The Orcadian Mester Stoorworm is a prime example of the Scandinavian dragon in Britain. There are two main types of dragon in these islands: the heraldic dragon, winged and usually fire-breathing, and the worm, for which one generally supposes a Scandinavian origin, which is generally huge, often wingless and most commonly a sea monster. These worms are not fire-breathing, but have a poisonous breath. The Mester Stoorworm fulfilled all these qualifications. Traill Dennison, whose manuscript is reproduced in Scottish Fairy and Folk Tales, gives several descriptions of the creature.

Now you must know [he says] that this was the largest, the first, and the father of all the Stoorworms. Therefore was he well named the Mester Stoorworm. With his venomous breath he could kill every living creature on which it fell, and could wither up everything that grew.

A little later, as Assipattle sails out towards the Stoorworm, the description becomes even more gargantuan:

The monster lay before him like an exceedingly big and high mountain, while the eyes of the monster — some say he had but one eye — glowed and flamed like a ward fire. It was a sight that might well have terrified the bravest heart. The monster's length stretched half across the world. His awful tongue was hundreds on hundreds of miles long. And, when in anger, with his tongue he would sweep whole towns, trees, and hills into the sea. His terrible tongue was forked. And the prongs of the fork he used as a pair of tongs, with which to seize his prey. With that fork he would crush the largest ship like an egg-shell. With that fork he would crack the walls of the biggest castle like a nut, and suck every living thing out of the castle into his maw.

Later, in his dying agony, he spews out his teeth and they become the Orkneys, the Faroes and the Shetland Islands. His forked tongue entangles itself on one horn of the moon and his curled-up body hardens into Iceland. The whole thing is an extravaganza, a fairy-tale, not a legend.

[Motifs: B11.2.1.3; B11.11]