Forms of Becoming: Transformation-Outputs, Volition and Directionality

This abundance of interspecies transformations reveals a sustained literary interest in animal embodiment. Animal forms are typically depicted as beneficial instruments for exploitation, enabling humans to exceed their natural limitations: a bird’s body allows flight and long-distance travel, an otter’s form enhances fishing ability, a predator’s shape improves combative prowess. While these transformation-episodes remain anthropocentric in their focus on human arrogation of nonhuman capabilities, they nonetheless reflect an awareness of and interest in the specificities of animal experience and ability. Some narratives, like Hrólfs saga kraka, direct our attention towards animal experiences of a world cohabited with humans; Bjǫrn, cursed into bear-form, is hunted, killed and flayed by the king’s men. In this way, episodes of human-to-animal transformation can perform a similar work to skaldic kennings (as discussed in earlier chapters) which consider nonhuman experience of shared material environments. For instance, kenning-patterns for summer and winter are oriented not towards human experience of the seasons, but rooted instead in observation of the effects of ecological rhythms on the animal kingdom: summer is the ‘miskunn þoska heiðar’ (‘mercy of the codfish of the heath [SNAKES > SUMMER]’), while winter is ‘tregi orms’ (‘grief of the snake [WINTER]’).29 See ‘Kennings for SUMMER’, Skaldic Project, https://skaldic.org/m.php?p= kenningref&i=11335 and ‘Kennings for WINTER’, Skaldic Project, https://skaldic.org/m.php?p=kenningref&i=5123 [accessed 23 October 2025].

When humans/humanoids transform into animals, they are often referred to by the common noun of the animal into which they have transformed, rather than by their own personal names, a linguistic shift that reinforces the authenticity of the transformation within the narrative: for example, when Óðinn transforms into an eagle to escape with the mead of poetry, Suttungr does not see ‘Óðinn’ flying away, but ‘flug arnarins’ (‘the flight of the eagle’).30 Skm., ch. G58 (pp. 4–5). One exception is Sigmundr and Sinfjǫtli, who continue to be referred to by their human names whilst in wolf-form in Vǫlsunga saga. Human and animal identities are blurred to a greater degree in legendary narratives in which human personal names double as animal nouns, such as Bjǫrn (‘Bear’) in Hrólfs saga kraka and Otr (‘Otter’) in the Sigurðr-cycle, both of whom transform into their respective namesakes.

Notably, human-to-animal transformations rarely provoke unease for characters within a narrative. Rather, they become threatening primarily when they are involuntary, as in the examples of Bjǫrn in Hrólfs saga kraka, and Sigmundr and Sinfjǫtli in Vǫlsunga saga. Voluntary transformations are more common across the corpus, underscoring a narrative logic that treats bodily and ontological flux as acceptable, so long as it remains within the bounds of personal agency. This pattern suggests a cultural perspective that values autonomy as integral to human identity, linking control over transformation to concepts of humanity and selfhood. This results in a narrative impulse to explore or utilise transformation without fully jeopardising the stability and separatism of the human subject.

Human-to-human transformations are, like theriomorphic transformations, more often voluntary than not, allowing characters to reconfigure their identities on their own terms. When transformations are involuntary, they either occur through fate or misfortune – as with the princes in Vǫlsunga saga, who ‘hǫfðu orðit fyrir óskǫpum’ (‘had become fated’) to wear wolf-skins34 See also Reginsmál 2, in which Andvari implies that his pike-form is a result of a Norn’s judgement. – or as punishment, as in Þorsteins saga Víkingssonar, when Ógautan curses Ingibjörg in retribution for rejecting him.35 See also the example from Gríms saga loðinkinna, quoted above. While punishing transformations normally afflict the person transformed, transformations can be used as an element in the wider punishment of another, as when the æsir turn Loki’s son Vali into a wolf (Gylf., ch. 50), which disembowels Loki’s other son Narfi (whose entrails are used to bind Loki to a rock, in punishment for Baldr’s murder). These cases entail a loss of agency and identity imposed by external forces, contrasting with voluntary transformations that preserve autonomy even within the framework of change.

These transformations can also be used to explore gender boundaries, revealing cultural assumptions surrounding gender expectations and roles. Gender shifts are rare; when they do occur, they involve male figures transforming into women, and not vice versa. These male figures are typically already portrayed as socially marginal, disruptive or deviant in some way: Loki transforms into a mare in Gylfaginning to distract the master-builder’s stallion, and is accused by Óðinn of having given birth in Lokasenna;36 Gylf., ch. 49 (p. 45); Ls 23. Cp. also Þrk. 26 (in which Loki becomes Þórr’s handmaid). the thieving Kvintalin assumes the appearance of Lady Hrafnborg in Samsons saga fagra;37 Ch. 21 (p. 44). and in konunagsögur and religious literature, demons and the devil often adopt the guise of attractive women.38 E.g., ÓTOdd. ch. 60 (p. 177); Mar., ch. 45 (p. 135); Nik., ch. 9 (p. 30). The limited occurrence of such transformations suggests cultural discomfort with transgressing gender norms,39 However, in the case of Loki’s gender fluidity, which is often turned to the æsir’s collective advantage, the gender transformation could be viewed as a kind of controlled release of cultural anxieties around gender norms. and particularly with women becoming men. This view should perhaps be complicated, however, by the presence of female characters who, while not undergoing bodily transformation, adopt the external trappings of male identities, such as Hervǫr in Hervarar saga ok Heiðreks, Þornbjǫrg in Hrólfs saga Gautrekssonar and Ermengá in Mágus saga jarls. There is overlap between these sartorially constructed identities and the hybridisation mode of transformation discussed in Chapter 5, raising the question of whether these instances of disguise do constitute a part of broader transformation traditions.40 See further Colwill (‘Gender and Genre’), who argues that, in the chivalric rimur, gender can be created and reinscribed through behaviour, dress and speech: this has bearing on how we interpret the significance of clothing and behavioural changes in transformation-episodes.