Landvættir

Also Known As: singular landvættr; “land-wights” or “land-spirits”; anglicized landvaettir
Region/Culture: Northern Europe (Norse Scandinavia and Iceland)
Mythos: Norse Mythology, Icelandic Mythology
Primary Type/Nature: Guardian nature-spirits of the land
Mythical Attributes: They inhabit and protect specific features of the landscape, boulders, hills, waterfalls, and fields, and their contentment decides whether that ground prospers or fails.
Role in Mythos: They are the tutelary spirits of place, holding their own soil against invaders and rewarding or punishing the people who share it according to how they are treated.
Relation to Humans: Settlers and farmers courted their goodwill with respect and small offerings, since a well-treated land-wight made crops grow and livestock thrive while an offended one blighted them. Icelandic law even required approaching ships to remove their carved dragon-heads so the land-wights would not be frightened away from the coast.

The law was strange enough that it survived word for word. Before a ship came within sight of Iceland, the crew had to take down the carved dragon-head from its prow and stow the gaping snout below deck, because a face like that, sailing in open-mouthed and yawning, would frighten the spirits who held the land. This was not a superstition scribbled into a margin. It stood at the very front of the old heathen code, ahead of the rules about killing and inheritance, a matter grave enough to legislate. The spirits it guarded were the landvættir, the wights of the land, and the people who settled that grey volcanic island took their goodwill as seriously as they took the weather.

A landvættr belongs to a place and to nothing else. It lives in a particular boulder, a particular hill, a bend of one particular river, most often in cold stone or the spray of a waterfall, and its fortunes and the land’s are the same thing. Where a land-wight is content the grass comes in thick, the ewes drop healthy lambs, and the fishing holds. Where one has been insulted the ground turns against the people standing on it. Farmers learned to plough around certain rocks and to keep their voices low near certain slopes. A man breaking new ground would pour out a little milk onto the earth and take care not to foul the water or split the stone that some unseen neighbour might be living inside.

What they looked like depended on when they cared to be seen, which was seldom. The old writers fixed no standard face to them. A land-wight might show itself as something close to human, or as a troll, or as some beast, or keep out of sight entirely and make its presence known only in a long run of good or ruinous luck. The one occasion the sources describe them in numbers and detail, they arrive as monsters, and the story is worth telling in full.

In Snorri Sturluson’s account of the kings of Norway, King Harald Gormsson of Denmark meant to punish Iceland over a slander and sent a wizard ahead of any fleet to scout the island. The wizard went in the shape of a whale. He swam the length of the coast searching for a way in, and everywhere he turned the way was already held. In the east a dragon came down a valley toward him trailing a train of snakes and toads and lizards, all of them breathing poison. In the north a huge bird flew at him with a cloud of smaller birds behind it. In the west a bull waded out into the surf, bellowing. In the south a mountain giant strode down the slope with an iron staff in his fist and a crowd of other giants at his back, and the whale turned and fled home to Denmark. Those four, the dragon, the bird, the bull, and the rock-giant, became the guardians of Iceland’s four quarters. Icelanders still stamp them on their coins and carry them on the national coat of arms.

Their power could also be turned outward like a weapon. When Egil Skallagrímsson fell out with King Eirik Bloodaxe and Queen Gunnhild and was driven from Norway, he did not simply curse them and sail away. He cut a long pole of hazel, set a horse’s head on the end of it, wedged it upright in a cleft of rock with the muzzle facing the mainland, and carved his malediction into the wood in runes. Then he spoke it aloud. He turned the curse not only on the king and queen but on the landvættir of Norway itself, wishing the land-wights driven astray, none of them at rest in its own place, until they had hounded Eirik and Gunnhild out of the country. Within the year the two were gone, chased west across the sea to rule a scrap of England instead. The saga does not treat this as a coincidence.

Where the land-wights first came from is not a thing the myths trouble to explain. They are older than the settlers, already in possession when the first longships grounded, part of the country rather than gods set above it. They belong to a wider family of vættir, the wights, that also fills the sea and the household, but the landvættir are the ones rooted to the ground underfoot. Some were bound to a single family’s luck and spoken of almost as ancestors of the farm. One settler, Hafr-Björn, was said to have dreamed that a rock-dweller offered to go into partnership with him, and afterward his herds multiplied and a clear-sighted man saw all the land-spirits of the district walking with him to the assembly.

Their strength is local and total. Within its own ground a landvættr can make the difference between a farm that flourishes and one that starves, can turn back an invasion, can bless the household that honours it and ruin the one that does not. What it cannot do is travel. A land-wight is fixed to its rock or hill or field and holds no power anywhere else, which is exactly why the old law fretted about scaring them from the coast: a spirit frightened off its ground leaves that ground unguarded and barren. They are strong the way a place is strong, and just as impossible to carry away. Disrespect drives them off, cruelty to the land wastes them, and a carved monster grinning in off the sea is enough to send them fleeing inland where they can do no good for anyone.

Frequently Asked Questions

What are the landvættir in Norse mythology?

The landvættir are guardian nature-spirits of the land in Norse and Icelandic belief, whose name means “land-wights” or “land-spirits.” Each one is tied to a specific feature of the landscape, such as a boulder, hill, waterfall, or field, and the prosperity of that ground depends on keeping the wight content. They can bless the people who honour them and blight the land of those who offend them.

Why did Viking ships have to remove their dragon-heads near Iceland?

Early Icelandic law required ships to take down the carved dragon-head figures from their prows before coming within sight of land. The reason was that the gaping, open-mouthed carvings would frighten the landvættir, the guardian spirits of the coast, and a land-wight scared away from its ground would leave that land unprotected and barren. The rule stood at the very beginning of the old heathen legal code.

What are the four guardian spirits of Iceland?

The four great landvættir of Iceland are a dragon in the east, an eagle or griffin in the north, a bull in the west, and a rock-giant in the south. According to Snorri Sturluson’s Heimskringla, they drove off a wizard sent by King Harald Gormsson of Denmark who was scouting the island in the shape of a whale. The four guardians remain the national symbols of Iceland and appear on its coat of arms and coins.

How could the landvættir be used to curse an enemy?

In Egil’s Saga, the outlawed poet Egil Skallagrímsson raised a scorn-pole, a níðstöng, topped with a horse’s head and carved with runes, to turn a curse against King Eirik Bloodaxe and Queen Gunnhild. He aimed the curse partly at the landvættir of Norway, commanding the land-wights to wander with no rest until they had driven the king and queen from the country. Within a year Eirik and Gunnhild were forced to flee Norway.

What do the landvættir do to humans?

The landvættir reward people who treat them and their land with respect, making crops grow, livestock multiply, and fortunes rise. Those who insult them or foul their ground suffer failed harvests, dying animals, and general ill luck. Because of this, settlers left offerings of food and milk and avoided disturbing the rocks, hills, and waters where the wights were thought to live.