Lindworm

A lindworm is a huge serpent-dragon of Scandinavian and German folklore, usually wingless and with two front legs or none, that devours livestock, guards treasure, and sometimes proves to be an enchanted prince.

What Is a Lindworm?

The lindworm is the native dragon of northern Europe. Swedish and Danish call it lindorm, Norwegian linnorm, and German Lindwurm. The name joins two old words for a snake: linnr, a poetic Old Norse word for serpent, and ormr (German Wurm, English "worm"), which meant snake or dragon. So a lindworm is, almost literally, a "serpent-serpent."

Unlike the four-legged, bat-winged dragon of later European art, the classic lindworm is a gigantic snake. Folk descriptions usually give it no wings, and either no legs at all or a single pair of clawed front legs. Some German and Austrian lindworms, and many in heraldry, do have wings, so the line between lindworm and dragon or wyvern is blurry.

Lindworms in Folklore

Scandinavian legends tell of lindworms that live in forests, lakes, and churchyards, eat cattle and people, and coil around hoards of gold. A common Swedish belief held that an ordinary snake could grow into a lindworm, especially if it lay on gold. Heroes kill them with cunning as much as strength. In the old saga of Ragnar Lodbrok, Ragnar wins his bride by killing a lindworm that has encircled her bower, protected by breeches treated with pitch.

Belief in real lindworms lasted a long time in rural Sweden. In the 19th century the antiquarian Gunnar Olof Hyltén-Cavallius collected eyewitness accounts of lindworms from the province of Småland and even proposed a reward for a captured specimen. No lindworm was ever produced.

Lindworms appear in fairy tales too. In the Danish tale published by Svend Grundtvig as Kong Lindorm ("King Lindworm"), a queen gives birth to a lindworm son who demands a bride, and a clever girl breaks the enchantment so that he becomes a man. Draconika retells a version as The Bride of the Lindorm King.

Art and Heraldry

Viking Age rune stones in Sweden often carry their inscriptions inside the long body of a serpent, and the Ramsund carving (c. 1030) shows the hero Sigurd stabbing the serpent-dragon Fáfnir from below. In later heraldry, a lindworm is often drawn like a wyvern, with two legs and sometimes wings. The city of Klagenfurt in Austria has a lindworm on its coat of arms and a famous 16th-century lindworm fountain.

Legacy

Modern fantasy borrowed the name freely. In Dungeons & Dragons and other games, the "linnorm" is a modern game creature whose details are invented and not drawn from folklore. For a comparison with other dragon types, see Types of Dragons and German Dragons.

Related

• Fáfnir: Fáfnir is a dwarf turned dragon in Norse legend who guards a cursed hoard of gold until the hero Sigurd kills him by stabbing him from a pit dug in his path.
• Lindorm King: The Lindorm King is the enchanted prince of a Scandinavian fairy tale, born to a queen as a lindworm, who sheds his serpent skins and becomes human when a clever bride outwits him.
• Lindwurm of Klagenfurt: The Lindwurm of Klagenfurt is the winged dragon of a Carinthian founding legend, said to have lived in the marshes by Lake Wörthersee until brave men caught it with a baited hook, and pictured on the city's famous 16th-century fountain.
• Thora's lindworm: Thora's lindworm is the serpent-dragon of the Ragnar Lodbrok legend, a small snake given to the princess Thora that grew to encircle her bower until Ragnar, wearing pitch-treated shaggy breeches, killed it and won her hand.
• Lambton Worm: The Lambton Worm is a giant serpent of County Durham folklore, fished from the River Wear by young John Lambton, which grew huge, coiled around a hill, and could rejoin its body whenever it was cut apart.
• Dragon Species
• German Dragons
• Wyverns
• Dragon Types

Sources and Further Reading

• John Lindow, Swedish Legends and Folktales (University of California Press, 1978)
• Svend Grundtvig, Gamle danske Minder i Folkemunde (Copenhagen, 1854)
• Hans-Jörg Uther, The Types of International Folktales (FF Communications 284–286, Finnish Academy of Science and Letters, 2004)

Cite this entry: “Lindworm,” Draconika Encyclopedia of Dragons, https://www.draconika.com/dragons/lindworm.