A good example of this kind of fight is found in Hrómundar saga Gripssonar.
The hero would often have to wrestle with the draugr and so defeat him, since weapons would do no good. To defeat a draugr, a hero was often necessary, since only such a man had strength and courage enough to stand up to so formidable an opponent.Such visits were universally horrible events, and often ended in death for one or more of the living, and warranted the exhumation of the draugrs tomb by a hero. Some draugr were able to leave their dwelling place, the burial mound, and visit the living during the night. Whether this actually works or not is subject to folklore. However, it has been suggested that the Draugr is susceptible to weapons forged of cold iron. Some people took the extra precaution of driving a wooden stake through the corpse before decapitating and cremating the Draugr (which is why this revenant is sometimes identified with the Vampire). Then, the creature must be decapitated (preferably with the Draugr’s own sword or axe), and burned to ashes. A hero, one who is pure of heart and is in good standing with God, must face the creature with only his bare hands, for only by wrestling this revenant into submission can one hope to defeat this monster. While this unliving horror cannot be slain in the traditional sense, there is one way to defeat the Draugr. Therefore, decapitation and burning are the only methods of permanently destroying the Draugr. However, decapitation only works after the creature has been wrestled to the ground and defeated. Fire is a vulnerability shared by most of the corporeal undead, a sure sign that nature itself rebels against the very existence of the undead. The only other weaknesses the Draugr could possibly have is fire and decapitation. This man was eventually burned at the stake as a witch. According to one legend, one man drove the revenant away using a mixture of herbs and his own semen. The Draugr is a virtually unstoppable monster, and possesses only a handful of weaknesses. They were also noted for the ability to rise from the grave as wisps of smoke. In some accounts, witnesses portray them as shapeshifters who take on the appearance of seaweed or moss-covered stones on the shoreline. Animals feeding near the grave of a draugr were often driven mad by the creature's influence. The draugar slew their victims through various methods including crushing them with their enlarged forms, devouring their flesh, and drinking their blood. Due to this trend, the term “draug” has come to be used in a more general sense in recent years to describe any type of revenant in Nordic folklore.Īll draugr possessed superhuman strength, the ability to increase their size at will with some immunity to usual weapons. This trait is common in the northernmost part of Norway, where life and culture was based on the fish, more than anywhere else.ĭraug sightings in modern times are not so common, but are still reported by reasonable and relatively sane individuals from time to time. In other tellings, the draug is described as being a headless fisherman, dressed in oilskins. In Scandinavian folklore, the creature is said to possess a distinctly human form said to be either hel-blar ("death black") or, conversely, na-folr ("corpse-pale"). In more recent folklore, the draug is often identified with the spirits of mariners drowned at sea. The notable difference between the two was that the haugbui was unable to leave its grave site and only attacked those that trespassed upon their territory. Up north, the tradition of sea-draugar is especially vivid.Īrne Garborg, on the other hand, describes land-draugar coming fresh from the graveyards, and the term draug is even used of Vampires, in Norway translated as "Bloodsucker-draugar". The connection between the draug and the sea can be traced back to the author Jonas Lie and the story-teller Regine Nordmann, as well as the drawings of Theodor Kittelsen, who spent some years living in Svolvær. In older literature one will find clear distinctions between Sea-draug and land-draug. Norwegian folklore records a number of different draug-types. The original Nordic meaning of the word Draugr (pronounced "droo-GORE") is ghost.
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