Draugr Undead

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Lore & Background

The Old Norse word draugr (initially draugʀ) is hypothetically traced to an unrecorded Proto-Germanic *draugaz, meaning 'delusion, illusion, mirage', from *dreuganą ('to mislead, deceive'), ultimately from a Proto-Indo European stem *dʰrowgʰos ('phantom'). Cognates include Swedish bedraga ('to deceive'), Low German drog ('impostor, scoundrel'), German Trug ('deception, delusion, illusion'), Welsh drwg ('bad, evil'), and Sanskrit drúh ('injury, harm, offence'). Recorded descendants include Faroese dreygur, Icelandic draugur, Norwegian draug, drøg, drog, Scanian dråe, dråker, dråkel ('devil'), and Swedish drög, dröger. In the written corpus, the draugr is regarded not so much as a ghost, but a corporeal undead creature, or revenant — the reanimated corpse of the deceased, for example inside the burial mound or grave (as in the example of Kárr inn gamli in Grettis saga). Commentators extend the term draugr to the undead in medieval literature, even if it is never explicitly referred to as such in the text, and designated them instead as a haugbúi ('barrow-dweller') or an aptrganga ('re-walker'). Unlike Kárr inn gamli (Kar the Old) in Grettis saga, who is specifically called a draugr, Glámr the ghost in the same saga is never explicitly called a draugr in the text, though called a 'troll' in it. Yet Glámr is still routinely referred to as a draugr by modern scholars. One of the names for Odin was Draugadróttinn, 'Lord of the draugr', in the Ynglinga saga, chapter 7. The term draugr is partially synonymous with troll, and both share many similarities and features in older folklore.

In Their Own Story

One of the earliest nonfiction literature to mention the draugr is by Danish-Norwegian Hans Egede (1686–1758), during his time as the bishop of Greenland. In his book, The New Perlustration of Greenland (Danish: Det gamle Grønlands nye Perlustration), published in 1741, he describes the Norwegian myth of the Kraken, and follows up with a comment of the sea draugr. Around the same time, Swedish linguist and priest Johan Ernst Rietz's (1815–1868) dialect dictionary of Swedish vernacular (1862–1867) listed the Swedish descendants of Old Norse draugr as dröger and drög, including the Old Norse form draugr in the province of Närke, defining them as 'pale, powerless, slow human, striding forward', alternatively in Närke, akin to Old Norse, just 'ghost or undead'. English philologist Richard Cleasby (1797–1847) and Icelandic scholar Guðbrandur Vigfússon (1827–1889), in 'An Icelandic-English dictionary' (1873), defined Old Norse draugr as 'a ghost, spirit, especially the dead inhabitant of a cairn'. Norwegian journalist Johan Christian Johnsen (1815–1898), in his Norwegian dictionary (1881–1888), defined Norwegian draug as '(really a revenant) in Norwegian folk superstition, a supernatural being that dwells on and by the sea. It appears most frequently as a man dressed in sea clothes with a bundle of seaweed instead of a head, sailing in half a boat, always proclaiming that the person or someone from the boat to whom it appears will perish'.

Reader's Guide

The haugbúi (Danish: højbo, Norwegian: haugbonde, Swedish: högbo) is a variation of the draugr. It means 'mound dweller', i.e. the dead body living within its mound (tomb), compounding haugr ('mound') and búi ('dweller, inhabitant, resident'). The notable difference from a draug is that a mound dweller doesn't leave its grave site and only attacks those who trespass upon their territory. Beings in British folklore such as Lincolnshire 'shag-boy' and Scots 'hogboon' derive their names from haugbui. A modern rendering is also barrow-wight, popularized by J. R. R. Tolkien in his novels, however, initially used for the draugr in Eiríkur Magnússon's and William Morris' 1869 translation of Grettis saga, long before Tolkien employed the term; rendering Icelandic 'Sótti haugbúinn með kappi' as 'the barrow-wight setting on with hideous eagerness'. In Old Norse, draugr also meant a tree trunk or dry dead wood (then a cognate of 'drought', related to 'drain'), which in poetry could refer to a man or warrior, since Old Norse poetry often used terms for trees to represent humans, especially in kennings, referencing the myth that the god Odin and his brothers created the first humans Ask and Embla from trees. There was thus a connection between the idea of a felled tree's trunk and that of a dead man's corpse.

Did You Know?

• The Old Norse word draugr is hypothetically traced to a Proto-Indo European stem *dʰrowgʰos meaning 'phantom', from the same root as 'dream'.
• One of the names for Odin was Draugadróttinn, 'Lord of the draugr', in the Ynglinga saga, chapter 7.
• The term haugbúi ('mound dweller') is a variation of the draugr that never leaves its grave site and only attacks trespassers.
• In Old Norse, draugr also meant a tree trunk or dry dead wood, which in poetry could refer to a man or warrior.
• The modern term 'barrow-wight' was first used for the draugr in Eiríkur Magnússon's and William Morris' 1869 translation of Grettis saga.