Legend: Walrus

 Please see the Introduction To Rabbit Hole Legend A-Z post for information about sources and purpose

Walrus: "I am the Walrus" ("No You're Not!" said little Nicola). The Walrus was Paul. If it's not Paul in the walrus costume in George Harrison's "When we was Fab", then who is it? What's up with all the smoke and mirrors around the walrus??

I would like to note here that I spent a great deal of time trying to verify the "Paul is Dead" rumor regarding "Walrus means corpse in Greek" or "Walrus means death in Scandinavian countries".  I searched for hours and hours, and through multiple books. I have Failed to find any evidence of Walrus being related to Greek anything, and the Greek name for walrus translates into "Tooth-walker". The Scandinavian rumor was harder, I couldn't find a direct relationship between Walrus and any terms meaning death; BUT! Read on....

"Both in Chukotka and Alaska, the aurora borealis is believed to be a special world inhabited by those who died by violence, the changing rays representing deceased souls playing ball with a walrus head.

Because of its distinctive appearance, great bulk, and immediately recognizable whiskers and tusks, the walrus also appears in the popular cultures of peoples with little direct experience with the animal, particularly in English children's literature. Perhaps its best-known appearance is in Lewis Carroll's whimsical poem "The Walrus and the Carpenter" that appears in his 1871 book Through the Looking-Glass. In the poem, the eponymous antiheroes use trickery to consume a great number of oysters.[...]

Another appearance of the walrus in literature is in the story "The White Seal" in Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book, where it is the "old Sea Vitch—the big, ugly, bloated, pimpled, fat-necked, long-tusked walrus of the North Pacific, who has no manners except when he is asleep". <Source>

"Walruses have their part in Inuit mythology. In one of the stories explaining the northern lights, the flickering patterns in the sky are thought to represent people who have died and travelled to the other world, where they engage in a game of soccer or football. As they dance across the sky, the sky-players use a walrus head as a ball, kicking it back and forth. If they kick it just right, the tusks get stuck in the snow and the head stands still. 

Another legend, the story of Arnakpaktuq or Arnaqtatuuq, tells how a shaman decided to be reborn as many different species of animals, in order to find out how they lived. At one point he lived as a walrus. He said that the walruses were friendly and pleasant to live with, except that they kissed a lot and their kiss (perhaps used to suck molluscs off the bottom of the ocean) was very powerful.

A third myth, widespread across the whole Arctic, tells of how walruses were created from the third finger joints of Sedna, when her father cut them off." <Source>

  Other notable Walrus associations: "Barry White, who was popularly known as 'The Walrus of Love'.  Supermarine Walrus- a British amphibious aircraft of World War II, Westland Walrus- a British reconnaissance aircraft of the 1920s, HNLMS Walrus- two submarines of the Royal Netherlands Navy,
HMS Walrus- the name of two ships and one submarine of the Royal Navy, SS Walrus- a 19th century vessel that operated in Australia as a floating, illegal, moonshine still, before being replaced by the legal, Beenleigh Rum Distillery, USS Walrus- three submarines of the United States Navy, Walrus class submarine- a type of submarine currently operated by the Royal Netherlands Navy." As well, "The Walrus is a Canada general interest magazine; Walrus (comics) is a minor Marvel Comics supervillain of Spider-Man." <Source>  

AND...then there is this: [From: The Lion, the Witch and the Walrus Images of the Sorcerous North in the 16th  and 17th centuries, Stefan Donecker (European University Institute, Florence)]

"In the 15th century legendary Saga of Hjálmþér and Ölver (Hjálmþés saga ok Ölvers), the two heroes and their companion, Hörðr, flee the wrath of evil King Hundingr. In a feat of amazing saga shapeshifting, the king transforms himself into a walrus and pursues the heroes' ship:

A little while after, they saw a great walrus making for them, angry and frightful to behold. “There”, said Hörðr, “is a creature very ill-disposed towards me, that I may not look upon. [...] You must not name my name while he is here, for if you do I shall die.” And he lay down in the hold, and they covered him with clothes.

[...] Despite his untimely demise, Hunding the walrus is a worthy representative of the many strange beasts and creatures that were believed to dwell in the north.[...]

Both in the Historia de gentibus septentrionalibus as well as in his famous map of the north, Carta Marina (1539), Olaus describes and visualizes a vast array of fearsome animals that dwell in the north, on land and in the sea, many of which are said to prey on hapless human beings. Again, the mighty walrus is not missing, and it is described as a particularly dangerous creature:

The Norway Coast, toward the more Northern parts, hath huge great Fish as big as Elephants, which are called Morsi, or Rosmari, may be they are so from their sharp biting; for if they see any man on the Sea-shore, and can catch him, they come suddenly upon hum, and rend him with their Teeth, that they will kill him in a trice. Therefore, these Fish called Rosmari, or Morsi, have heads fashioned like to an Oxes, and a hairy Skin, and hair growing as thick as straw or corn-reeds, that lye loose very largely. They will raise themselves with their Teeth as by Ladders to the very tops of Rocks, that they may feed on the Dewie Grasse, or fresh Water, and role themselves in it, and then go to the Sea again.

Vicki Ellen Szabo has pointed out that Olaus' impressive accounts of walruses, whales and similar sea monsters were deeply rooted in medieval traditions that perceived such creatures not only as symbols of evil and paganism, but even as factual agents and associates of the devil. The archetype of all such infernal maritime monsters was the biblical Leviathan, which was commonly equated with the great fish that had swallowed Jonah, and whose gaping mouth came to signify the entrance to hell." <Source>