Hel = Queen/Goddess of Helheim Fenrir = Deity of destruction But Jormungandr = ? (I know it's a really simplistic view, I know Hel and Fenrir are involved in a lot of things but I don't know about Jormungandr) I've been pagan for a long time and I feel kind of silly asking this questions now lmao
Like you said, it’s kinda hard to shoehorn Norse gods into one singular role. They don’t really have a “one specialty per god” kind of setup. But it sounds like you’re not asking for that kind of glib label so much as wondering what Jormungandr’s about other than being a giant snake. In that case, there are several approaches you can take.
One is comparative mythology. There are a bunch of Indo-European myths where a sky god battles a giant wyrm. Archaeological finds depicting Thor fishing for Jormungandr go pretty far back, to the 8th-9th century, so it’s possible the tale stems from the same larger heritage of serpent fighting.
Some people believe this genre of myth symbolizes the forces of human civilization pressing back against the primordial forces of nature, or order battling chaos. Some people believe it’s more along the lines of “Snakes are scary. Duh.” I will leave where you want to go with that as an exercise to you.
An interesting wrinkle on that is that in the Norse version, Jormungandr and Thor actually manage to kill each other at the end of their age-old rivalry. But, you know, the world is ending, so fair enough.
I’ve also seen Jormungandr connected to the ouroboros, which carries a whole lot of symbolism that frankly is beyond the scope of a Heathen blog. A very quick and dirty summary would be that it represents the eternal cycle of creation and destruction. I’m not convinced that this connection existed in pre-Christian times, since few of the visual depictions we have of Jormungandr actually look like a typical ouroboros. But it is something to chew on. Pun intended.
A lot of Lokeans, in what is probably a more modern but still valid take, treat the Jormungandr myth as a narrative of thriving in adverse conditions. Jormungandr was rejected as a child purely because of what they were prophesied to do in the future. (One might speculate that the fact that they were a huge snake may also have contributed, but that’s never brought up in the text.) But instead of dying after being thrown into the ocean–remember, though there are sea snakes elsewhere in the world, there are none in the North Atlantic–and even instead of just, you know, chilling and doing normal snake stuff, Jormungandr grew big enough to encircle the entire world and eat their enemies.
I think there’s room for myths to be multivalent and also to evolve over time. There’s no single correct answer here. I’d encourage you to ponder your own interpretation of this stuff, and maybe even approach Jormungandr to ask them yourself if you’re so inclined.
- Mod E
