Page "Jörmungandr" Paragraph 9

This encounter with Thor seems to have been one of the most popular motifs in Norse art.

Four picture stones that have been linked with the myth are the Altuna Runestone, Ardre VIII image stone, the Hørdum stone, and the Gosforth Cross.

A stone slab that may be a portion of a second cross at Gosforth also shows a fishing scene using an ox head.

Of these, the Ardre VIII stone is the most interesting, with a man entering a house where an ox is standing, and another scene showing two men using a spear to fish.

The image on this stone is dated to the 8th or 9th century.

If the stone is correctly interpreted as depicting this myth, it demonstrates that the myth was in a stable form for a period of about 500 years to the recording of the myth in the Prose Edda around the year 1220.