The Viking Legacy

In 911, the Frankish king Charles the Simple made a desperate bargain. He granted the Viking leader Rollo and his followers land at the mouth of the Seine—if they would convert to Christianity and defend the realm against other Norse raiders. Thus began Normandy, "land of the Northmen," where Scandinavian warriors put down roots without entirely forgetting their origins.

The Norse didn't simply conquer; they adapted, intermarried, and synthesized. Their gods didn't disappear overnight but went underground, transforming into local spirits, cautionary tales, and half-remembered customs. A Norman farmer invoking Saint Michael against storms might unconsciously echo prayers to Thor. The Wild Hunt that rides across Britain and Brittany takes on a distinctly Norse flavor in Normandy, led not by Arthur but by Odin-like figures—one-eyed strangers who appear at crossroads offering dangerous bargains.

The Dragon of the Seine

Where the Seine meets the sea near Rouen, sailors still speak of the Gargouille, a dragon that once terrorized the region. The creature lived in the Seine, capsizing boats, breathing floods instead of fire, and demanding human sacrifice. The legend interweaves Norse dragon lore with Christian hagiography in typically Norman fashion.

As the story goes, in the 7th century, Saint Romanus arrived in Rouen to find the city in thrall to the monster. The pagan inhabitants offered criminals to the beast, but its hunger only grew. Romanus made a deal: if they would convert to Christianity, he would rid them of the dragon.

Armed only with faith (and according to some versions, accompanied by a condemned man who had nothing to lose), Romanus confronted the Gargouille. He subdued it with the sign of the cross, then led it back to Rouen using his stole as a leash. The townspeople burned the creature, but its head and neck, tempered by its own flood-breath, wouldn't burn. These they mounted on the newly built church as a warning to other monsters—and as the prototype for the gargoyles that would later guard Gothic cathedrals.

But older versions hint at different origins. Some say the Gargouille was the last of the great serpents the Vikings fought in their homeland waters, driven across the sea by the coming of the White Christ. Others claim it was a dreki, a dragon-spirit that lived in the figurehead of a Norse longship, abandoned when its crew settled down to Norman life and angry at being forgotten.