Dragon legends are pervasive in almost a universal sense across all world cultures, though dragons tend to symbolize different things to these disparate cultures, depending upon what part of the world that civilization developed. In regards to Western and Northern cultures, Jormungand the Midgard Serpent perfectly espouses the destructive, chaotic, and utterly primeval forces which dragon legends and imagery most often represent--as well as strength and power in a general sense. And Jormungand, one of the three bestial offspring of Loki and his giantess mistress Angrboda, can be considered in many ways to be the king of all dragons from this part of global culture. His size and power are both truly tremendous; he was described in the myths as being so powerful that of all the deities, only Thor would dare challenge him, and of such an enormous size that he was actually capable of encircling the entire Earth (Midgard in Asgardian parlance) and placing the end of his tail in his maw while doing so.  His venom was described as being so incredibly potent that not even the deities themselves could withstand exposure to it, and in fact it was contact with the King Serpent's venom that was said to kill Thor just as the Thunder God slew Jormungand with a particularly powerful blow from his mighty hammer Mjonlnir as the two mortal adversaries had their final mano-a-mano battle during Ragnarok, the twilight event of the Norse gods.

It is believed that Jormungand was born in serpentine/dragon-like form because that was the shape Loki and Angrboda took when they conceived him. To some of the deities, coupling with or giving birth to sentient or semi-sentient beings possessing animal or otherwise non-humanoid form was a possibility due to their utterly fluid equivalent of genetics, and shifting from humanoid to animal or non-human forms was a skill possessed by several of the more powerful enchanters of the godly races, including Loki. This is why we have so many chimeric creatures of humanoid/animal hybridization spawned directly or indirectly from the godly realms throughout the annals of world mythology, and this phenomenon is hardly limited to Norse legends alone.  In fact, another of Loki's three offspring with the shape-shifting giantess Angrboda was the Fenris Wolf (or Fenrir), who was born in lupine form, and also fought at the god of mischief's side against the deities at Ragnarok. All three of Loki's offspring by Angrboda--which also included Hela, the grim goddess of death who was born in a half-living, half-corpse-like state--were prophesied to join him as he led the forces of chaos against the deities who ultimately rejected him for his deceptive ways at Ragnarok.  In fact, if the Ragnarok event is truly cyclic in nature as some believe, a variation of the above incident could have happened numerous times already, in numerous different reality systems, or at differing intervals on a single timeline.

According to the myths, Jormungand encountered Thor on two occasions previous to their predicted final battle to mutual destruction at Ragnarok, with both prior incidents ending without resolution. As a symbol of chaos and destruction, with the multi-cultural metaphor of a formidable warrior of either human or godly descent opposing them (note also the legends of Saint George, Sigfried, and Beowulf), it's no wonder that Thor, the ultimate warrior in the Norse pantheon, would be the great Midgard Serpent's perennial nemesis.  Jormungand clearly symbolizes the destructive forces of nature, with everything from hurricanes, tornadoes, vulcanism, earthquakes, massive floods,, tsunamis, and perhaps even major fluctuations in the planet's magnetic field that scientists believe may have something to do with triggering the periodic mass extinction events in the Earth's history, being part of that intrinsic metaphorical nature. He represents the full power of nature when brought to bear upon the human species and other lower forms of mortal life residing on the planet, as a routine reminder that of nature's power, and how humanity can still be at the mercy of such forces when they truly let loose. Jormungand is the personification of the naturally occurring forest fires of the West Coast that regularly consume large swaths of wilderness areas, taking a huge number of its inhabitants' lives in the process, to clear the way for regrowth and a new beginning. That is the way of Mother Nature in one of her more harsh aspects, and this is what the Western and Northern conception of the dragon personifies on an archetypal level, which is why dragon imagery in one form or another is so pervasive across myriad global cultures.  And with his enormous power and size, surpassing all other dragons save perhaps for the celestial Babylonian dragon Tiamat, Jormungand represents such destructive forces of nature to the nth degree, requiring the greatest forces of creation to resist, let alone triumph over him, when he constricts his mighty coils.

Humanity of today is less at the mercy of nature's forces as were our forebears in ancient times, but we are still quite vulnerable to all the examples of nature at its worst mentioned above, and with added threats of nuclear devastation, which is a metaphorical tool of the dragon wrought by the hands of humanity itself. Jormungand and his multi-cultural kin are also archetypal forces representing the often gigantic and ubiquitous beasts of a reptilian nature who once dominated the antediluvian Earth, long before humanity first saw the dawn of light, and who were ironically wiped out by a massive extinction event to eventually make way for the rise of the human race, courtesy of the very cleansing force that Western/Northern dragon legends seem to embody at their core. Hence, Jormungand and his kin are just as subject to the forces they represent as any other being in creation.

Calling upon Jormungand for aid in ritual is not advised, unless one were in rather desperate need for a great and sudden infusion of inner strength, energy, and activity along destructive and heavily aggressive lines, and even then only after exercising much caution and a strong reminder to one's self of precisely the type of forces that the Midgard Serpent represents. A peaceful spiritual relationship with dragons of the multiple Western varieties can be achieved with diligence and respect, but it must be done carefully, and without forgetting what these magnificent creatures embody in astral reality, and what they are capable of when unleashed in both a metaphorical and material sense.  The unique and intimidating stature that Jormungand has in the Norse cosmological schema is quite significant, and as such, I resolved to create a page for him on this site, even though he is not truly a deity--though he was spawned by one, and his sheer level of power and majesty is certainly on par with any deity.