Connections between Norse Draugar and Romanian Vampire Legends

          There is no certain date at which the vampire legend first arose in Europe. As it is an ancient myth shared among many cultures worldwide, it is likely of great antiquity. The familiar stereotype derives from the Balkan vampire, particularly from Transylvania. Originally, this vampire rose from its grave to feast on flesh rather than blood. The early vampire of the Balkans bears a number of similarities to the Norse draugr, a corpse that returned from the dead to haunt the living. The Norse and Slavic migrations in ancient times can account for this cultural fusion. A combined approach analyzing both scientific data and folklore sheds light on the possible origins of the European vampire.

Genetics and archaeology as clues to prehistory

          Genetics and archaeology can help uncover prehistoric migration patterns. Stone tools (probably Neanderthal) from the Fennoscandia peninsula date to 130,000 years ago, but modern humans likely did not arrive there until after the last glacial maximum (Karlsson et al. 963). On the other hand, Romania is home to perhaps the oldest known modern human remains, which date to around 40,000 ago. These remains show a possible admixture of Neanderthal features (Rougier 1169). This may be justified by evidence some modern humans carry at least one Neanderthal gene, transmitted around the same time (Anitei).

          One DNA study indicates “a close affinity of Norwegians with Germans and other Central European populations (Czechs and Croatians)” based on the high presence of Y chromosome DNA haplogroups I1 (Eu7) and R1b (Eu18) (Passarino et al. 523). The majority of the male genetic data from Norway seems to date from the Paleolithic (524), as is the case in Sweden (Karlsson 969). This corroborates archaeological evidence that the oldest populations colonized Scandinavia 11,000-12,000 years ago from the south. The tools recovered likely belong to the Ahrensburg culture that flourished across central and eastern Europe (Passarino 525). This culture may be tied to the R1a1 (Eu19/M17) haplotype, which also occurs in Norwegian males. Analyses suggest this culture expanded from the Dniepr-Don Valley area between 13,000 and 7600 years ago, after the last glacial maximum (526). Improving climactic conditions potentially allowed the culture to spread west from the Ukraine to Romania and northwest to Poland and Scandinavia.

          Other researchers, however, suggest this expansion may have occurred around 3000 BC with the domestication of the horse (Wells et al. 10248). This might coincide with the spread of the Indo-European languages, though recent research suggests Indo-European languages were present in the Mesolithic or Paleolithic (Alinei). Still other researchers claim the I1 haplogroup suggests colonists from a refuge in southern France and Iberia repopulated Scandinavia after the glaciers retreated, although I1 is far more prevalent in the Ukraine (Rootsi 135). It is entirely possible both regions contributed to the Norse genes. There may have been other ice-age refugia no longer extant. Cores drilled in the North Sea suggest that at least part of it was dry land, glacier-free and possibly even forested during the last ice age (Sejrup et al.). It is precisely this sort of secluded niche, between the British and Scandinavian ice caps, where the genes for light hair color and eyes may have developed in isolation. These later spread from Scandinavia to northern and eastern Europe, though other conditions likely account for the unusual evolution of genes not found elsewhere (Frost).

          From around 5500 to 5000 BC, a “Linear Pottery” (LBK) culture stretched from Transylvania to northern France, possibly coinciding with the spread of farming (Whittle 155). Also around this time, copper working began in the Balkans, with the rise of the Vinča culture stretching throughout Serbia and Romania (146). Copper items from this culture traveled as far north as Denmark (Sherratt 171).

          A 2004 study analyzed Bronze and Iron Age skeleton mitochondrial DNA suspected to be ancient Thracian from southeast Romania. The results showed a closer affinity to modern Italians and Albanians than Romanians or Bulgarians (Cardos et al. 246). However, the study only compared a few individuals from populations near the Balkans. It would need a larger sample and wider comparison group to draw any firm conclusions about the kinship of the ancient Thracians.

          The Slavs expanded from an east European homeland around the middle of the first millennium AD. A genetic study affirms they mixed with native populations resident in East Europe (Peričić et al.). Though there are many interpretations of the genetic and archaeological data, the simplest interpretation implies eastern Europeans and Scandinavians share a common ancient heritage.

Historical migrations of the Norse into the Balkans

          Migrations and wars pervade the history of the Balkans. People of Norse origin have definitely influenced the region over the centuries. Bulgarian prehistory focuses on the Thracians, and Romania on a supposedly Thracian people called the “Geto-Dacians.” However, “neither nation has today, nor had in the past, a homogeneous make-up” (Taylor 409).

          Around AD 551, Jordanes, a Roman of Gothic descent, wrote a history of the Goths, working from an older account by Cassiodorus (i). As with many classical texts written about non-literate adversaries, we must take their observations with a grain of salt. Nevertheless, they remain the oldest and most direct historical accounts of the “barbarians” in eastern Europe.

          The Goths “burst forth like a swarm of bees from the midst of [Scandinavia] and came into the land of Europe” under their king Berig, says Jordanes (9, 25). He dated this to 2030 years before Justinian’s defeat of the Ostrogoths, or around 1490 BC (313). They drove out the Ulmerugi and subdued the Vandals (26). The Ulmerugi were probably the Holmryge: Rugians who lived on the “holms” at the mouth of the Vistula River in Poland (Bugge 13.2). The Rugians probably came from Rogaland in southwest Norway (Kendrick 64). Originally, the Vandals were likely Scandinavian as well, perhaps Danish (65). Around this time, Scandinavia became “an active participant in long-distance trade” bringing in bronze from the Carpathians and the north Danube area (Sherratt 268). The 13th-century Gutasaga says the Goths came from Gotland (an island east of Sweden), but “multiplied so much that the land couldn’t support them all.” They settled other Baltic islands, which likewise could not support them. Finally, they traveled up the river Dvina through Russia to the “land of the Greeks,” where they settled “and live there still, and still have something of our language.”

          Around 750 BC, a sudden increase in iron use and a decrease in elaborate pottery styles spread over Transylvania and Serbia. Archaeologists call this the Basarabi culture. Similar styles extended eastward through Moldova and Ukraine as the Chernoles culture (Taylor 378). Around this same time, the Greeks colonized the northern coast of the Black Sea (Haywood 79). According to Herodotus (fifth century BC), they encountered the Budinoi, who were “a very great and numerous race, and are all very blue-eyed and fair of skin” (4.108). Similarly, by the sixth century BC, Xenophanes of Colophon described the Thracians as “red-haired and with blue eyes” (78). As noted above, the Thracians were likely not a single people, so Xenophanes may have been describing a Nordic tribe who had integrated into the Thracians. Herodotus describes the Getae as “the bravest and the most upright in their dealings of all the Thracians” (4.90). Elsewhere, he notes the Thracians “have many names, belonging to their various tribes in different places; but they all follow customs which are nearly the same in all respects, except the Getai and Trausians and those who dwell above the Crestonians” (5.3). According to Herodotus, the latter had a peculiar funeral custom: when a man dies, one of his wives chooses to die with him (5.5). Similarly, in the tenth century, the Arab emissary Ahmad ibn Fadlan described a similar funeral of the Viking Rus wherein a female slave chooses to die with a chieftain (87-91). This custom, however, may have parallels in several cultures around the world.

          By the third century BC, the Celts had settled Transylvania and raided into Bulgaria and Ukraine. “Another group which took advantage of these troubled times was the Bastarnae, probably of Germanic origin,” who may have “constrained the opportunities for a further and more intensive Celtic penetration,” writes archaeologist Barry Cunliffe (175). Tacitus, writing around AD 98, says the Bastarnae “speak the same language with the Germans, use the same attire, build like them, and live like them, in that dirtiness and sloth so common to all.” He goes on to say they have “corrupted into the fashion of the Sarmatians” by intermarrying with them, but are “rather reckoned amongst the Germans” (2). Strabo also says they are “of Germanic stock” (7.3.17). Around 278 BC, the “second Brennus” mounted an invasion against Delphi in Greece (4.1.13). Other Celts settled in Thrace and eventually crossed into Asia Minor to form Galatia (Cunliffe 82-3).

          In the 170s BC, the Dacians expanded from Wallachia into Transylvania, absorbing the Celts. “The origins of the Dacians are obscure,” says Cunliffe, noting they had kept the Bastarnae out of the Carpathians in the previous century (222). Ancient historians often mention the Dacians in the same passage as the Getae, also of obscure origins. According to Strabo, “the Greeks used to suppose that the Getae were Thracians” (7.3.2) and “the language of the Daci is the same as that of the Getae” (13). Strabo drew a distinction, however: the Getae live near the Black Sea and the Dacians “in the opposite direction towards Germany” (12). Interestingly, Ptolemy’s second-century Geography says the Gautae and Dauciones inhabit southern Scandinavia (2.10). Later authors also mention the Gauti or “Gauthigoths” (Jordanes 3.22) in Scandinavia, probably the Geats of Norse and Anglo-Saxon sagas. Jordanes equates the Getae with Goths (9.58). Provinces in southern Sweden bear the name to this day; however, there is no known parallel for the Dauciones. It would be purely speculative to connect them with the Dacians and have them decamping en masse for the rich Carpathians which bore precious metals their own country lacked, but not at all impossible given the migration patterns of Scandinavians. There seems to have been a sharp division between two Dacian castes: the “cap-wearing people” and the “long-haired people.” As one historian notes, “The polarization between a small caste of notables and a vast, exploited mass of people explains the duality of Dacian archaeological finds” (Mócsy 44). Perhaps this describes a dominion of Gothic invaders over the native Thracian population.

          Writing in the 13th century, Snorri Sturluson proposes a reverse migration to Scandinavia. He says Tror or Thor was a grandson of Priam and lived in Thrace, called Thrudheim, after the Trojan War. His descendants, including Odin, eventually settle Scandinavia and northern Europe (3). The connection to Homer’s Iliad was a common poetic device and likely pure fiction. However, there is perhaps yet another Norse connection with Thrace. A Danish farmer stumbled upon an ornate silver cauldron while digging for peat near Gundestrup. The Thracians probably forged the cauldron around 100 BC. One theory states the Cimbri, a Danish war-band brought it back as booty while raiding Danubian lands in 118 BC (Scarre 220).

          For the next several centuries, the Goths ruled Dacia on and off. Jordanes calls Burebista “king of the Goths” (11.67) who held Dacia from around 82 to 44 BC (Mócsy 46). The Geto-Dacians came into increasing conflict with the Romans and held off their invading forces until AD 106. Roman legions conquered the last Dacian fortresses and brought Decebalus’s head back to Trajan (60). “It would be the last province to be added to the empire and the first to be abandoned by it” in AD 271 (Treptow 3). The Roman province was thus short-lived: the Goths made raids into Roman Moesia under their king Cniva, who killed the Roman emperor Decius (Jordanes 18.101-3). After Attila’s death in 453, the Gepids (a branch of the Goths) defeated the Huns, “won for themselves the territory of the Huns and ruled as victors over the extent of all Dacia” (50.262-64).

          Toward the end of the sixth century, the Lombards “wiped out” the Gepids (Gifðas in Old English), “as an independent political entity” at any rate (Raffel 152). Yet the Lombards themselves (Langobards) were of Scandinavian origin (Strabo 7.1.3). Regardless of the ultimate fate of the Gepids, they left an indelible mark on Transylvania. The archaeological record alone yields “an immense quantity of artifacts” attributed to the “Gepid culture” (Curta 192).

          While the Goths were sacking Rome, their ancestral kin were not idle. The Baltic Sea became a Scandinavian lake, as Greek accounts and finds from Latvian cemeteries dated around 650-800 attest (Logan 180-2). Early in the ninth century, the Varangians (Scandinavians) settled Novgorod and Russia, and “civilized, and in the higher sense created, both” (Beazley xxii). Though Russian historians might object to this claim, “It is historically certain the Rus were Swedes” (Logan 202). By 860, the Varangians attacked Constantinople with a fleet of 200 ships (the Russian Primary Chronicle says 2000) and conquered Kiev by 880 (188). In 941, the Varangians returned to Constantinople with a fleet of perhaps 1000—the Chronicle has 10,000 and the Greek even 15,000 (192). By the 970s, the Rus had established a post at the mouth of the Danube and had raided deep into the Balkans as far as the border of Thrace (195). The Gutasaga mentioned above seems to confirm this. Eventually, the Scandinavians assimilated into the native culture in Russia. As they did in Ireland, Normandy and elsewhere, they left a permanent mark on the country.

          Still later, other Germanic peoples migrated to Transylvania, as Jonathan Harker notes in Dracula: “Saxons in the south, and mixed with them the Wallachs, who are the descendants of the Dacians” (Stoker 28). Dracula himself notes the long presence of other races in Transylvania: tribes from “Iceland” (probably Scandinavia in general): “Berserkers,” and a long list of conquests by “the Magyar, the Lombard, the Avar, the Bulgar” and so forth (52-53). The historical record confirms the presence of these tribes and others, such as the Slavs (Treptow 43-44). Despite these incursions and the “Latinization” of its language, Romania owes much of its early history to the Goths and other Scandinavian tribes.

Linguistic connections

          The Norse draugr was a corpse who returned from the dead to harry the living. Sometimes he was relatively benign—perhaps he returned merely to attend his own funeral. At other times, he feasted on human flesh and blood and fought with the living. The word draugr has various etymologies. The Old Norse word means “ghost,” related to the Anglo-Saxon dreag, apparition. A similar word appears in Gaelic: dreàg or driùg, meaning meteor or portent, an inferred contraction of drùidh-eug, “druid’s death” (Maclagan 235). The folklorist providing this definition goes on to connect it with “dragon” in Gaelic and English (236). The links here are tenuous at best, though there is a similar connection in Old Norse (dreki) as there is in Latin (draco). The words possibly stem from different Indo-European roots with similar sounds. Maclagan does give several examples of “dreags” as “ghost lights” or “fiery death-warnings” in Highland lore. The Vikings may have brought these legends to Scotland: “In Norwegian folklore the grave mounds of heroes emit lambent flames that guard the dead and treasure buried with them” (253).

          If the Vikings brought their legends to lands they raided in the west, it seems natural they also carried them east and south. If the natives already had a word for such a creature as a draugr, they may have used that word instead. Nevertheless, the vampire may have acquired some traits of the draugr through trans-cultural diffusion.

          The word “vampire” is likely of Slavic origin, from the Serbian bamiiup via Bulgarian upir (Wilson 577). The Romanian strigoi has superficial similarities to draugr but is a cognate with Italian strega (witch). Another theory is that “vampire” derives from Lithuanian wempti, “to drink” (578).

          Other etymologies for draugr give it a meaning of “a dry log” in Old Norse, related to Middle Dutch drōge, “dry; thirsty.” These meanings possibly derive from pre-Germanic *dhrūgh(n)-, “fall, droop, sink,” or the Lithuanian root *dhreu-, “decayed” (Wood 69-70). These connections seem speculative, but they would support the idea of a withered corpse, thirsty for blood. Another etymology ties draugr to Sanskrit drōgha-, “injury, treachery” and Avestan draoga-, “lie, deceit” (Lane 259). These links would give the word a very old history but clearly, the word is ancient regardless of the precise etymology.

Vampiric traits across northern and eastern Europe

          Writing around AD 77, Pliny the Elder reported several cases of the “dead” returning to life, including a Roman consul who “came to life again when on the funeral pile; but, by reason of the violence of the flames, no assistance could be rendered him, in consequence of which he was burnt alive.” He notes the same occurrence with two praetors verified by other authors and observes, “Such then is the condition of us mortals: to these and the like vicissitudes of fortune are we born; so much so, that we cannot be sure of anything, no, not even that a person is dead” (7.53). Likely, such “returnings” were even more frightening among cultures that buried their dead, and gave rise to vampire legends.

          The Norse sagas are rife with such tales of the dead returning to haunt the living. Unlike in some other cultures, the Norse ghosts (draugar) are “corporeal—not wraiths, disembodied spirits” (Chadwick 50). In Njal’s Saga, a shepherd and a housemaid hear chanting within Gunnar’s burial mound while driving cattle past it. Later one night, two men who stood watch outside the mound saw it open, glimpsed “four lights burning inside it” and witnessed Gunnar himself come out of the mound. Gunnar “chanted a verse so loudly that they could have hard it clearly from much farther away […] Then the mound closed again.” Of note in the original Brennu-Njáls saga is the word vættidraugr (78), which seems to translate as “wight-ghost.” (Munch 42). J. R. R. Tolkien used such vættir as prototypes for his “barrow-wights,” mound dwelling undead with vampiric qualities (193).

          Norse mythology abounds with vættir of various sorts, spirits both good and bad. Three vaettir are of particular interest with respect to vampires. The mara, or nightmare, could torment or suffocate sleepers. The vargulfr, “werewolf” or “man-wolf,” attacked people in their sleep, exhumed and devoured corpses in graveyards. These two “are obviously related” to dark-riders or night-riders, “and during later times no great distinction was drawn between them” (Munch 46-7). The “night-riders” were a type of giant who rode forth at night to commit evil deeds, avoided the light of day and would turn to stone if struck by the sun’s rays (39), again with echoes in Tolkien’s “Black Riders” (111) and trolls (72).

          The vargulfr has definite links to the Greek vrykolakas (Summers 218) and Romanian vârcolaci. The latter “attack the heavenly bodies,” eating the moon and sun like the Norse Fenris Wolf. Although they have other werewolf traits, they have vampiric traits as well (306-7). “Vârcolaci (svârcolaci) and pricolici are sometimes dead vampires, and sometimes animals which eat the moon” (Murgoci 322). Similarly, the kikimora of Serbia and other parts of eastern Europe is much like the Norse mara or nightmare. She is an undead spirit who would “settle on the face of some peaceful sleeper to oppress their breathing deep in the night.” Sometimes she “could take the form of a horse”(Kerrigan 92-3). Although not vampiric in nature, the Norse and Slavs also share myths of many other similar creatures. For example, both have tales of dwarves: the Slavic karliki inhabited the underworld (60). Similarly, the Norse dwarves “had their homes beneath the surface of the earth” like the dark-elves (Munch 4). Tales of a short, strong, cave-dwelling people may stem from ancient folk memories of the Neanderthals, who populated both Scandinavia and eastern Europe as mentioned above.

          Although Gunnar’s draugr turns out to be benign, offering a battle portent to Njal’s men, other draugar are much less friendly. Like vampires, the draugar have supernatural strength and can pass on their undead state like a curse. The Eyrbyggja Saga relates the death of Thorgunna. While transporting Thorgunna’s coffin to her burial site, the Norsemen stay the night at a farm and put the coffin in a storehouse. Later they see Thorgunna, “stark naked, not a stitch of clothing on her, getting a meal ready” in the larder (51). Later, a shepherd dies after a presumed draugr-haunting. One night after this, “Thorir Wood-Leg went out to the privy to ease himself, and when he was on his way back to the house, he saw the shepherd in front of the door.” The shepherd picked up Thorir and threw him against the door. Thorir soon takes ill and dies, then haunts the countryside with the shepherd. “Soon people started dying one after another, six of them in all,” (53) and many more people die later (54). Finally, the Icelanders banish the draugar in what seems to be a trial by jury, though a Christian element appears in the form of a priest who “carried holy water and sacred relics to every corner of the house. Next day he sang all the prayers and celebrated Mass with great solemnity, and there were no more dead men haunting Frodriver after that” (55).

          The special means of dispatching draugar has other echoes in vampire legends. “The buried ‘barrow-ghost’ was formidable; he could rise and slay and eat, vampire-like, as in the tale of Asmund and Aswit. He must in such case be mastered and prevented doing further harm by decapitation and thigh-forking, or by staking and burning” (Elton, ch. 14). Moreover, the draugr often has a special thirst for flesh, or even blood. The tale of “Egil and Asmund” relates the death of Aran and subsequent interment in a barrow-mound along with his horse, hawk and hound. Asmund enters the mound by rope to watch over the corpse:

On the second night he [Aran] got up again from his chair, killed the horse and tore it to pieces; then he took great bites of the horse flesh with his teeth, the blood streaming down from his mouth all the while he was eating. He offered to let Asmund share his meal, but Asmund said nothing. The third night Asmund became very drowsy, and the first thing he knew, Aran had got him by the ears and torn them off. Asmund drew his short-sword and sliced off Aran’s head, then he got some fire and burnt Aran to ashes. Asmund went to the rope and was hauled out of the mound, which was then covered up again. (7)

Before Aran’s death, a sort of “blood transfusion” transpired between vampire-hunter and vampire-to-be: “they each opened a vein and mixed their blood, which was regarded as an oath” (6). This theme recurs in later literature such as Dracula.

          The Norse draugr is clearly of great antiquity. Some events in the sagas date to the sixth century or earlier, in prehistoric mythical times as Snorri relates in the Edda. On the other hand, “It cannot be said for certain exactly when the Slavic vampire came into being […] It wasn’t until about the ninth century that a term for vampire entered the Serbian language, helping to formalize a type of demonic entity that sustained itself from the life force of others” (Guiley 12). Interestingly, the early vampires in Russia did not commonly drink blood, but “were, in fact, ravenous flesh-eating creatures” (Kerrigan 95). The vampire was more common in Ukraine and among “the non-Slavic peoples of Transylvania” (97). Without much doubt, these beliefs derived from tales of the Kievan Rus and perhaps ultimately, from the Goths and Gepids who settled Transylvania long before the Romans or Slavs.

Conclusion

          Genetics and archaeology show a long relationship between the Scandinavians and the people of eastern Europe, stretching back hundreds or even thousands of years. Records from historical times confirm the settlement of Goths and other Scandinavians in Transylvania and elsewhere in eastern Europe. The vampire of Slavic legend has much in common with the Norse draugr, and likely appeared later. Ironically, the vampire of “Gothic” fiction may indeed owe its origin in part to the ancient Goths or their descendants.

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