Draugar: Zombies of Norse Mythology

Norse ideas about death were anything but tidy. The dead might go to Valhalla, to Freyja’s field, to the sea goddess Ran’s hall beneath the waves, or to the realm of Hel, or they might stay in their burial mounds. Sometimes they seem to be in two places at once. And sometimes they came back as draugar.

Are Draugar Zombies?

So are draugar zombies? Not quite. A draugr is a walking corpse, but a clever and often talkative one, with a grudge. The sagas also call them aptrgöngur (‘after-walkers’; one is an aptrganga) and haugbúar (‘mound-dwellers’), because they tend to haunt the burial mounds where they were laid. Some scholars compare them to vampires, though draugar don’t drink blood.

Who Became Draugar?

The restless dead were usually people who had been difficult in life: bullies, sorcerers, the bad-tempered. How someone died could matter too. In Eyrbyggja saga, the quarrelsome Thorolf Twist-Foot dies sitting upright in his high seat, furious with his son, and soon rises to terrorize the district. Eyes left open and an unusual death recur in these tales.

The Bad Deeds of Draugar

Once risen, draugar were a menace. They rode the roofs at night until the beams cracked. The monstrous shepherd Glam does exactly this in Grettir’s saga, and he breaks the backs of horses in their stalls. Livestock went mad or died. In Eyrbyggja saga, drowned men walk in dripping wet every evening and sit silently by the fire, and the household is too terrified to share the hall with them.

The Appearance of Draugar

Draugar were grotesque. Their corpses swelled huge and heavy in the grave, their skin was “Hel-blue” or corpse-black, and they had the strength of several men. Some could work magic. They appear suddenly, like ghosts, but a draugr has a body. Grettir has to wrestle Glam hand to hand, as fierce a fight as any berserker gave.

Preventing the Rising of the Dead

How do you stop a draugr? Burials were sometimes weighted with stones or the corpse was mutilated, and some scholars see this as an attempt to keep the dead down. The sagas also offer a law-court solution. In Eyrbyggja saga, the haunted household holds a “door-court,” formally summons the dead, charges them with trespass, and pronounces judgment. One by one, the draugar get up and leave.

Read More About the Norse Dead

Draugar were only one fate among many. For Hel’s realm and the drowned in Ran’s hall, read Viking Hel and the Afterlife. For the four or five places a Viking might go at death, see Norse Afterlife: Where Did Vikings Go When They Died?. And for a ghostly ride that still echoes in a modern song, try Odin’s Hunt vs. Ghost Riders in the Sky.

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