his next grisly meal.  The unnatural hunger of the draugr was perhaps
a physical manifestation of its desire for life.  It is for this reason that
modern commentators often link the draugr and the vampire.  "In these tales
the corpse within the grave is always represented with vampre-like
propensities, superhuman strength, and a fierce desire to destroy any living
creature which ventures to enter the mound" (Ellis-Davidson, Road to Hel, p.
92).

        The draugr's victims were not restricted to trespassers in its
mound.  The roaming ghosts decimated livestock by running the animals to
death while either riding them or pursuing them in some hideous, half-flayed
form.  Shepherd, whose duties to their flocks left them out of doors at
night time, were also 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
autumn neither 
                sheep nor shepherd came back to the farm" (Palsson and Edwards, 
                Eyrbyggja Saga, p. 115).

Stabled animals and unwary travellers were crushed and broken by the draugr,
and those unwary enough to open hall doors after nightfall for a knocking
visitor might never be seen again:

                And when they were at meat there came a loud sharp blow at
the door. 
                Then one of them said, "Good tidings must be near now."  He
ran out, 
                and they thought that he was long coming back.  The Iostan
and his men 
                went out, and saw him that had gone out stark mad, and in
the morning 
                he died (Gudbrandr Vigfusson and F. York Powell, "Floamanna
saga," in 
                Origines Islandicae.  Oxford, Clarendon, 1905, Vol II, p. 646).

The Icelandic custom was to tap three times at the windows after dark, and
"a knock, especially if it were only a single stroke, was a sure sign of a
ghost or other evil creature seeking entry" ( Simpson, Icelandic Folktales
and Legends, pp. 135-136).

        Although staying indoors at night was safer than venturing outside
when a draugr was about, the creature might attack the hall itself:

                At night the people at Hvamm used to hear loud noises from
outside, 
                and it often sounded to them as if there was somebody
sitting astride 
                the roof (Palsson and Edwards, Eyrbyggja Saga, p. 115).

This type of onslaught was known as house-riding, and the draugr used its
enormous strength to batter the roof, while the drumming of its heels
terrified the inhabitants within:

                Someone seemed to be climbing the house and then straddling the 
                roof-top above the hall, and beating his heels against the
roof so that 
                every beam in the house was cracking (Fox and Palsson,
Grettirs Saga, 
                p. 57)

The draugr's attack could also be intended to gain entry into the hall by
destroying the doors:

                The entire frame of the outer door had been broken away, and
a crude
                hurdle tied carelessly in its place.  The wooden partition
which before 
                had seperated the hall from the entrance passage had also
broken away, 
                both below and above the crossbeam (Ibid.).

        Overcoming the dead would seem to have been quite difficult, but the
Scandinavians believed that even 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)

Although iron weapons could harm the draugr, as with many supernatural
creatures, cold iron was not sufficient to stop the dead from walking.
First, the draugr must be overcome by grappling hand-to-hand with the
creature, and wrestling withit until it was subdued (Simpson, Icelandic
Folktales and Legends, p. 107).  The hero next must decapitate the ghost,
often with a sword found in the draugr's own barrow (Chadwick, "Norse
Ghosts," p. 55).  This was at times a difficult task, for in some traditions
the hero was required to leap between the head and the body before the
corpse hit the ground, or walk widdershins three times between the head and
body afterwards, or drive a wooden stake into the headless body in the same
manner other cultures used to dispose of vampires (Saxo Grammaticus, Vol. I,
p. 150 and Vol. II, p. 89).  The final step in dispatching the draugr was to
burn the remains to cold ashes and then bury the ashes in a remote spot or
throw them out to sea:  only then was the undead truly dead and destined to
rise no more (Ellis-Davidson, Road to Hel, pp. 37-38).

Next Post, Part V: Parallels between the Scandinavian Draugr and Beowulf's
Grendel



Gunnora Hallakarva

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"Better the Hammer than the nail."  --- Kief af Kierstead