Mythology 101

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Jörmungandr is one of the children of the Norse God Loki and the jötunn Angrboða, and plays an integral part in Norse mythology. The prefix Jörmun- denotes something large, vast, or superhuman, while the word -gandr can mean a variety of things in Old Norse, but mainly refers to elongated entities or supernatural beings. It can also mean things like snake, fjord, river, staff, cane, bind, etc. The name Jörmungandr therefore has a few different meanings, such as "the vast serpent" or "the vast river". He and the god Thor are mortal enemies, destined to kill each other during Ragnarök.

Alongside his siblings Fenrir and Hel, he is proved to be a threat to Odin the Allfather and the Æsir, as he was prophesised to be instrumental in Ragnarök.

Odin received a prophecy that Loki's monster children would cause the end of the world, and sought to get rid of them in hopes of preventing the event from happening. Jörmungandr was tied to a pine tree in order to keep him under control, but Thor warned the gods to keep their distance as the serpent had spat black venom at him, but missed. Odin then flung Jörmungandr into the seas of Midgard, the land of humans. Jörmungandr only grew in size, growing large enough that he could encircle the entire planet and hold his tail in his mouth, forming an ouroboros. It was believed that when he released his tail, Ragnarök would begin.

Thor's Fishing Trip

The story of Thor and his fishing trip is a popular story featured in both the Poetic Edda and the Prose Edda. During an unusual period of peace between the Æsir and the jötnar, Thor goes to visit Hymir to retrieve a large cauldron that was needed for a feast.

Hymir, aware of the stories revolving around Thor and his appetite, killed three of his bulls in order to provide meat for his visit. To his dismay, Thor ate two of the bulls in a single meal. Hymir decides to go fishing, as he cannot spare any more of his cattle to feed to Thor. He enlists Thor's help, sending him to get the bait. Instead of hunting some small game to use, Thor kills the rest of Hymir's bulls and cuts off their heads to use instead. While this enraged Hymir, the heads proved to be excellent bait, and Hymir catches two whales.

According to the story, Thor didn't help with the fishing, simply looking out over the sea. When Hymir asks Thor to row them back to shore, Thor instead decides to row the boat further out to sea in order to catch even bigger fish. Hymir was nervous, as he knows the ocean they were in is where Jörmungandr dwelled, and he knows that he and Thor were to meet during Ragnarök. Despite being warned, Thor doesn't listen and begins to fish.

Something incredibly large begins to pull on Thor's fishing line, and almost pulls him off the boat and into the water. Hymir instantly knew that he had caught Jörmungandr, as no other creature would be able to challenge Thor's strength. Just as Jörmungandr's body began breaking the surface of the water, Hymir cuts the fishing line, letting the serpent sink back down into the depths of the ocean.

Thor is so outraged with what Hymir had done that he throws him overboard and abandons him, rowing back to shore. Hymir was then probably eaten by Jörmungandr.

The Giant Cat

The other story involving Jörmungandr also involves Thor. In this story, Thor encounters Útgarða-Loki (also known as Skrýmir),  ruler of Útgarðr in Jötunheimr, and performs several deeds for him.

At some point during their meeting, Útgarða-Loki challenges Thor into trying to lift a giant cat in order to show of his fabled strength. However, the cat wasn't a cat. It was Jörmungandr, disguised with the use of magic. As a result, Thor could only lift Jörmungandr the cat enough for one of its paws to leave the ground.

Útgarða-Loki later tells Thor what he did, explaining that it was probably a good thing that he wasn't able to lift him entirely, as Jörmungandr's huge size meant that lifting him may have altered the boundaries of the universe.

Ragnarök

Jörmungandr, becoming uncomfortable in the icy waters that surround Midgard, would eventually release his tail and make his way to the surface. His enormous size meant that his movements would cause extremely powerful earthquakes all across the nine realms. These earthquakes allowed for his brother, Fenrir, to break the chains that held him, and for his father, Loki, to escape his prison.

In the final battle of Ragnarök, Jörmungandr found himself facing Thor for a final time. It's a brutal battle, in which Thor fights harder than he ever has fought before and eventually pummels Jörmungandr to death using his hammer Mjölnir.

Fenrir is one of the children of the Norse god Loki and the jötunn Angrboða, and he plays an important, albeit brief, role in Norse mythology. In Old Norse, the name Fenrir means 'fen-dweller', and he is also referred to as Fenrisúlfr ('Fenrir's wolf'), Hróðvitnir ('fame-wolf'), and Vánagandr ('monster of the [river] Ván'). He is also the father of Sköll and Hati Hróðvitnisson, wolves that chase the sun and moon respectively across the heavens.

Alongside his siblings Jörmungandr and Hel, he proved to be a threat to Odin the All-Father and the Æsir, as he was prophesised to be instrumental in Ragnarök.

While the gods were trying to decide on what to do with him, Fenrir kept growing in size and power, becoming monstrous in size. The gods, hoping to appeal to his arrogance, offered to test his strength by seeing if he could break through a set of chains; he let them chain him and easily broke through them. The gods smithed a stronger set, but he broke through those as well. Odin, realising that they weren't capable of making chains that could hold Fenrir, turned to the dwarves. With their magical smithing powers, the dwarves created the ribbon of Gleipnir, which was made of:

The sound of a cat's footfall

A woman's beard

A mountain's roots

A bear's sinews

A fish's breath

A bird's saliva

When offered this third set of chains, Fenrir suspected the gods of possibly using magic to deceive him. As insurance, Fenrir agreed to letting the gods bind him with the ribbon if one of their gods would put their hand in his mouth. The god of war, Týr, was the only god willing to do so. The gods wrapped the ribbon around Fenrir, and the great wolf was enraged to find out that he couldn't break through the bindings. In retaliation, he bit off Týr's hand and his flowing saliva became the River Ván.

This, as well as the treatment of Loki's other children, soured the relationship between Loki and the other gods.

"He takes the form of a huge black dog, and prowls along dark lanes and lonesome field footpaths, where, although his howling makes there hearer's blood run cold, his footfalls make no sound... But such an encounter might bring you the worst of luck: it is even said that to meet him is to be warned that your death will occur before the end of the year. So you will do well to shut your eyes if you hear him howling; shut them even if you are uncertain whether it is a dog fiend or the voice of the wind you hear."

In English folklore, Black Shuck is the name given to a spectral black dog that is said to roam the East Anglian coastline and countryside. Accounts of the Black Shuck form part of the folklore of Norfolk, Suffolk, the Cambridgeshire Fens, and Essex. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the name Shuck derives from the Old English word scucca 'devil, fiend', perhaps from the root skuh 'to terrify'.

Descriptions of these dogs vary considerably, from being recorded as an omen of death, to, in other instances, being described as companionable.

Typically, the dogs are described as being a large dog with black, mangy fur, and they were supposedly larger-than-normal, with some even described as being larger than a horse. they were foaming at the mouth as if deranged, rabid, or ravenously hunting for their next meal. Perhaps the most distinctive characteristic of the Black Shuck was the eyes, red and as large as saucers. Furthermore, these hellhounds were always said to appear suddenly and without warning, then disappear as quickly as they had arrived.

1127: Peterborough

It is suggested that the earliest surviving description of these dogs come from an account of an incident in the Peterborough Abbey recorded in the Peterborough Chronicle (one version of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle) in the year 1127:

"Let no one think strange the truth that we declare, for it was well-known throughout the entire country that as soon as [Abbot Henry of Poitou] arrived [at Peterborough]—that is, on the Sunday on which one sings, “Exurge, quare obdormis, Domine?” immediately thereafter many men saw and heard many huntsmen hunting. These hunters were black and big and ugly, and all their dogs were black and ugly with wide eyes, and they rode on black horses and black goats. This was seen in the deer park itself in the town of Peterborough and in all the woods between Peterborough and Stamford. And the monks heard the horns blowing, which they blew at night. Reliable witnesses observed them at night. They said it seemed to them there might well have been twenty to thirty blowing horns. This was seen and heard from the time he came here all that Lent up to Easter."

This account also describes the Europe-wide phenomenon known as a Wild Hunt.

1577: Bungay and Blythburgh

One of the most famous reports of the Black Shuck is his appearance at the churches of Bungay and Blythburgh in Suffolk. On 4th August 1577, and Blythburgh, the Black Shuck is said to have burst through the doors of the Holy Trinity Church. He ran up to the nave, past a large congregation of people, and killed and man and a boy, causing the steeple to collapse through the roof. When the dog left, he left scorch marks on the north door that can still be seen at the church today.

There was another encounter on the same day at St Mary's Church in Bungay. It was described in A Straunge and Terrible Wunder by Abraham Fleming:

"This black dog, or the divel in such a likenesse (God hee knoweth al who worketh all) runing all along the body of the Church with great swiftnesse, and incredible haste, among the people, in a visible fourm and shape, passed between two persons, as they were kneeling uppon their knees, and occupied in prayer as it seemed, wrung the necks of them bothe at one instant clene backwards in somuch that even at a momentwhere they kneeled they straungely dyed."

Other local accounts attribute the event to the Devil (Fleming calls it "the Divel in such a likeness"). The scorch marks on the door are referred to by the locals as "the devil's fingerprints", and the event is remembered in this verse:

In Greek Mythology, centaurs (Greek: Κένταυροι) are creatures that are half man and half horse. They have the head, neck, chest and arms of a man and the legs and lower body of a horse. Most centaurs are brutal, violent creatures known for their drunkenness and lawless behaviour. They live mainly around Mount Pelion in Thessaly, a region in north-eastern Greece.

The word centaur comes from the Greek word Κένταυρος, which means "piercing bull". Another possible origin for the name comes from the Mesopotamian word Centaurus, the constellation that depicted an epic battle of gods in Mesopotamian culture.

Origins

The most common theory of the origins of the myth come from when the early Greeks first encountered horse-mounted riders. This sight may have been interpreted by the early Greeks as a singular creature with the combined features of a man and a horse.

There are several stories that tell of how the centaurs originally came about.

The most commonly-referenced myth starts with Ixion, the king of the Lapiths of Thessaly. He had fallen in love with Hera, the wife of Zeus. Zeus found out and instead gave him a cloud nymph that looked like Hera. This nymph was called Nephele (Greek: Νεφέλη, meaning clouds/mass of clouds). He forced himself on Nephele, impregnating her.

In one version, Nephele had a son named Centaurus. This son, who had a human form, raped the Magnesian mares of Mount Pelion, and they then gave birth to the half-human, half-horse centaurs. In another version, the centaurs were the offspring of Ixion and Nephele instead.

The Centauromachy

The Centauromachy was a battle between the Lapiths and the centaurs at the wedding of King Pirithous and Hippodamia. It started when the centaurs drank too much wine and became drunk. When the bride was presented to greet the guests, the centaur Eurytion attempted to abduct her, spurring the other centaurs into attempting the same with the other woman and young boys present.

During the battle that followed, Theseus came to the aid of the Lapiths. Eurytion's nose and ears were cut off and he was thrown out. After the Lapiths had won the battle, the centaurs were expelled from Thessaly to the northwest.

When the bride, Hippodamia, was presented to greet the guests, the centaur Eurytion leapt up and attempted to abduct her. All the other centaurs were up in a moment, straddling women and boys. In the battle that ensued, Theseus came to the Lapiths' aid. They cut off Eurytion's ears and nose and threw him out. After the battle the defeated Centaurs were expelled from Thessaly to the northwest.

Pholus and Heracles

Pholus was a wise, kind and civilised centaur. He was the son of Silenus, companion and tutor to the wine god Dionysus, and the nymph Melia. Pholus is generally only associated with one myth, in which he encounter Heracles.

He lived on Mount Pelion when Heracles climbed the mountain in search of the Erymanthian Boar as one of his twelve labours. Pholus opened up his cave for Heracles and he was served meat and wine. When the other centaurs smelled the wine, they tried to enter the cave, but Heracles drove them away, chasing and killing many with his bow and arrow.

When Pholus saw the bodies of the other centaurs outside of his cave, he decided to bury them. After examining one of the arrows lodged in one of their bodies, he accidentally dropped it on his foot, and the poisoned tip of the arrow imbedded itself into him and killed him instantly. When Heracles eventually returned and discovered Pholus' body, he repaid the kind centaur by organising a funeral and burying him at the foot of the mountain where he had lived.

Chiron

Chiron was the eldest and wisest of the centaurs. Unlike the rest of his kind, he was an immortal son of the Titan Cronus and a half-brother of Zeus. He was a renowned teacher that tutored many of the greatest heroes in Greek mythology, including the Argonauts Jason and Peleus, the physician Asclepius, the demigod Aristaeus and Achilles of Troy.

He was accidentally wounded by Heracles when the hero was battling other centaurs. The wound, having been infected with a Hydra venom-tipped arrow, was incurable. Suffering an unbearable pain, Chiron relinquished his immortality so that he didn't have to live any longer with the pain. Zeus then placed him among the stars as the constellation Centaurus.

Nessus

Unlike Pholus and Chiron, Nessus acted temperamentally more like the majority of the centaurs, with a wild and uncontrollable nature. He took part in the centaur's war against the Lapiths and survived the conflict, later finding work as a ferryman taking people across the Evinos River.

On one particular journey, Nessus had to carry Deianeira, the wife of Heracles, across the river. He was so enamoured by her beauty that he tried to force himself on her as soon as they arrived at the shore.

Heracles had been waiting for his wife's arrival and, upon seeing what was happening, dipped an arrow in poison and fired it at Nessus. As he lay dying, Nessus told Deianeira that his blood would make sure that Herales would stay true to her forever, knowing full well that the blood would be infected with the poison.

She foolishly believed him. Later, when her trust in Heracles waned as a result of Iole, she spread Nessus' blood on a robe and gave it to him. Heracles took it to a gathering of heroes. Meanwhile, after accidentally spilling some blood on the floor, Deianeira realised that the blood was actually poisoned when the blood began to burn.