Stoor worm
The stoor worm, or Mester Stoor Worm, was a gigantic evil sea serpent of Orcadian folklore, capable of contaminating plants and destroying animals and humans with its putrid breath. It is probably an Orkney variant of the Norse Jörmungandr, also known as the Midgard Serpent, or world serpent, and has been described as a sea dragon.
The king of one country threatened by the beast's arrival was advised to offer it a weekly sacrifice of seven virgins. In desperation the king eventually issued a proclamation offering his kingdom, his daughter's hand in marriage and a magic sword to anyone who could destroy the monster. Assipattle, the youngest son of a local farmer, defeated the creature; as it died its teeth fell out to become the islands of Orkney, Shetland and the Faroes, and its body became Iceland.
Similarities between Assipatle's defeat of the monster and other dragon-slayer tales, including Herakles' destruction of a sea monster to save Hesione, have been noted by several authors. It has been suggested that tales of this genre evolved during a period of enlightenment, when human sacrifices to bestial divinities were beginning to be suppressed.
The name stoor worm may be derived from the Old Norse Storðar-gandr, an alternative name for Jörmungandr, the world or Midgard Serpent of Norse mythology,[1][2] Stoor or stour was a term used by Scots in the latter part of the 14th century to describe fighting or battles; it could also be applied to "violent conflicts" of the weather elements.[3] Similar definitions are given by the Dictionary of the Older Scottish Tongue that covers the period up to the start of the 18th century;[4] later volumes, when it was published as the Dictionary of the Scots Language and covered from 1700 onwards, include substantial, large and big; it further indicates it may be akin to the Old Norse stórr.[5] It shows stoorworm as "a monster serpent, a sea-dragon" using Traill Dennison's tale as the basis for the definition.[5]
Mester means master;[6] it may have been deemed Mester Stoor Worm because it was the "master and father of all stoorworms".[7] In Scotland worm may frequently be applied to a dragon,[8] as it is in northern England according to folklorist Katharine Briggs, a usage that derives from the Saxon and Norse terms.[9] The spelling of the Old English and obsolete variant of the word worm is wyrm, meaning dragon or serpent.[10] Traill Dennison's definition gives mester as "superior" with stoor being "large, powerful, strong or stern". He describes worm as "any animal of serpent shape".[11]
An inhabitant of the sea, the stoor worm was a mythical serpent-like creature created by malevolent spirits.[12] A gigantic beast with a ferocious appetite, it was able to demolish ships and houses with its prehensile forked tongue it used as a pair of tongs, and even to drag entire hillsides and villages into the sea.[12] Its eyes were like "round lochs, very deep and dark" in the modern retelling,[13] whereas it "glowed and flamed like a ward fire" in Dennison's long text, which noted in an aside that some accounts stated that the stoor worm had only one eye.[14]
