What is the Lagarfljot worm?
The Lagarfljot worm (Lagarfljotsormurinn) is a cryptid said to live in Lake Lagarfljot, a long, narrow glacial lake near the town of Egilsstadir in eastern Iceland. It is described as a serpent from a dozen to several tens of meters long that swims showing several humps above the surface. In Iceland it is known as a lake monster on a par with Scotland’s Nessie.
A folktale of the serpent’s origin
Sightings of the Lagarfljot worm have long been reported, and Icelandic annals of 1345 record that something strange appeared in the lake. In a local folktale, a girl wanting to make her gold ring bigger put a small worm (snake) on the ring and kept it in a box, but the worm kept growing until it overflowed the box. The startled girl threw it into the lake, ring and all, and there the worm grew even larger until it became a giant serpent.
The 2012 video and the truth
In 2012, a video shot by a local resident showing a long, thin object undulating across the freezing lake was posted online and caused a worldwide sensation. The local municipality had offered a reward to anyone who filmed the serpent, and in 2014 a committee set up by the municipality judged the footage to be genuine (not edited).
On the other hand, analyses suggest that what the video shows may be a fishing net, frozen cloth or chunks of ice moving in the current. The lake is cloudy with water flowing in from a glacier, so its depths cannot be seen, which is thought to be one reason monster legends arise there so easily.
