I was working on my forthcoming volume of legends concerning the draug, or sea draug, and rediscovered my notes concerning the description of the (as yet unnamed) creature, as early as 1704.
In December 1704, Reinhold Friderik Tønders, who was betrothed to Sophie Amalie Krogh (1686–1735), the daughter of the bishop of Nidaros, Peder Nielsen Krog, drowned at sea. Two poems were written on the occasion of his death, one by his fiancée, and one by Petter Dass (1667–1707), parson at Alstahaug in Nordland, whose parish was at the time presided over from Nidaros (Trondheim). Both poems use imagery that is reminiscent of later decriptions of the draug.
Krogh:
The sea took the spoils
You fared the way of all flesh
Like Jonah, about your head
You wore a cap of kelp
Dass:
But now you must contented be
with a coffin made of kelp,
and a shroud prepared of seaweed
enveloping your head.
Krogh’s reference to Jonah is interesting, for it transpires that both poets have appropriated a biblical image to portray their hapless drowning victim. From inside the fish, Jonah laments: “The waters compassed me about, even to the soul: the depth closed me round about, the weeds were wrapped about my head.” (Jonah 2: 5)
A similar description subsequently becomes widely associated with the reanimated sea dead, here exemplified by Peter Christen Asbjørnsen: “Instead of heads and hair, they had knots of seaweed.” (The Tufte Folk on Sandflæsa)
More to look forward to in The Draug, forthcoming later this year.
