Comenius Kongsbakken

Some Norwegian mythological creatures

Class 3mua has written a script and made a short film based on some of the best known creatures from Norwegian mythology; the draug, the hulder and the nøkk. Stories of these creatures are still being told, but merely as entertainment and not, as in older times, as warnings or lessons to learn from. To have a better understanding of the film, we would like to present these creatures to you.

The draug
The draug is an undead from Norse mythology, and we find stories of him in all Scandinavian countries. There are land- draugs and sea-draugs. Norway has a long coastline, and the draug is said to be the ghost of fishermen or sailors drowned at sea and thus not given a Christian burial. The creature has a distinct human form, except that the head consists of seaweed. Sometimes it is described as being a headless fisherman, dressed in oilskin, sailing in half a boat. This is most common in the northern parts of Norway, where the culture was so heavily based on fish. The municipality Bø in the north of Norway even has the half boat of the draug in its coat-of-arms.


The draug can swim alongside boats or sail around them in a partially submerged vessel. It can be a shapeshifter, thus sometimes taking on other appearances.
It has a shrill voice that makes your blood freeze, and is linked to death, accidents and capsizing. By paying attention to stories of the draug, the fishermen learned how to be careful, to avoid certain rough areas, where they due to strong currents etc might take in water, and thus making it easy for the draug to enter the boat.
It usually presages death, and if you see or hear it, you know that you will probably die. However, there are accounts of people who have managed to outwit the draug, as this story from the north of Norway tells us:
It was Christmas Eve, and Ola went down to his boathouse to get the keg of brandy he had bought for the holidays. When he got in, he noticed a draug sitting on the keg, staring out to sea. Ola, with great presence of mind and great bravery (it might not be amiss to state that he already had done some drinking), tiptoed up behind the draug and struck him sharply in the small of the back, so that he went flying out through the window, with sparks hissing around him as he hit the water. Ola knew he had no time to lose, so he set off at a great rate, running through the churchyard which lay between his home and the boathouse. As he ran, he cried, "Up, all you Christian souls, and help me!" Then he heard the sound of fighting between the ghosts and the draug, who were battling each other with coffin boards and bunches of seaweed. The next morning, when people came to church, the whole yard was strewn with coffin covers, boat boards, and seaweed. After the fight, which the ghosts won, the draug never came back to that district.

J.R.R.Tolkien used the draug as the basis of his barrow-wights in The Lord of the Rings, and there is an oil platform in the North Sea called Draugen (The Draug).

The hulder
The hulderfamily are usually invisible to us, and they live in a world which mirrors and parallels ours. They are, however, much wealthier than we are, and their cattle are far better than ours. Usually they are looked upon as belonging underground, and problems might arise if e.g a farmer builds a new barn right over their house, so that they get the cow muck in their heads.
The hulder is a stunningly beautiful girl with long hair. She is a typical dairy maid dressed in a blue or green long skirt hiding her cow tail. (In some stories she is naked, and in Sweden she might have a fox tail). She lures men into the forest to have sex with her, and, like the sirens, she is irresistible. She rewards those who satisfy her, but can kill those who don’t. She is also known to steal human children and replace them with her own ugly changeling children. If you follow her and decide to marry her, you are doomed to live the rest of your life in her world. You will be rich and have a beautiful woman, but you can never return to your own world. A hulder might be “tamed” and transformed into a human if steel or iron is tossed over her. Then she would lose her cow tail, and could live in our world as any ordinary woman.
The stories of the hulder were probably told as a warning. Young boys were shepherds and often spent days alone in the forests. This gave plenty of time to think and fantasize about this and that. If they should come across an attractive woman, they should stay away from her, she might be a hulder. Female sexuality could be a dangerous and powerful thing.
The municipality of Lardal in the south of Norway has the hulder in its coat-of-arms.

The nøkk
The nøkk ( nix) is found all over Scandinavia. He is a male water spirit playing enchanted songs on his violin, luring particularly women and children to drown in lakes and rivers (not the sea). Particularly pregnant women and unbaptized children were at risk. He is a shapeshifter, most often described as a handsome, young man, often naked, but can also appear in e.g the form of a horse.
The nøkk is not always described as malevolent, and if properly approached, he will teach a musician to play so adeptly “that the trees dance and waterfalls stop at his music”. The nøkk was also an omen for drowning accidents. He would scream at a particular spot in a lake or river, like a loon, and on that spot a fatality would later take place. Children were told stories of the nøkk to stay away from rivers, waterfalls and lakes.