Jörmungandr: the Thor's Sworn Enemy

Everything You Need to Know About Jormungand

Jormungand, the serpent of Midgard, was, according to Norse mythology, the son of the Asgardian god Loki and the magician Angerboda. Both Loki and the witch were descendants of the Ice Giants of Jotunheim, despite their humanoid appearance. However, although the daughter Angerboda gave to Loki, Hela, had a humanoid form, the sons she gave birth to, Jormungand and Fenris, were shaped like a snake and a wolf, respectively. According to mythology, the two sons of Loki and the witch acquired this appearance through the magical ability of their parents to change their appearance. Fenrir and Jormungand both adopted the appearance of animals that their parents considered convenient at the time. Jormungand was probably the size of a human child at birth.

1. Genesis

Odin, predicting that Jormungand would be a potential danger to the Asgardian gods, banished the Serpent to the depths of Midgard’s oceans.

Not only did Jormungand survive, but he grew to an enormous size, so enormous that his body surrounded the entire perimeter of the Earth, and it was at this point that Jormungand adopted the nickname of the Midgard Serpent. According to Norse mythology, on the day of Ragnarok, the day when all the Asgardian gods die, Thor, the son of Odin, will kill the Midgard Serpent, but he himself will die from the wounds sustained in the battle for the Serpent’s venom.

2. Jormungand vs Thor

A. The Strange Cat

On one occasion, ice giant Utgard-Loki challenged Thor to get his cat out of the ground. With a lot of effort, Thor managed to lift only one leg of the cat off the ground. Thor was surprised to be able to lift only one paw from what appeared to be a simple cat, and yet this simple cat turned out to be actually Jormungand, who had used his magical powers to take the shape of a cat. After learning that the cat was in fact Jormungand, Thor decided to try to break the prophecies that predicted his own death at the hands of the Serpent. To do so, he entered the earth’s oceans aboard the giant Hymir’s ship and then, using an enchanted fishing line, he tried to hunt Jormungand, who was submerged in the waters. Jormungand bit the hook attached to the line, and Thor pulled the line to bring the Midgard Serpent to the surface, at which point a terrified Hymir cut the line, freeing the Serpent, and preventing Thor’s victory.

B. The Robbery of the Golden Apples of Iddun

Centuries later, relatively few years ago, Loki and the god of war of the Asgardians, Tyre, stole the Golden Apples of Iddun, which gave the Asgardians longevity, and brought them to Earth, where they hid them in the gullet of Jormungand. To assist Loki and Tyre in their plans to invade the Earth, Jormungand, in its ethereal form, contracted the Earth between its rings, causing earthquakes, floods, tornadoes and landslides. The Serpent also used its immense size to serve as a bridge between Asgard and the Earth, a bridge over which the armies of Tyre and Loki could travel to invade the Earth. Thor, still aboard Hymir’s ship, crossed the sea of space surrounding Asgard, and confronted Jormungand after discovering that the golden apples were hidden inside, and finally, after trapping the snake among the roots of the Ygdrasil tree, he managed to remove the apples from the gullet of Jormungand. At the same time, Loki turned against Tyre, which he betrayed, and Odin’s troops were finally able to defeat the army of the God of War.

C. The Curse of Hela

Already in our time, the goddess of death Hela, in revenge for a humiliating defeat she had suffered at the hands of Thor, had cast a spell on him, by which Thor could not heal the wounds he had suffered, and had furthermore cast him into the realm of death, so that he might live eternally with his broken body.

D. The Midgard Serpent Hidden in Chinese Dragon Fin Fang Foom Form

To protect himself, Thor created an indestructible armor forged by himself. Knowing Thor’s momentary weakness, a band of Ice Giants, enemies of Thor, came to Earth, ready to recruit the Midgard Serpent to finish Thor off. The Midgard Serpent had adopted the appearance of the ancient Chinese dragon Fin Fang Foom, and had apparently been in China for some time, where a criminologist, Dr. Vault, had put him into hibernation. Soon after, Fin Fang Foom helped It, the living colossus, to fight the Stonian invasion of the alien race. Later, and under Dr. Vault’s mental control, Fin Fang Foom fought him until he finally regained control and ended the battle to return to his lair in China.

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E. The Ice Giants

The Serpent was in this position when he was contacted by the Ice Giants, knowing that their old enemy Thor was weakened, the Serpent, still hidden in his Dragon form, agreed to help the Giants, and since he could not kill the God of Thunder, he would wound him at least severely, thus avoiding the prophecy that predicted that in the future Thor would complete him. Like Fin Fang Foom, Jormungand arrived in New York and found Thor, but at first he didn’t recognize his former enemy, because this time he was wearing armor and a beard. Thor also did not recognize Jormungand, but when the Dragon let him know that his goal was to seek out Thor and kill him, the God of Thunder accepted the challenge. Fin Fang Foom told Thor, whom he had not yet recognized, that in order to face him, he had to be able to lift one foot off the ground, as he had done in the past, Thor used all his strength, and finally managed to lift one foot off the Dragon, then Fin Fang Foom accepted the challenge, and both went to a desolate area of the United States, where Fin Fang Foom abandoned his disguise, revealing himself as Jormungand.

E. The Final Fight… or Almost

All living things on Earth were affected by the appearance of the Midgard Serpent in its physical form, and time stood still. The Serpent believed that its enemy would also be affected, but Thor then made his identity known, and a terrible battle began, which ended when Thor channeled all his forces into his Mjolnir hammer, and with it struck Jormungand, killing him. The Midgard Serpent vanished into thin air, probably returning to its ethereal form, while Thor, thanks to the incredible energies he had summoned and the force of the impact against Jormungand, saw his body reduced to a gelatinous mass. Despite this, and because of Hela’s decree, he was still alive, and his spirit took control of the body of the Destroyer, and with it forced Hela to restore his body and health. In this way, Thor had escaped the prophecy that he would die after defeating the Serpent, and Ragnarok had thus been avoided.

F. New Generation

However, a new generation of Midgard Serpent appeared, who was apparently the daughter of the original Serpent. Like her predecessor, she confronted Thor with a coalition of enemies of the God of Thunder, but none of the fighters died. Later, because of a fake Ragnarok caused by Seth manipulating the Tree of Life, the Serpent was summoned along with other Asgard beings by the earth witch Morgana Le Fay, who had control of the mystical Norn Stones. The Serpent fought a group of avengers led by the Black Widow. It seems that after Morgana’s defeat, the Serpent returned to Asgard to await its final battle with Thor on the eve of Ragnarok.

This seems to have happened when Loki took over the original forge where the Mjolnir was formed, allowing him to create dozens of similar hammers (though not enchanted by Odin’s power) with which he armed an army of Ice Giants, Trolls and Fire Demons. Loki himself attacked Thor and his allies in the Dwarf Kingdom, accompanied by Fenris, Ulik and an Ice Giant who weakened Thor leaving him at the mercy of Loki’s power who attacked him with a mystical lightning bolt that plunged the God of Thunder under the waters as he sank without remission, Thor saw a silhouette approaching him, it was none other than the Midgard Serpent who came, ready to devour his ancestral enemy, but Thor was able to use his weakened hammer to open a portal to Earth, managing to escape the devouring of Jormungand of which there is no further news.

? We inform you that we made an article about dragons among the Vikings, in which we talked about the famous Jörmungand.

3. Jormungand Description

?Height: 68 m (22’9″) as Fing Fang Foom
?Weight : Unknown
?Eyes : red
?Hair :without
?Special features: it has the appearance of a giant snake.
?Strength Level: The Midgard Serpent has almost unlimited superhuman strength, which has not been accurately measured, but is probably even greater than Thor’s, which would exceed class 100.
?Known Powers: In addition to its incredible strength, Jormungand is virtually invulnerable to physical damage, and only a being as powerful as Thor could cause him harm. Jormungand is also virtually immortal, and could only die if attacked by an extraordinarily powerful force. The Midgard Serpent normally remains in an etheric state on earth, where, although its body is so immense that it encircles the entire perimeter of the earth, it remains invisible and intangible, so that humans are not aware of its presence.
By compressing its rings on the Earth, it could, as if by magic, cause storms, earthquakes and other disasters. When the final battle of the serpent against Thor took place, although a small part of its body took physical form, most of its body remained in an ethereal state, otherwise there would have been cataclysms all over the globe.

Jormungand can create illusions to hide his true appearance, like when he took the form of Utgard Loki’s cat, or when he adopted the form of the dragon Fin Fang Foom. The venom of the Midgard Serpent is deadly, even for an Asgardian.

When Jormungand materializes a part of his body on Earth, devoid of his illusory form, the passage of time on Earth stops for all those who were not born in Asgard, which does not happen when he is disguised with one of his illusions. Thus, when the final battle between the Serpent and Thor took place, all living beings on Earth, human, animal and vegetable, stopped in time, and even birds froze in the air, without gravity making them fall to Earth, although gravity affected Thor and the Serpent, after Jormungand’s death, time resumed its normal course.

Despite his snake-like appearance, Jormungand had great intelligence and the ability to speak, and unlike other snakes, he had arms and claws. Over the centuries, northern mythology has depicted Jormungand in various forms. It is therefore possible that the form that the Midgard snake took in the final battle against Thor was merely an appearance adopted for this fight.

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Jörmungandr: the Thor’s Sworn Enemy