Jörmungandr

Overview

Snorri describes the serpent as another child of Loki and Angrboda, cast into the sea by Odin. It grows until it encircles the land and can grasp its own tail. Thor later tries to draw it from the water with an enormous hook baited with an ox’s head, making an everyday act of fishing into a confrontation with a cosmic boundary.

Hymir cuts the line as Thor prepares to strike, and the account acknowledges differing claims about what happened next. Snorri’s narrator maintains that the serpent still lives in the surrounding sea. At Ragnarök it and Thor kill one another, with the god surviving only briefly after the fight. This selected narrative does not establish every later image of an encircling serpent as Jörmungandr.

Another encounter appears in Gylfaginning XLVI–XLVII. At Útgarda-Loki’s hall, Thor is challenged to lift an enormous grey cat. It arches its back as he raises his hands, and he succeeds only in lifting one paw. Afterwards his host reveals that the apparent cat was the Midgard Serpent: the onlookers were frightened by how close Thor had come to lifting the world-encircling creature towards heaven. The feline appearance is an illusion within this specific contest, not the serpent’s ordinary anatomy.

Section XLVIII supplies the fishing episode’s preparations and physical struggle. Thor travels without his chariot, goats or attendants, appearing to Hymir as a young lad. He takes the head of Hymir’s largest ox, Himinbrjotr, as bait and insists on rowing beyond the giant’s usual fishing grounds. When the hook catches the serpent’s jaw, its pull crashes Thor’s fists against the gunwale. Thor braces so fiercely that his feet go through the boat, raises the serpent to its edge, and exchanges fierce looks with the venom-blowing creature. Hymir cuts the line as the hammer is raised. The narrator reports the claim that Thor’s thrown hammer removed its head, but explicitly prefers the account in which it remains alive.

In section LI the serpent’s movement drives the sea onto the land. It comes ashore alongside Fenrir and sprays venom through air and water. Thor finally kills it, walks nine paces and dies from its venom. The earlier fishing survival and this future death therefore remain separate stages of the prose account; the acknowledged alternative fishing ending is not silently incorporated as its final outcome.

Origins & earliest records

This entry follows Gylfaginning, sections XXXIV; XLVIII; LI, in Snorri Sturluson’s Prose Edda, composed around 1220 and translated here by Arthur Gilchrist Brodeur in 1916. The medieval work incorporates older poetic traditions, but its compilation date does not establish the beginning of a being’s oral history or every earlier attestation.

Records & interpretation

Located Gylfaginning episodes in Arthur Gilchrist Brodeur’s 1916 translation preserve the named being’s actions and the prose narrator’s qualifications. Chapter numbering and printed page references belong to this edition, rather than to every manuscript or modern translation.

In the literature

Selected bibliography

Documented works and useful reading. This is not a list of every appearance.

1. 01

   Prose Edda: Gylfaginning XXXIV; XLVI–XLVIII, pp. 65–70; LI, pp. 78–80

   Snorri Sturluson; translated by Arthur Gilchrist Brodeur · c. 1220; translation 1916

   Brodeur’s located 1916 prose translation; episode outcomes and explicitly competing fishing accounts retained where applicable.

2. 02

   The Younger Edda

   Snorri Sturluson · 1901

   Chicago: Scott, Foresman and Company, 1901; translation copyright 1879, with translator’s preface dated September 1879.

Family, evolution & connections

Textual genealogy: Loki and Angrboda in Gylfaginning

Three children explicitly named in Gylfaginning chapter XXXIV.

Read the named parental pair and its enumerated children in Brodeur's translation. A joint-parent node represents two parents, not a single ancestor. A relationship in this medieval narrative, not a biological phylogeny or a synthesis of every Norse source. Hel is a named figure here, distinct from uses of Hel as a place. Other children of Loki are outside this selected branch.

Located primary passages

Specific passages supporting details in this entry, grouped by their published witness.

References

Sources supporting this profile. Linked pages have their own scope and editorial standards.

1. Primary textThe Prose Edda: Gylfaginning XXXIV; XLVIII; LI (Brodeur translation)Research access: 2026-10-05

Image credits

Jörmungandr

Image associated with the exact linked encyclopedia article; consult credited file description for its interpretation.