8/7/2019 norse-07

1/35

NorseMyth

8/7/2019 norse-07

2/35

Sources

Norse myths existed only in oral form while they were central toreligious belief. They were only written down after NorthernEurope had become Christian.

So we have new problems with our primary sources:

no coherent body of literature showing the myths and legendspossible alteration due to the influence of Christianity

fictionalization of stories which originally had religiousimportance.

Plus:

a wide time span, wide geographical range and many differentsub-cultures

8/7/2019 norse-07

3/35

SourcesSnorri Sturlesson: The Prose

Edda. A narrative of manydifferent adventures of theNorse gods, but presented asa fictional account,sometimes almosthumorous. The closest wehave to an overview/collection of Norse myth,but often untraditional, and

very engaged withintellectual & Christiantraditions (e.g., he connectsThor with Troy).

8/7/2019 norse-07

4/35

Poetic Eddas: Traditionalsongs, which often refer to

mythic incidents, usually justindividual adventures.Skaaldic songs: poems inhonor of humanaccomplishments, with

occasional references to myth,sometimes very cryptic.

Sources

8/7/2019 norse-07

5/35

The Gods

The Norse gods are dividedinto two races: Aesir andVanir.

Aesir are dominant; they

are the gods most associatedwith heroic tales, conflictwith giants, warfare, and thebeginning and end of theworld.

Vanir tend to be fertilitydeities; there are fewer ofthem.

8/7/2019 norse-07

6/35

The Vanir:

Njord, a god of the sea and seafaring

Freyr

, a god of crop fertility, who

may have features in common withdying gods like Dumuzi andAdonis;

Freyja, the most renowned of the

goddesses, who alone of the gods stilllives (Sturlesson). Goddess of loveand sexuality, also associated withcrop fertility; goddess of a realm ofdeath; associated with shamanic

experience.

The Gods

8/7/2019 norse-07

7/35

The Gods

Sturlesson refers to the gods as a family, and says there are 12 ofthem, but this may be influence from the Classical world.

The Norse gods do not have simple family relationships.

Odin is the chief of the gods; more later. His wife is Frigg, whosename means fate.

Thor is a god of thunder, with the muscle, violence, and brutestrength laced with intelligence, that we see in Heracles.

Loki is a trickster figure, often on the side of mischief or evenevil; his father was a giant.

Tyr is a war god, who bound the wolf Fenrir (more later).

Balder (the beautiful) is the beloved god who dies . . .)

8/7/2019 norse-07

8/35

Odin

Odin is a multifaceted,mysterious, often deceptivegod. A list of some of hisnames hints at his complexnature:

The Hooded one, theWarrior, Helmet-god, theHigh one, the Blind one,Capricious, Inflamer, Weak-

eyes, Fiery-eyed, Evil-doer,Father of Victory, The Onewith the Magic Staff, theGelding, Feeder, Destroyer,

Terror, Wind, God of Men.

8/7/2019 norse-07

9/35

Odin

God of Wisdom:Odin has only one eye. Hegave up the other to drinkfrom the fountain of Mimir(memory/knowledge) inUtgard. So he has one eyeon this world, one eye inanother realm ofknowledge.Odin has two ravens, Hugin

and Munin. Thought andMemory, who bring himnews from all over theworld. His wisdom can betrickiness or betrayal.

8/7/2019 norse-07

10/35

Odin

Odin won the wisdom of runes:

I remember I hung on thewindswept tree nine wholenights, Stabbed by the spear,

given to Odin, myself to myself.Of that tree no man knows whatroots it springs from.

No bread they gave me, no

drink from the horn,down I peered. I took up runes,howling I took them up, Andback again I fell.

8/7/2019 norse-07

11/35

Odin

Odin andS

hamanism:Hanging on a tree & sufferingis a way to access other worlds,other experiences.

Odin is the only male figureto use the shamanic tranceknown as seidr usuallyassociated with Freyja.

Odin also has the ability otchange his shape.

All of these are shamanicskills, ecstatic ways of gaining

wisdom and experience.

8/7/2019 norse-07

12/35

Odin

Odin as trickster:

Odins Germanic predecessor,Wotan, was associated withMercury (Hermes) by theRomans.

Odin often deceives andtricks, sometimes in theinterest of justice, sometimesfor his own arcane purposes:

Odin and Geirrod: Geirrodmistreats Odin in disguise;when Geirrod realizes hismistake, he rushes to help

but falls on his sword.

Odin stole the mead of poeticinspiration from the giants.

First he tricks the giants servantsinto killing each other so he can

tak

e their place.Then he seduces the giantsdaughter, using his shape-changing powers to get to her.

Successful, he flies away as a raven.

8/7/2019 norse-07

13/35

Odin Odin as a war god:He is god of the kings in battle.

He can inspire battle-terror(magical binding of the will,) aswell as the battle frenzy of theberserker.

He can bestow and withdraw favoreasily (e.g. king Harald, p. 50).

You (Odin) have never been able

to order the course of war; oftenyou have given victory to cowards. . .

Odin has broken faith it is not

safe to trust him.

8/7/2019 norse-07

14/35

OdinAs a god of death:

Odin rides and 8-legged horse,Sleipnir, which represents the bierof the dead man, and the passagebetween worlds.

He presides over the wild ride.

He presides over Valhalla, wherethe heroic dead killed in battlego to spend eternity fightingand partying.

The Valkyries, goddesses whocome down to the battlefield tobring up the souls of the dead,are Odins assistants.

Odins wandering, one-eyeddouble vision, and shamanicconnections, also associate himwith the permeable border

between living and dead.

8/7/2019 norse-07

15/35

Thor

Thor is the foremost of thegods. He is called Aesir-Thor or Charioteer-Thor.He is the strongest of all

gods and men. He has three

valuable properties:The first is the hammer

Mjollnir, which the frost-giants recognize the

moment it is raised on high!{The second is his belt of

strength, the third is his irongloves.}

Sturlesson, Prose Edda

To turn from the sinister,deceitful and complex Odin

to the simple-minded andstraightforward Thor issomething of a relief. Thor isa battler; his enemies are the

gods enemies: giants,monsters and primevalforces. R. I Page

Thors hammer

was a populargood luck

talisman inNorthernEurope, even in

Christian times.

8/7/2019 norse-07

16/35

Thor

Thor is a storm god, a thunder god.Thunder was caused either by hishammer, or by the wheels of hischariot, which was pulled by goats.

(The goats had a magical property:they could be roasted and eaten,and would reconstitute themselvesovernight.)

Images of Thor were used as flintand steel to kindle fires.

Pillars representing Thor were flungout of sailing ships to mark thecurrents toward land.

8/7/2019 norse-07

17/35

Thor God of the PeopleThor had a lastingpopularity among ordinarypeople.

He was a straightforwardsavior, and his hammer wasa protective talisman.

His temples proliferated inpre-Christian times, and hewas the most-frequentlyworshipped Norse god.His ring (an arm ring?)represented fidelity tooaths.

8/7/2019 norse-07

18/35

Thor

Thors chief enemies:Frost-giants. He is frequently inconflict with them.

Iormungand, the World serpent,which Thor fights several times:

Thor fishes it up one time andalmost capsizes the boat; hiscompanion cuts the line.

In Utgard, Thor tries to lift it,deceived into thinking its a kitten

Thor fights it at Ragnarok.

8/7/2019 norse-07

19/35

Thor

Typical Thor:Delight in eating and drinking;humorous stories about thesecapacities

Not always very bright; oftentricked and finding himself inhumiliating circumstances (e.g.when he visits Utgard; when heimpersonates Freya to get his stolenhammer back.)

Can always be counted on to exerthis strength and take care ofknotty,difficult problems by brute force.

8/7/2019 norse-07

20/35

Thor:

ancient &modernideas . . .

8/7/2019 norse-07

21/35

Creation

In the south was a land of fire; inthe north was a land of ice. Theymet in the great emptiness ofGinnungagap, and the ice began tomelt.

From the melting ice came a hugegiant, Ymir.

The first man and woman grewfrom under his arms. The frost-

giants grew from his feet.Ymir fed on the milk of a cow,which licked another creature, anman named Bur, from the ice.

8/7/2019 norse-07

22/35

Creation

Burs grandsons, Odin and2 others, killed Ymir andmade the world from hisparts:

his skull became the sky

his eyebrows formed abarrier between the worldof men and the world ofgiants

his blood became sea andlakes

his bones became the

mountains

The world was divided into severalparts:

Utgard, the home of the giants

Midgard, the land of humans

Asgard, the home of the gods

Hel, home of the dead

The world tree, Yggdrasill,

extended between all of theselands.

At its foot in Asgard was the wellod Urd, where the Norns lived,

three women who oversee fate.

8/7/2019 norse-07

23/35

World in the Balance

Yggdrasill, the world tree,spans the different realms ofNorse myth.

These realms (Utgard,Midgard, Asgard) are joinedby the three roots of the great tree Yggdrasill. (Each seemsto have the whole tree )

At its roots in Asgard is thewell of Urd, where the Nornslive; at its roots in Utgard isthe well of Ymir.

It represents a worldequilibrium that is more likeentropy:

Around its roots is a serpent;

At its top is an eagle;A squirrel runs up and downbetween them;

Deer are constantly eating at

its branches;and the Norns continually tryto shore up the damage.

8/7/2019 norse-07

24/35

Lands of Death

Hel, the shadowy underworld overseen by Lok

is daughter of thesame name. It is dark, gated, and much like Hades/Sheol/Kurnugi

Valholl (a.k.a. Valhalla, where the souls of dead warriors are takenafter death by the Valkyries. There they dink and fight untilRagnarok, when they will fight on the side of the gods.

Freyjas realm: there are references to Freyjas taking half of the dead,while Odin takes the other half.

afterlife in the barrows: High-

status people were somtimes buriedunder a mound, called a barrow;burials of an entire ship have beenfound.

8/7/2019 norse-07

25/35

Loki To a reader ofSnorri, Loki isperhaps the most outstandingcharacter among the Northerngods, the chief actor in themost amusing stories, and themotivating force in a largenumber of plots. (Davidson)

Intelligent, astute to thehighest degree, but amoral,loving to make mischief greator small, as much to amusehimself as to do harm, he

represents among the Aesir atruly demonic element. Someof the assailants of the futureRagnarok, the wolf Fenrir andthe great Serpent, are his sons,

and his daughter is Hel. (GeorgesDumezil)

Loki is a classic trickster figure.

8/7/2019 norse-07

26/35

Loki

Loki is a chief instigator in manytales:

Loki found a way to keep thegiant from building the wall of

Asgard on time. Heimpersonated a mare to distractthe giants work horse. (Hebecame pregnant and gave birthto Sleipnir.) Shape changing and

trans-gender problems aretypical of tricksters.

He gave up the golden apples ofimmortality (and got them

back)

He helped Thor get back hishammer, and went with himto Utgard

Loki was caught by a giantand betrayed Thor to him

Loki aroused the dragons tohatred of the gods because ofa wanton act of cruelty(Otters revenge) and used

trickery to get out of itLoki cut offSifs goldenhair, causing the creation ofthe greatest treasures of the

gods.

8/7/2019 norse-07

27/35

Loki & Balder

The most important tale ofLoki is how he arranged thedestruction of Balder.

There is nothing but good to

be said about Balder. He is thebest of the gods and everyonesings his praises. He is so fair

of face and bright that asplendor radiates from him . . .

He is the wisest of the gods,and the sweetest-spoken, andthe most merciful, but noneof his judgments come true.

Balder dreamed he would be

killed, so Frigg (his mother)made all living creatures swearnot to harm him.

The gods then enjoyed

throwing things at him, since allfell away harmlessly.

Loki was jealous.

In disguise, Loki found outfrom Frigg that the mistletoehad not sworn. Then he trickedthe blind god Hod intothrowing it at Balder, and Balder

wask

illed.

8/7/2019 norse-07

28/35

Loki & Balder

Hel agreed to return Balder tothe world of the living if everyliving creature mourned him.

All complied except for one

old giant woman who wasLoki in disguise.

When the other gods foundout Lokis treachery, they

condemned him to be boundto a rock, with serpents poisondripping onto him (a fatesimilar to that of thebenevolent trickster

Prometheus . . .)

8/7/2019 norse-07

29/35

Tyr and Fenrir

Tyr is a minor god in Norse myth,featuring in few stories, but was possiblymore important in earlier times.

His Germanic predecessor, Tiwaz, was asky-god similar to Zeus.

The one story in which Tyr features isthe binding of the wolf Fenrir. Tyr puthis hand in Fenrirs mouth as a pledge offaith, and when the gods bound thewolf, he bit off the hand.

Fenrir is one of three terrible children ofLoki: the others are Hel andIormungand.

8/7/2019 norse-07

30/35

Ragnarok

Norse myth, unlik

e Greek

andNear Eastern, does not portraya world in which the gods haveconquered discord andestablished order, but a world

in which the gods areconstantly battling theiradversaries.

This battle comes to a head at

Ragnarok.The death of Balder is oneelement in the final episode ofNorse myth, Ragnarok, The

Twilight of the Gods.

8/7/2019 norse-07

31/35

RagnarokLoki remains suffering under the

poison of the serpent, andBalder remains in Hel (ratherthan in Valholl!) until theconflicts of Ragnarok.

The end of the world is precededby an increase of wars andconflicts among men; thenthere is a three-year winter.

Monsters break loose,Iormungand emerges from thesea and floods the earth. A wolfswallows the sun and herbrother the moon; stars fallfrom the sky.

Led by the giant Surt, with Lokias the helmsman, the giantsarrive in their ship, Naglfar,made from the uncut fingernails

of the dead.A huge battle between gods andgiants takes place at the gates ofAsgard.

An age of axes, an age of

swords, shattered shields, anAge of tempests, an age ofwolves, before the age of

men crashes down.

8/7/2019 norse-07

32/35

Ragnarok

Odin is swallowed by Fenrir;Odins son Vidar kills the

wolf in revenge.

Thor once again fightsIormungand; he kills it, butdies from the venom.

Tyr fights the hound Garm,and they kill each other.

Five hundred doors and forty

more in Valholl I think thereare. Eight hundred warriors at atime will pass each door to fight

the wolf. . . Fenrir rushesforward, his jaws agape, so that

the upper one touches theheavens, the lower one touches

the earth. (Sturlesson/Page)

8/7/2019 norse-07

33/35

8/7/2019 norse-07

34/35

Ragnarok

Balder returns from Hel torule over this new world, inpeace and plenty.

A golden age arises; fieldsflourish without work.

Two humans survived tobegin the race again . . .

The Aesir meet again and

speak of the mightyIormungand, and call to mind

the mighty judgments and theancient mysteries of the Great

God himself. (Voluspa)

Does this renewal of the worldshow influence fromChristianity? Some say yes given other Christian ideas others say that the idea of afinal conflict and new age isalso present in Indo-European mythology.

In any case, the brutalconclusion leads to new life.

8/7/2019 norse-07

35/35

finis