Vikings and Werewolf´s

Ok so let’s talk about Vikings and werewolf’s.

Varg is one of the words in old Norse for wolf , the other one is Ulf, but Varg is also used for Werewolf’s and Outlaws. The person that become and outlaw was cast away from civilization and into the wilderness and it was fair game to kill them at sight, just like hunting wolfs, so in that regard outlaws were a kind werewolf you can say.

But there were also the “shape shifting “kind of werewolf in the Norse legends.

One of the most famous examples is in the Saga of the Volsungs; Sigurd and his son Sinfjötli find a pair wolf pelts in a an old cabin in the woods that were previously owned by outlaws, the put them in and turn into wolves, living and hunting like this for several days until Sigurd severely hurt Sinfjötli after a discussion and then they took off the pelts and burn them.

In the same sage in a previous chapter Sigurd had to face a she wolf that is the mother of one of his rivals.

If you want to read bit stories on more detail you can fund them as I said before in the Vulsunga Saga which is part of the Poetic Edda, and I recommend the one translated by Jackson Crawford.

There is several motions about this kind of werewolf’s on the sagas and Norse folklore, most of them involve putting on a wolf pelt, a belt, being hit by a wolf pet glove or some kind of curse, but there is also a few mentions of estrange characters whit wolf or dog like features, like in the Sagaof Hrólf Kraki there is a character named Thorir who had the feet’s of a dog, and he was brother of Bjarki who could take the shape of a bear and Elgfróði who has the body of an elk from the waist down, there is a lot of shape shifters in Norse folklore.. But let’s go back to werewolves.

We also have the Ulfhednar which were bands of warriors that use wolf pelts in battle, similar to the concept of the berserker. The name its say to mean Wolf heads or Wolf hides there is a debate about that.

For last I will mention Nari or Vali ( bot names are mentioned in different sources ) , he is son of Loki and after this one is captured , Odhin turn Nari/Vali into a wolf and made him kill his brother Narfi..

And we have of course Fenrir too, but is he a werewolf or just a wolf? I will leave that discussion for a different post…