Thrim - Human Juice Connoisseur

As part of the process of researching for my novel, I’ve been doing quite a bit of reading about creatures and monsters in Celtic mythology.

Although I’m looking for information about sprites, faeries and familiars, I’ve come across some hideous (ie brilliantly gory) stories. Those Celts really loved their blood and guts, didn’t they?

One of my personal faves is the story of Thrim…

Back in the day (we’re talking millennia ago), Norway was said to be riddled with giants. Now, generally, giants and humans lived in harmony, but there was this one big-guy, Thrim, who wouldn’t play by society’s rules.

There’s always one, isn’t there?

Anyway, Thrim had a fairly hefty appetite, and he had a particular penchant for human ‘juice’ - I won’t go into too much detail, but just imagine your average Norwegian, head removed, fashioned into a kind of juice pack. Oh wait, I just went into too much detail.

Sorry.

So, by regularly helping himself to some tasty human Hors d’oeuvres, Thrim managed to ruin the lovely sense of community that everyone else in Norway had created. This went over about as well as a free dive at a sewerage farm….

The giants and humans got together for a bit of a town meeting and decided to banish poor old Thrim from Norway.

(Like modern day politicians, they thought the best policy was to make it someone else’s problem).

Thrim wasn’t particularly bothered - he was ready for a sea-change anyway. He was all, ‘later gaters’ and waded through the North Sea (it was apparently pretty shallow then) over to the Shetland Islands in Scotland where he thought there might be a bit less resistance (what with the absence of giants, and all).

As he worked through his ocean mega-walk, he started a bit of a chant for himself, just to pass the time, y’know? Over in the Shetlands, locals could hear the chant, getting louder and more ominous as Thrim made his way across the sea towards them:

“I’m gonna find you! I’m gonna catch you! I’m gonna eat you!” If you just heard that chant in Liam Neeson’s voice, then you are not alone, my friend.

But I digress…

Thrim made it to Shetland and thought it was a dead-set paradise. Nice and green. Lots of humans for human-juice cocktails. No other giants to give him stick about his culinary choices. This was, quite literally, the best decision he’d ever made. He probably gave himself a little pat on the back at this point, leaning back, hands on hips, just taking it all in.

So. Much. Serenity…

Pretty quick smart, he ran out of snacks on Shetland. I mean, it’s never really had a massive population, and it was even more sparsely populated then, I’d wager. So Thrim made his way over to the Scottish mainland and started human-hunting around Applecross.

Well, as you can imagine, the Applecrossers weren’t too happy about this, so they hatched a plan. They dug a pit, filled it with spikes, and used some local kids as bait to lure him to it. Don’t even get me started on what bad form that is from a parenting perspective, but these were different times, and when there’s a local giant eating the rellos, you have to compromise your usual moral standards. Try not to judge…

So the plan worked, and Thrim fell in the pit where he was impaled like a giant, gruesome, mashmallow-on-a-stick. Then, all the townsfolk got together and did a bit of mass-stabbing to finish him off, as was the custom at the time. Satisfied with their handiwork, they all went and had a massive party, congratulating themselves on their excellent violence in front of the kids.

That’s how they learn.

Unfortunately, the little pieces of chopped up Thrim-flesh were still alive, and still singing his catchphrase - “I’m gonna find you! I’m gonna catch you! I’m gonna eat you!”. As you can imagine, this was a surprising and disturbing development, from the locals’ perspective.

So, this time they set fire to him. It was kind of like that kid in game of thrones, Jojen Reed, who gets stabbed, then has his throat cut, and then gets pulverised by a molotov cocktail. It might seem like overkill, but sometimes you’ve just got to be sure.

Anyway, the townies thought for sure this time they had sealed the deal.

WRONG.

The ash from the incinerated Thrim-flesh-cubes managed to float down the hill to Applecross, and took after the villagers again. It was like the Terminator - Thrim just wouldn’t die!

The ash cloud chased the locals around, biting the living daylights out of them, becoming the very first swarm of midges. These bitey little terrors are still around now, still trying to find you, still trying to catch you, and still trying to eat you.

Nasty wee buggers!