Fictional worms

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Although more usually used to describe the common earthworm the word "worm" derives from Old Norse orm and Anglo-Saxon 'wyrm, meaning "serpent" or "dragon". Such legends have persisted for over a millennium and form the basis of a host of modern fictional representations of similar beasts, including works by Terry Pratchett, Stephen R Donaldson and Frank Herbert.

The "worm" is usually depicted as a scaled, wingless creature. It resembles a giant snake but often has poisonous breath, as opposed to fire breathing, winged and four legged dragons. It sometimes is given the property of being able to reassemble itself when cut into pieces. They were often associated with the guarding of treasure or maidens and sacred wells, hills, caves and springs.

These multihued dragons were sometimes "seen" streaking across the sky, particularly in thunderstorms, although ball lightning may be a more scientific explanation of their manifestation.

Nidhogg (the 'Dread Biter') and Midgard's Worm were two of the most famous "Worms" in Viking mythology. At the 'still point of the turning world' the Vikings believed the ash tree Yggdrasil bore the weight of the universe. One of its three roots stretched over the underworld Niflheim where the dragon Nidhogg gnawed at it in an attempt to destroy creation - hence its name 'The Dread Biter'. This legend was later used by fantasy writer Terry Pratchett.

Midgard's Worm or Jorungard's Worm lay in the sea with its tail in its mouth, encircling the lands of the world and creating the oceans. If the Worm's tail was ever removed from its mouth disaster would befall the earth and in legend Midgard's Worm met its end at Ragnarok when it dies fighting, and killing, the thunder god Thor. This story forms the basis of a novel, "The Worm of the World's End", by Stephen R Donaldson.

Several places in Great Britain, once occupied by Viking raiders, owe their names to the supposed resemblance they bore to this fictional beast. Worm's Head on the Gower peninsula in Wales was thought to resemble a sleeping dragon [1]. There are many legends in the north east of England relating to gigantic 'worms' which terrorised the local area before being slain by a hero. The Lambton Worm, Sockburn Worm and Worm of Linton are among the best known of these. The North East was raided and occupied by the vikings for centuries during the Dark Ages and these legends may refer to heroes fighting the invaders, personified as monsterous Viking worm dragons. The Durham historian Hutchinson believed the legend of the Sockburn worm, for example, referred to a Viking raider who plundered the Tees valley before being repulsed. The notion of the Sockburn worm itself was used by Lewis Carroll as the basis of his nonsense rhyme `Jabberwocky'.

Other worms, based on the concept of the friendly 'bookworm' or mutated forms of the common earthworm are also found in many books, especially those written for children.

Contents

[edit] Worms in popular culture

[edit] Legends

[edit] Giant worms in books, television, music and film

  • One of the unrecorded cases of Sherlock Holmes involves a "worm unknown to science."
  • Flobberworms dull wormlike magical creatures in the Harry Potter universe.
  • Phish performed a version of the song "Swingtown" in Amsterdam, about giant worms in the city's sewers, known as "Wormtown".
  • The giant, autonomous space based doomsday weapon featured in the original Star Trek resembled a giant Norse Wurm. It was wingless, limbless and ingested whole planets in its ever gaping maw just as the Worm of Linton ate everything in its path.
  • In the 2005 film King Kong, a giant bloodworm-like predator called the carnictus lives in the rents and chasms of Skull Island. They grow to be 7-13 feet long, and they kill a character named Lumpy in the film.
  • In the AVP series, Alien Chestbursters are Xenomorph larvae that incubate within a human host and rip out of the chest cavity when partially mature.
  • The Giant flesh-eating worms from Pre-cambrian rimes in Primeval

[edit] Other worms in media

  • The Bookworm, a character Spider-Man fought in an episode of The 1970s PBS TV series The Electric Company
  • Boreworms an (unseen) animal used as an implement of torture in the movie Flash Gordon.
  • The Bookworm character of various children's reading programs.
  • The Slurm Queen from Futurama, the only source of the Slurm brand of soda.
  • Omer in the animated TV series Omer and the StarChild
  • Fip, the word-eating worm in the book, The Word Eater
  • The Bookworm in Warner Brothers "Sniffles" cartoons
  • Squorm, Buster's pet worm from Buster comics

[edit] Role-playing games

[edit] Video games