Why are 'Ghosts' Killed in Such a Gruesome Way?

Twice in The Saga of Grettir the Strong, Grettir beheads a dead man and places his severed head in between his buttocks to ensure the death of the evil spirit. The first incident occurs when Grettir raids the burial mound of an influential local leader. The ghost of the dead man takes physical form and the two tussle. Grettir ends this fight by, of course, severing the ghost’s head and shoving the man's head into an unmentionable place. The footnotes explain that this was a common practice and the accepted method of ‘killing’ troublesome ghosts. However, it is not explained why this very specific method is employed.

In order to understand why the Vikings felt compelled to decapitate ghosts, I conducted
some further research into Viking beliefs about reanimation and hauntings after death.
My research produced two forms ‘ghosts’ that were essentially believed to be reanimated
corpses that were capable of movement and causing harm to the living. Also, I will be referring
to these spirits as male because I was not able to find accounts of any deceased women coming
back as any form of 'ghost'. The first form is the haugbui, a person that remains within his own
burial mound and will generally only reanimate if the mound is disturbed or disrespected.
The ‘ghost’ that Grettir defeats when he steals from the dead man’s burial mound is an example
of a haugbui. The second, and more insidious kind of ‘ghost’, is known as a draugr and is
essentially a grotesquely bloated corpse that rises up after nightfall. Again, Grettir faces a such
a foe in the form of Glaum. Draugrs were thought to have supernatural abilities, such as
Glaum’s paralyzing gaze. Additionally, stories recounting draugrs often portray them as
having an insatiable hunger for life and as disturbingly violent spirits -- even by Viking standards.
Luckily, Vikings gave very specific instructions as to how to vanquish such a disturbing foe.
In order to kill a draugr, one must first engage the dead man in ritualized combat before severing
his head. Then, the entire corpse must be cremated before being buried on land or simply
dumped at sea. Grettir and Thorbjorn follow this example and burying Glaum’s ashes in various
places after his head is severed and placed between his buttocks. However, I was not able to find
a reason as to why a spirit’s head needed to be placed between its own buttocks in order to kill it.

This leads me to speculate that this is such a sign of disrespect that the slayer is quite literally
silencing the spirit as any message it tries to speak will go right up its own rear end. In other
words, it makes me think of this ritual as a spin on the modern ‘kiss my ass’ by instead implying
‘kiss your own ass’. While I personally find this explanation to be entertaining, there may also
be no concrete explanation as to why this ritual was used to ensure the dead could not return.
For example, burning witches at the stake was often employed so that they were not able to
escape their own executions or be able to haunt those who executed them. Why was this done?
Presumably, it seemed a more permanent and inescapable fate to medieval Europe than hanging
from the gallows. Perhaps the placing of the severed head between the buttocks held a similar
significance in Viking culture due to the finality and extreme force of the ritual.

Wicked, Tricksy, False: Gollum in The Saga of Grettir the Strong

The claim that J. R. R. Tolkien took inspiration from the Viking sagas to build his fantasy universe of Arda is certainly not new or outrageous. It has been mentioned in class several times, and you only have to skim the Poetic Edda to find countless parallels between the two worlds. This is particularly obvious when seeing names like Durin, Dvalin, Thorin, Bifur, Bofur, etc. pop up in the literature and being immediately reminded of the posse of Dwarves from The Hobbit.

So is this entire post going to be about the details, references, and “Easter eggs” hidden within Tolkien’s mythos behind Arda?

There certainly are countless more parallels, but I do not have enough knowledge of the lore Tolkien created to do such an analysis justice, having only seen the Peter Jackson adaptations of his work (I know, I know, you can chastise me for my grievous nerd-transgression later).

Instead of getting bogged down in a comparison between the mythologies framing both worlds, I would like to focus on The Saga of Grettir the Strong, and how Glaum (the man who accompanies Grettir and Illugi to Drangey) could be a source of inspiration for Gollum/Sméagol in The Lord of the Rings.

This is our introduction to Glaum in Grettir’s Saga, “He had a large head and was tall, slim, and poorly dressed. He greeted them and asked them their names. They told him and he said he was named Thorbjorn. He was a vagrant who could not be bothered to work, and very boastful; people made great fun of him and some even played tricks on him. He tried to impress them and told them many stories about the local people. Grettir found him highly amusing. […] Because he was boisterous and a great joker, he was nicknamed Glaum (Merrymaker)” (pg. 158-159).

From a visual aspect, Glaum and Gollum share a gaunt, disproportionate physicality. Similar to Gollum’s isolation from others, Glaum is marginalized and ridiculed by those around him. Their distance from “normal” society is certainly for vastly different reasons; however, they are both socially disconnected characters in their own way.

Frodo decides to take Gollum on as a guide; however, this is done out of mercy and pity, rather than the pure amusement Grettir feels towards his vagrant companion. Additionally, it is mentioned that people like to play tricks on Glaum; meanwhile, Gollum incessantly worries and broods over the “tricksiness” of others in his ring-induced paranoia.

On a different note, I would like to thank the author(s) of this saga for including not one, but two Thorbjorns at the same time, and having the sense to give one of them a nickname (great save there). There is certainly an argument to be made here for another parallel, as Gollum is not the character’s actual name. Much like the dark and tormented Gollum suppresses Sméagol within him, the supposed merriment and jovial personality of Glaum is not seen much at all for the rest of Grettir’s story; Glaum is portrayed as a lazy, bumbling fool on Drangey.

The two characters also share similarities in the way they are treated in their respective stories. Nearly all characters view Gollum with suspicion and predict his malicious intent. Chief among these skeptics is Samwise, who, admittedly, treats Gollum quite poorly because of it. While we cannot deny that Gollum is a scheming and untrustworthy character, most of us still feel pity and empathize with the tormented soul of Sméagol hidden beneath his darker alter-ego. It is the same with Glaum. We cannot deny that he is negligent and lazy in his duties and often doesn’t show himself to be the brightest of people; at the same time, we cannot ignore Grettir’s cruelty towards him as well as the inordinate amount of work the brothers make him do.

Overall, this analysis neither redeems nor condemns either character. It does make them more complicated and adds “greyness” to their worlds, making their stories as a whole more compelling and emotionally loaded.