Further Reflections on the Hárbarðsljóð

TW: sexual assault/rape

Last night, the Hárbarðsljóð kept me up. I don't think about the poem all that often, other than as a reference to the fact that Thor has a hall for the peasants and thralls who die, as another marker of how he stands for the weak and the forgotten, for the every man rather than the kings and men of power.

But last night, after Dr. Ford's testimony and the Kavanaugh defense, a piece of the poem came vividly into focus--and suddenly it wasn't so funny anymore. It wasn't something I could dismiss or ignore or push aside any longer.

These particular lines:

Harbarth spake:
30. "Eastward I was, | and spake with a certain one,
I played with the linen-white maid, | and met her by stealth;
I gladdened the gold-decked one, | and she granted me joy."
Thor spake:
31. "Full fair was thy woman-finding."
Harbarth spake:
32. "Thy help did I need then, Thor, | to hold the white maid fast."
Thor spake:
33. "Gladly, had I been there, | my help to thee had been given."

These lines sound very much like two men boasting and congratulating one another on their conquests, and not only that--it sounds very much like Thor is talking about gladly helping Odin hold a woman down while he rapes her.

Suddenly, I wasn't sure if I could trust Thor.

Those of you who have been following the blog for forever know that Thor is pretty much my patron god. I'm Heathen and my faith in Thor has gotten me through a LOT over the years. Even before I recognized who he was, he was beside me, lending me strength to face my greatest struggles and my hardest moments. Thor is... one of the two most important things in my life. Half of a binary sun around which my life orbits. Questioning that faith, that trust, is not a small thing for me. Not at all.

I can take you through any number of mental gymnastics, a handful of theories that excuse Thor's general behavior in this poem on the whole--that the poem, a flytting poem, is basically meant to be a hit job on his character, to show him as useless and worthless, to undermine the faith of his followers in a time when Christianity was pushing hard against pagan faith traditions. Or point out the fact that the lore and the myths are not divinely inspired gospel, but written by men, copied and recopied imperfectly much later, and in this particular case, was probably preserved BECAUSE it takes shots at Thor.

I can tell myself, and you, that this does not in any way align with the Thor I have come to know--that it is at complete odds with the god who stands beside me, and I can remind myself that I have always believed that both the gods change with us, AND as we change, our understanding of the gods changes too. This poem might well just be a reflection of the culture of the time and nothing more, an attempt to see mankind in the divine, and as we have grown, we are more able to see PAST our own reflections to the deeper truth of their character and their presence.

But it doesn't take away these verses. Or the others, where Thor shows an overeager interest in Odin/Harbarth's sexual conquests. It doesn't make it hurt less to read these words as they spill from the lips of the god I love.

It doesn't make it any easier to realize that in a thousand years, nothing has changed. Because a thousand years ago, men were still boasting of their conquests, laughing together about the pleasure they took at the expense of some woman along the way.

I don't know what any of this means. How to reconcile it, really or fully, with my experience of Thor and my faith. I expect I'm going to be wrestling with that for some time. But I'm not going to pretend that the suggestion of sexual violence isn't there. Not in the past--not when it is something we are still fighting against so desperately in the present.

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The Thor in Norse Mythology Masterpost!

Continuing the trend from last week, to get you all ready for BEYOND FATE's release on the 16th (ONLY ONE WEEK AWAY AHHH!!!), here's a master post of all my MYTHOLOGY* Thor posts!

The Essential Thor

In which I discuss what I believe is the heart of Thor's character! Hint: it is not his muscles or related to the thunder and lightning elements, either.

Thor vs Odin in the Hárbarðsljóð

In which I discuss this most epic of poems and the relationship between Thor and Odin which it implies. Hint: I don't think it was very healthy. Poor Thor! But the poem is seriously amazing generally, and the exchanges between Odin and Thor are fascinating!

Thor in Drag

Because everyone needs to hear the story of Thor dressed up as a bride at least once. It's important.

Thor and Loki

This is maybe one of the most important relationships to understand when it comes to Norse Mythology -- second only, perhaps, to Odin and Loki. But their relationship in the myths is definitely different from the common (Marvel) interpretation, and I think it's even more interesting and fascinating in its original form.

The Goats of Thor

Seriously, this is an instance of the animal companions being fundamental to the understanding of the God in question.

Snorri's Agenda in the Prose Edda

Because for some reason Snorri thought it was necessary to claim that Thor is actually Hector, and it makes me so irate, I had to rant somewhere. But also because it's important to know that these sources are totally post-Christianization and biased, so don't believe everything Snorri writes.

The Story of Thjalfi

As Thor's bondservant, Thjalfi's story is completely and totally intertwined with Thor, start to finish. And it's also a really fun story, generally, about one of Thor's more memorable adventures with Loki, when he bit off a little bit more than he could chew... or um, drink, anyway.

For the Love of Thor

My guest post over at Kevin Hearne's blog gives a pretty great overview of Thor in the myths if you want a quicker version, with a line or two about where my FATE OF THE GODS interpretation differs!

Pantsless Thor

This is maybe more focused on the artistic representation of Thor, than the mythology, exactly, but you should probably know that Thor wore a belt which doubled his strength, and um... what kind of art that resulted in.

And to wrap it all up --

Thor in Comics, Myth, and Film, and the Christianization of Myth

I think this is something worth a lot of consideration and thought -- as I discuss above, most of our sources regarding Norse Myth and Thor are drawn from a post-Christian world, and even written BY Christians. But myth is a living thing, and those stories are still evolving, and so are our interpretations of the characters. These new interpretations and retellings have value!

*look if I linked to all the posts, we'd be here until next year. There are so many, guys. So. Many.

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Holiday Hiatus with Santa Thor!

'Tis the Season!

I'll be back to post about A Winter's Enchantment -- a holiday themed fantasy romance anthology from World Weaver Press, which contains a very exciting Fate of the Gods Novella! -- but otherwise, expect things to be quieter around these parts for the rest of December (and probably through January, because I need to get me into the writer cave after my incredibly unproductive NaNoWriMo failure!) But when I come back, I promise to have some REALLY AWESOME news to share, which I hope you will be as excited about as I am.*

To tide you over, can I interest you in a comic about Santa's secret identity? (Spoiler: It's related to Norse Myth.)

Or how about a fabulous 4.5 Star Review of FORGED BY FATE (plus a giveaway)?

I am sorry to say I'm lacking a NEW holiday mythological-figure-wearing-Santa-hat for the blog this year, so you'll have to settle for Santa Thor from a few years back! From Thor and Me (and El Husband I suppose!) to you and yours:

Have a happy holiday season (whatever you celebrate!) and a fantastic new year!!

Thor's Santa Hat edit by the fabulous Zak Tringali.
also it is all the more fitting after you read the comic strip. Just fyi.

*Hint: it might be related to my next release! And um. Hunky Orcs.

Magical Objects, part TWO (Seven Viking Romances V)

More magical objects for your reference and mine! From the Seven Viking Romances -- finishing up with the romance of Arrow-Odd, today, and moving on to the romance of King Gautrek (Son of Gauti the Boss -- Gautrek himself is kind of worthless), and then Halfdan Eysteinsson!

4) "The best of all swords" Snidil 
     It "never faltered in battle" owned by Odd's companion, Sirnir. That's really all there is to be said about it in the story. It isn't exactly magic, I suppose, but never faltering in battle seems pretty super-power to me.

5) Three Stone Arrows
     Gifted to Odd from an old man named Jolf while Odd was living in disguise (dressed in bark) and going by the name of "Barkman." These stone arrows could only be used once, and were meant to defeat an enemy which Gusir's Gift couldn't. Odd uses them, and they disappear after taking out his enemy.

From the Romance of King Gautrek:

6) Starkad's Magic Spear
     It appears to everyone else only to be reed, anad Starkad uses it to kill King Vikar in sacrifice to Odin, when Vikar would have made mockery of hanging himself to the god. When Starkad pokes Vikar in the side with it, it turns back into a spear. Magic!

From the Romance of Halfdan Eysteinsson:

7) Halfdan's Magic Sword
     Gifted to him by an elderly couple in the wood who nursed him back to health, the sword "seemed to drip venom from its edges." And it ensured victory to whoever held it -- at least if they "handled it properly" it would always find its mark.

8) A Necklace of Precious Stones
     Also a gift from the elderly couple -- the necklace protects Halfdan from harm, granting a certain level of invulnerability as long as the stones are whole. It's a good thing, too because half of Halfdan's enemies seem to shapeshift into dragons at the drop of a hat.

9) The sword Horn-Hilt
     Owned by a viking named Val, "inlaid with gold, and its stroke never failed."

We still have four Romances to go!

Related: Magical Objects, Arrow-Odd Edition

Sif, Goddess of... Prosperity?

We've talked a little bit about Sif before on the blog -- mostly in regard to how little we have in the source material attesting to her character, which I'd like to recap briefly:

Sif

Thor's wife, Sif, is only related to us in any real detail in two places. A story in the Skáldskaparmál (from Snorri's Prose Edda) during which Loki shaves off her hair in the night as a cruel prank, and within a poem called the Lokasenna in the Poetic Edda where Loki insults by turns the majority of those residing in Asgard, Sif included. Sif is greatly upset by the loss of her hair, and Loki, to make amends (and probably to prevent Thor from delivering a beating he wouldn't soon forget) retrieves for her a wig of golden hair from the dwarves to replace it. In the Lokasenna, Loki accuses Sif of taking him as her lover. We don't know if Sif actually did have an affair with Loki or not, as it is neither confirmed nor denied anywhere else in the remaining myths and she doesn't refute it in the poem.

We know Sif is beautiful, but other than these two accounts, we know nothing about her character. My own interpretation of Sif from these bits and pieces is of a vain goddess, and from the way she addresses Loki in the Lokasenna it almost sounds as though because of her relationship with him, she expects him not to insult her. I wouldn't be surprised if Loki appealed to her vanity to get her into bed with him, since Thor is so often out wandering and getting into fights with giants.

But there's a third discussion of Sif's character that I mentioned in a later post, from the Lay of Hárbarðr, wherein a disguised Odin, in a match of insult with Thor, tells his son that Sif is having an affair and he should get back home and deck that guy instead of standing around unarmed in a battle of wits. Add to this the established fact that Sif has a son, Ullr, who is most explicitly named as Thor's step-son, and it gives you some food for thought. Either Sif had an affair with someone before her marriage to Thor (totally plausible) or she had an affair after she married Thor.

Admittedly, both of these accusations regarding Sif's fidelity are brought out in Flyting Poems, wherin the entire point is to out-insult the other party. And just as admittedly, calling a dude a cuckold is probably low-hanging fruit. But you have to wonder. Or at least I do. Especially when there is so little else to support any indication of Sif's character beyond the story of her hair being shorn, are these two references to her as an adulteress preserved for a reason? Is it another way to show that Thor is kind of a dumb ox, too stupid to realize his wife is fooling around behind his back? But if so, it's only powerful if it's true.

Now it's pretty well assumed that Sif's golden hair is an association with wheat and the bounty of the harvest, and her marriage to Thor is maybe representative of the union of sky god and earth goddess -- the rain falling to fertilize the fields -- but I'm not sure this makes Sif herself a goddess of fertility, so much as it reflects upon Thor's position as a god of fertility. But what if Sif with her golden hair made of magic, practically living gold, was a goddess of prosperity instead? The sheering of her hair being representative of the harvest and the reaping of wheat is pretty well accepted, but instead of Sif growing that hair back like any normal person, it's replaced with gold. What if she's the goddess invoked to protect the STORES, the goddess of the gathered bounty, and the wealth it can provide in exchange.

There isn't, that I've found so far, any sign or symbolism related to Sif as a healer, but prosperity is hardly limited to grain and money (though I do kind of like the idea of her being a goddess of bread and beer, just because... alliteration). Prosperity is a product of health -- a man being strong enough to plow his fields and plant his seed, then capable of harvesting it, bringing it to market after that. It's a product of surviving childbirth and raising those kids to adulthood to help work the fields and support the family.

But if she's a goddess concerned with wealth, that certainly might relate to greed and vanity, in addition. Success and prosperity is so often caught up in honor and respect. Appearances and keeping up with the Joneses, next door. And if Thor is running around having affairs with Giantesses -- Jarnsaxa is the father of Magni, Thor's son -- and leaving her at home while he goes about Adventuring, it isn't difficult to believe that Sif might be inclined to punish him for the perceived slight to herself. And what Sif can give by way of prosperity, bounty, children, gold, honor, health, I have no trouble believing she can take away.

Maybe that's why the only child Sif and Thor have together is one, single daughter, Thrud.

Arrow-Odd's Odder Religion (Seven Viking Romances)

About twenty pages from the end of this first Viking Romance (Seven Viking Romances, Hermann Pálsson, Penguin, 1985) Odd exchanges some poetry with a priestess of Frey, that goes like this*:

Priestess: Whose the leader of this monstrous army?!
Odd: Me! and I burned all your temples, destroyed your idols, and couldn't care less!
Priestess: Frey will smite you, and so will the other gods, who will support me, their priestess!
Odd: I'm not afraid of you or your gods! God is my God!
Priestess:

"Who fostered you
to be such a fool,
as not to offer
sacrifice to Odin?"

Odd: Ingjald, what of it? I was totally ungrateful and rude to him, too.**
Priestess: WOE! my husband is dead!
Odd: And I killed him! HA!
Priestess: Who helped you, you monster?!
Odd: Just my wicked sweet magic arrows from this random mysterious guy I was drawn to sup with, AND, I never worshipped YOUR worthless gods! because they're worthless!

"These gutless gods
ran like scared goats
before a wolf
wherever I worried them.
Odin's bad
as a bosom friend:
so we'll do away
with devil-worship."

Priestess: WOE! *flees to hide in a temple*
Odd: Ha HA!

Odd then proceeds to be nervous about entering said temple, and ends up killing the priestess by throwing a giant boulder through the skylight, so he doesn't have to go in after her, in spite of the fact that he just proclaimed her gods totally made of lame.

But earlier in this story, a number of things take place which kind of makes all this anti-Odin stuff a little, well, odd.

1) Odd says he doesn't really believe in or worship ANY gods, though admittedly he states explicitly that he does not worship Odin.
2) Odd confesses that among the Christians, after his baptism (which he only agreed to upon the condition that he could keep on killing all the peoples in this matter-of-fact, I-guess-I-will-get-baptized-since-you-people-will-not-leave-me-alone moment that inspires no one), that he's "never been so bored in my life." And he SNEAKS AWAY to go back to his raiding, murdering, ungrateful ways.
3) One of his blood-brothers, "Red-Beard" is theorized in the story to be Odin, Himself, who gives Odd all kinds of help and good advice, and is repeatedly praised for giving good advice.
4) SO MUCH UNCHRISTIAN MAGIC.
5) After his baptism, Odd proceeds to go on for 40 pages without the slightest reference to Christianity or his supposed faith and trust in God.
6) This Norse-God loving priestess appears to have lived in Antioch, and Odd? he was fighting for Greece.

On this basis, I am going to call shenanigans on this insertion of religion into the story, and the whole "devil-worship" bit. Odd is easily the LEAST Christian person in the history of men baptized for convenience. Now, Odd's story does get recorded late -- the end of the 13th century or so. But reading this, I have a really hard time believing Odd's story didn't originate much earlier, with the Christian bits as an overlay, added at the time it was written down. Why else is Odd hanging around with Odin and going to Giantland where he's making babies with Giant-Ladies, even though he only comes up to their hip in height?

That said, I don't know what the scholarly consensus is, regarding these stories, so, maybe I'm way off base with my thoughts. Maybe Odd really is just a really bad Christian in a time of really bad Christians.

But I still say he is REALLY weird.

*forgive my paraphrasing
**this second part is my own addition

Fairy Tale vs Myth vs Legend vs Fable: With Kristina Wojtaszek, author of OPAL

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Myth, legend, fable, fairy tale -- where are they similar and where do they diverge? Kristina Wojtaszek, author of OPAL, is kind of the Fairy Tale equivalent to my Mythology love, over at World Weaver Press, and we thought it would be fun, and productive, to get together and talk about our two, very related fields. So of course we started at the beginning!

Amalia: I'd like to ask, do you think fairy tales/fables and myths serve kind of the same role in society? Where do they diverge? or don't they? 

Kristina: Myths, to my mind, are set in specific cultures, even specific locations (whether real or imagined), and the characters that inhabit them are all named specifically and accomplish specific tasks.  Fairy tales come from the foggy lands of glass mountains and dark woods that have no specific place on a map, or even a name usually.  They occur at figurative places in time, not imbedded in any certain culture or era, and even their characters are often unnamed.  "Long ago there was an old woman..."  The Greek Homer who traveled to such and such islands in the year blah (you're going to have to help me out with the details here!  Maybe that's why I do better in the fluffy, abstract world of fairy tales-- there are no dates, locations or even many names to remember.  [...])  That's why I get easily hooked on fairy tales; they're timeless.  Yeah, I know, spindles and glass slippers may not be all the rage in the 21st century, but falling in love, death (or eternal sleep), a woman's suppression in marriage, a mother's love and devotion, and all things magical... life after death, bravery, speaking bones that betray truth.  Oh, the possibilities of retelling those old tales are just endless!  I could totally see someone writing a modern murder mystery based on the old Grimm's The Singing Bone, for example.

Now myth and legend-- those babies are what made society, what bound a specific grouping of people together in a certain locale.  Those are the stories of how the world came to be, the embryos of culture.  They are far from nebulous, born like pearls around some tiny grain of truth, and worked over and shined through the centuries.  They have names, faces, places and dates.  They are hidden beneath thumb tacks on a map, in someone's head anyway.  And they serve to make the norms of a culture more alive and valued.  Vikings, for example-- I can't imagine a viking myth that didn't involve some aspect of fighting.  That was the life they were born and bred to, and it's only natural their tall tales should be armored with the same weapons of war.

Fables, as I've always understood, are lessons, or tips, serving guidance in short, quick-witted tales that make one nod.  Fairy tales also serve as lessons (hey little girl, don't go wandering in the woods all alone, there are wolves and uncivilized men out there...) but fables are more about preserving idioms to ward against idiots!  If you beat your donkey, one day he's going to kick back.  Don't flash your valuables in the face of others, like the tree who retains its pretty leaves all year, or you might get hit with a heavy snow storm that breaks your branches, while the naked trees survive just fine, and then how will you feel?  Things like that.  They are like the older versions of our mild sayings today, like "a watched pot never boils," only so much more creative and visual, with a bit more story to flesh them out.

Amalia: What you're saying about fables is really interesting, especially so close to what you're talking about with the Norse myths -- in the Havamal (from the Poetic or Elder Edda), there is a very, very long tract of common-sense words-of-wisdom from Odin that sound very fable-esque by your definition. I've talked about them a bit on my blog here and another grouping appears in the Saga of the Volsungs, spoken by Brynhild, giving advice to Sigurd, which I talk a little bit about here (and more on Brynhild and some of her wisdom in the first part of this post). Odin lands on the "A fool and his money are soon parted" side of the spectrum, for sure -- those little one liners that stick in your head. In this sense, I think the Edda is serving the role of both established text of mythology, and also that of the Fable, by your definition. But then again, the more I read of the sagas, the more I think they also serve a kind of fairy-tale role -- and where the sagas themselves fall, under myth, legend, or fairy tale, is something I think is up for debate.

I think that mythology serves a dual purpose though -- especially among the Greeks -- of cautionary tales. Over and over again you see this repetition of a mortal becoming too proud, and then being punished for his or her hubris. There's the story of Arachne, who boasts about her weaving, offends Athena and is turned into a spider. We see it also with Tantalus, who thinks himself so above his place that he dares to trick the gods by serving his own son for dinner, and when the gods see through it, he's punished by being put into a pool of water that recedes when he tries to drink, and surrounded by trees, the fruit and branches of which are always just out of reach. Narcissus who is so proud of his beauty, who because of Nemesis falls in love with his own reflection. Maybe the examples are more concrete in person and place and setting, but I think in part that's due to preservation of the source material more than anything else. You also see "punishments" for deviant women. Europa wandering off and being whisked away by the bull, Ariadne betrays her family to help Theseus and winds up abandoned by him on an island to die. The Amazon queens who are constantly being raped and carried off by heroes (and those names get awfully confused awfully fast).

Where do you feel Opal falls? Is it a story you can see having been told at the hearth by the old grandmother as a warning or just for sheer entertainment or to explain how something came to be? 

Kristina: Although Opal is a retelling of Snow White, a well known fairy tale, I fleshed the story out so that it takes place in a specific world of men and Fae with very specific characters.  So what's interesting is that the story of Opal actually becomes myth in the sequel I am working on!  In Obsidian, the events of Opal are now history, and those events and characters have lost quite a few details over the years, details that have been artfully replaced.  So, in Obsidian, Opal is a form of mythology where the men and Fae of long ago have been turned into gods and goddesses that are worshiped by a changed population.  And yet, Obsidian will also be a fairy tale retelling (not of Snow White again, but of another classic tale that I will let the readers figure out on their own).

What I've played around with is the idea that there is a grain of truth in every "lie," or story.  And this, I think, is true for fables, folklore, fairy tales and mythology alike.

***

Whether you prefer fairy tales or mythology, fables or legends, Opal just might be the book you're looking for!

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White as snow, stained with blood, her talons black as ebony… In this retwisting of the classic Snow White tale, the daughter of an owl is forced into human shape by a wizard who’s come to guide her from her wintry tundra home down to the colorful world of men and Fae, and the father she’s never known. She struggles with her human shape and grieves for her dead mother — a mother whose past she must unravel if men and Fae are to live peacefully together.

Trapped in a Fae-made spell, Androw waits for the one who can free him. A boy raised to be king, he sought refuge from his abusive father in the Fae tales his mother spun. When it was too much to bear, he ran away, dragging his anger and guilt with him, pursuing shadowy trails deep within the Dark Woods of the Fae, seeking the truth in tales, and salvation in the eyes of a snowy hare. But many years have passed since the snowy hare turned to woman and the woman winged away on the winds of a winter storm leaving Androw prisoner behind walls of his own making — a prison that will hold him forever unless the daughter of an owl can save him.

The Story of Baldur and Mistletoe

I've talked about Baldur a bit on the blog before, and in light of the fact that Baldur might very well be the Old Norse answer to Jesus, it seems like now would be a good time to give us all something of a refresher course regarding the events leading up to his death, especially after I just read this (admittedly older) post at the Smithsonian discussing the biological evolution of Mistletoe as a plant.

The evolution of Mistletoe itself is fascinating, and definitely told in a compelling way, and totally a cool read -- if you can overlook the first paragraph on Mistletoe's representation in Norse Mythology. Which brings us to today's post!

Baldur was the Son of Odin and Frigg (which made him Thor's half-brother), a god known both for his wisdom and his strength of character. He was Baldur the Shining, Baldur the Good, Baldur the fair and beautiful, and the most beloved of all the gods in Asgard. So beloved, in fact, that when his death was prophesied, his mother had no trouble exacting a promise from every living thing (and maybe less living things, too) that they would not harm him. She overlooked Mistletoe because it was too young and too small to be perceived as a threat (and I must give a nod to the author of the article for describing the roots as spears/arrows, which is pretty fascinating considering what comes next).

After these vows were made, the gods of Asgard made a sport of trying to "hurt" Baldur, because he had become invulnerable. In the evenings they would have a game of throwing things at him, shooting him with arrows, knives, rocks, branches for the fun of seeing it bounce off. It was a very merry time in Asgard, believing the Crisis was  Averted (as Baldur's death was to herald the coming of Ragnarok, and the end of the world as the gods had known it).

But Loki found out that Frigg had overlooked the Mistletoe, and made a weapon from it. He placed it in Baldur's blind brother's hand, and encouraged him to take part in the game. Duped, Hod threw the mistletoe at his brother, all in good fun.

When the mistletoe struck Baldur, he fell down dead.

There was no greater moment of grief and sadness in Asgard. Not only because Baldur the BEST of them had been killed, his light extinguished, his goodness lost, but also because it meant the coming of Ragnarok --  which was fated to result in the death of so, so many gods, and the destruction of the world as it was known, and everything within it.

And that is the story of Baldur and his fatal encounter with Mistletoe, the plant that Frigg thought harmless.

Horses of Norse Mythology

The best and most famous horse in Norse mythology is, of course, Sleipnir, The son of Loki* by the stallion Svaðilfari. After Loki gave birth to him, he made Sleipnir a gift to Odin. Sleipnir has eight legs, and according to Snorri he's grey in color.

Snorri also lists the other ten horses belonging to the Twelve** Aesir in the Prose Edda: Glad (Joyous), Gyllir (Golden), Glær (Shining), Skeidbrimir (Swift-Going), Silfrtopp (Silver-topped), Sinir (Sinewy), Gisl (possibly "Gleaming"), Falhofnir (Hollow-Hoofed), Gulltopp (Gold-topped) and Lettfeti (Light-Feet).

There are also Skinfaxi and Hrimfaxi, the horses which bring daylight and night, respectively. Skinfaxi posesses a brightly burning mane*** and Hrimfaxi sprinkles the ground with his spit and foam as he runs through the sky, which explains the source of dewdrops quite neatly.

Then there are Arvak and Alsvinn (not to be confused with Skinfaxi), who draw the chariot of the sun which is driven by Sol. These two also seem to be outfitted with an early air conditioning system -- bellows strapped beneath their shoulders to keep them cool (they are pulling the SUN, after all).

That Thor does not seem to have a horse is pretty telling, and makes sense in context with his position as god of the common man, in contrast with Odin, who is quite clearly a god of Noblemen and kings with his horse which is not only completely unique, but the best of the best. In fact, not only can Sleipnir travel to Hel and back, but Odin wagered his own head on Sleipnir's speed and raced him against the giant Hrungnir's horse, Gullfaxi (Golden-mane). Even when Thor wins Hrungnir's horse later (by dueling with the giant), he ends up giving Gullfaxi away (to his son, Magni), rather than keeping it for himself.

In the Skírnismál, Freyr also has a pretty fancy (but unnamed) horse** which is described in the eighth stanza of the poem:

"Then give me the horse | that goes through the dark
And magic flickering flames;"

And Freyja has a horse named Hofvarpnir****, which she rides on Frigg's business to the other worlds, and is capable of galloping across the sky and the sea.

By no means should this be considered a complete list of horses, but the last one I'm aware of  with any association to the DIVINE is Grani, a descendent of Sleipnir, and Sigurd's horse in the Saga of the Volsungs. Grani, as it happens, is also gray, just like his forefather, and he's described in the saga as "the best horse there ever was." Barring Sleipnir, of course, I'm sure.

*A man and his stallion were contracted to rebuild the wall around Asgard, and if he finished in a certain period of time, he was to be paid with the sun, the moon, and Freyja. When it looked like this guy was going to finish in time, Loki transformed himself into a mare in order to lure the stallion away, so his owner could not complete the wall. The gods only made the deal because Loki convinced them it would be impossible for the man to complete the task. But it turned out (of course) that the man was a giant, so after they cheated him, and he revealed his giant-nature, the gods just went ahead and let Thor kill him. Loki disappeared for a while after that, only to return with Sleipnir trotting at his heels.


**Snorri tells us that Thor himself, walks, but remember that Snorri's Twelve Aesir is actually Fourteen Aesir, so it makes me wonder who else catches a different ride to the root of Yggdrasil where they all meet up -- If Balder is dead, that would mean only one other person is left without transportation, but if he isn't, since Freyr gives up his sword in order to win Gerd as his wife, maybe he gave her his fancy-magic horse, too, while he was at it. In any event, the meanings of the horses' names came from the Grímnismál.


***Skinfaxi translates literally as "Shining-Mane" which I guess makes Hrimfaxi Frost-Mane or Foaming-Mane, which makes a certain amount of sense considering night is generally colder than day.


****Hofvarpnir's parents are Hamskerpir and Gardrofa.

Baldur as the Old Norse Answer to Jesus

The Invincible, Shining Baldur!

I'm currently reading Robert Ferguson's The Vikings: A History (Penguin, 2009), and came across this passage, discussing the reasons behind the start of the Viking Age:

The threat [Charlemagne's active crusades to Christianize and conquer] may even have affected Viking Age poetry. As we noted earlier, many scholars believe that the Viking Age's greatest spiritual monument, 'The Seeress's Prophecy', was composed comparatively late in the history of northern Heathendom as a direct response to the threat of militant expansionist Christianity and the dramatic and seductive Judaic creation myths of the Bible (p 56).

The tumblers began to fall into place almost at once. The poem he refers to, The Voluspa, gives an account of the entirety of Norse Mythology, from creation to the events leading up to Ragnarok and beyond -- addressing the death of Baldur and his return to rule the new world, post Ragnarok. I'd never considered the story of Baldur from this perspective -- as a response to Christian ideals -- having always assumed it to be part of the lore before Christian influence, but once you start, the tumblers all start clicking together into place.

What if Baldur is the Heathen answer to Jesus? The only son of Odin and Frigg -- indeed, very possibly the only LEGITIMATE son of Odin and his wife -- Baldur is known for his essential goodness, his extreme beauty, his wisdom, and his sense of justice. The Seeress mentions the death of Baldur, and even tells Odin it will be the Mistletoe, thrown by Hod, which will kill him. She details the major events of Ragnarok, too, but the poem finishes with a vision of what will come after the death of so many of the gods:

59. Now do I see | the earth anew
Rise all green | from the waves again;
The cataracts fall, | and the eagle flies,
And fish he catches | beneath the cliffs.

60. The gods in Ithavoll | meet together,
Of the terrible girdler | of earth they talk,
And the mighty past | they call to mind,
And the ancient runes | of the Ruler of Gods.

61. In wondrous beauty | once again
Shall the golden tables | stand mid the grass,
Which the gods had owned | in the days of old,
.    .    .    .    .        .    .    .    .    .

62. Then fields unsowed | bear ripened fruit,
All ills grow better, | and Baldr comes back;
Baldr and Hoth dwell | in Hropt's battle-hall,
And the mighty gods: | would you know yet more?

And the second to last stanza, powerful, broken and corrupted, considered spurious by most academics, but which makes a LOT more sense if all of this (and Baldur's story in particular) is the response to the Christian ideas of the ever impending return of Jesus:

 65. There comes on high, | all power to hold,
A mighty lord, | all lands he rules.
Rule he orders, | and rights he fixes,
Laws he ordains | that ever shall live.

What if the peoples of Scandinavia, after they heard about Jesus responded with "Oh yeah? Well we have Baldur, and he does everything your god does, only better." What if Ragnarok as recounted by the Seeress is really just a metaphor for the Christianization of the world, resulting in the "death" of the gods, until Baldur returns -- until the PEOPLE return to their faith in the old gods and the old ways, even to the Golden Tables of the gods? What if Ragnarok was already happening when the Voluspa was written?

Maybe Baldur became the answer, the hope of a people who saw their way of life, their faith, their very cultural identity, being destroyed and replaced. Just hang in there, he says, Christianity is just a fad. Your gods are coming back, and they're going to bring you a better world, one where you'll be protected and everything will be even more beautiful than before. You aren't forgotten -- your gods are at war, fighting for your survival, and we're going to win.

The Forbidden Nature of Love Poems

A twitter follower recently reminded me of the law against writing love poems in Old Norse society, and having just recently discussed Odin's Runic Superpowers, in particular those which relate to the seducing of women, I thought it might be worth covering on the blog here, briefly.

First, the Viking Answer Lady provides us with some background:

One reason why love poetry was so ill-regarded by the Vikings may have been due to the fear in pagan times of magical ensnarement of the woman so immortalized by the power of the verses (Foote and Wilson, p. 112).

If you believe that Odin has the ability to seduce a woman with a song/runes/poetry (see Runic Superpowers of Odin Part II), and the gods have been known to pass the magic of the runes on to mortals (Heimdall as Rig teaches Rune magic to his son Jarl), it makes absolute sense that other mortals might be concerned about magical ensnarement of their daughters in every day life. How can you be sure that a poem is just a poem, and not a spell meant to seduce your daughter and ultimately dishonor her? How can you even be sure that the person writing the poem isn't Odin, for that matter, or worse, Loki, who is also known for shape shifting, come to take advantage of your daughter/sister.


And I have to say, it makes absolute sense for love poetry to have been a much, much more serious concern to a culture with a god like Odin, and in particular, a god like Odin to whom poetry is pretty much the source of a lot of his wisdom and superpower via the runes. When Poetry is that powerful, it only makes sense that its use would be governed by law, and as defensive as Norsemen can be about their women, the law is there to protect more than just the female party.


It might seem kind of absurd to us, but poetry was magic according to Norse society -- we see that clearly in the Havamal when Odin talks about his magical powers:

152.
An eighth I know: which all can sing
for their weal if they learn it well;
where hate shall wax 'mid the warrior sons,
I can calm it soon with that song.

WORDS have power over the minds of men. And it isn't just the gods who can wield them in persuasion. I think that's a lesson we, in all our practicality, seem to have forgotten.

Thor vs. Odin in the Hárbarðsljóð (II)

Okay, first of all, the Hárbarðsljóð might be the greatest poem ever written in the entirety of all poetry. Second of all, did this exchange really just happen?* (And you wonder why I say Odin doesn't ever use his Rune Magic Superpowers!)

Harbarth spake:
30. "Eastward I was, | and spake with a certain one,
I played with the linen-white maid, | and met her by stealth;
I gladdened the gold-decked one, | and she granted me joy."
Thor spake:
31. "Full fair was thy woman-finding."
Harbarth spake:
32. "Thy help did I need then, Thor, | to hold the white maid fast."
Thor spake:
33. "Gladly, had I been there, | my help to thee had been given."

Really Odin? Really, you just said you could have used Thor's help to hold the woman down? My friend, do you not remember Superpower numbers 16 and 17?! You can win the affection of any woman with runic magic! You don't need force! The fact that Thor is ALL OVER THAT makes me laugh, too. This is an exchange where you really feel like these are just two guys shouting about their conquests across a body of water talking about their conquests in a bar.

Odin: Yeah, I went out to Easttown and hooked up with this chick -- she was really wild in bed, man. It was crazy.

Thor: You let me know next time you hook up, I'll totally pick up the slack if she's too much for you to handle. Har Har.

But of course the camaraderie can't last. This is a flyting poem! And now things start getting downright mean:

  Harbarth spake:
48. "Sif has a lover at home, | and him shouldst thou meet;
More fitting it were | on him to put forth thy strength."

If Odin is testing Thor's character (he's already accused him of taking bribes to look the other way against the Aesir, told him his mother is dead, accused him of cowardice in the face of his enemies, and now this suggestion of his wife's infidelity**), he's hitting all the major notes. And in Thor's response we can see his loyalty to those he loves. But he does sound kind of distressed, if you ask me:

49. "Thy tongue still makes thee say | what seems most ill to me,
Thou witless man! Thou liest, I ween."

In the end, Odin refuses Thor passage across the water and Thor has to find the long way home with only Odin's insults and accusations for company. I have to wonder though -- if Thor had held his temper and given back as good as he got, would Odin have revealed himself and given Thor a lift?

More than ever, I think this was a test. And more than ever, I think Thor failed. Not only that, but this whole poem only reinforces my thoughts about Loki and Thor's relationship. I wonder how much Thor lived in Baldur's shadow -- sure he was powerful, and sure the PEOPLE loved him, but I'm not sure we see that love and support for Thor inside the Aesir family dynamic.

Related:  Thor vs. Odin (I)

*If you're wondering, I am in fact reading this poem for the first time, and these blogposts are essentially my "real time" responses to the text. Most entertaining Norse Myth ever, you guys.


**Loki, in the Lokasenna, claims that Sif took him to bed as her lover, also. Someday I'm going to have to revisit the character of Sif blogpost I wrote a while back to take this additional source into account. There are also two mentions of Thjalfi in this poem, where he's running around with Thor on various adventures for future blogpost fun!

Thor vs. Odin in the Hárbarðsljóð

Thor is so cute when he shakes his hammer.

In this poem, Odin has disguised himself as a ferryman on the opposite shore from Thor, freshly returned from slaying yon Jotuns in the mysterious East. Thor just wants a lift to the other side of the sound, but Odin is determined to put Thor through his paces in a battle of um. well. insult and wit, I guess. (No one should really be surprised by this.)

But my question is this: if, as is a common conception, Thor is so "simple" and "dimwitted" why is Odin bothering to challenge him at all? It seems like it would be too easy a mark. And really, some of Thor's replies are pretty great. Some of them typically Hammer-smash, too, but you have to give credit where credit is due!

An example:

Harbarth spake:
24. [...];
The noble who fall | in the fight hath Othin,
And Thor hath the race of the thralls."

Thor spake:
25. "Unequal gifts | of men wouldst thou give to the gods,
If might too much thou shouldst have."

Harbarth spake:
26. "Thor has might enough, | but never a heart;
For cowardly fear | in a glove wast thou fain to crawl,
And there forgot thou wast Thor;
Afraid there thou wast, | thy fear was such,
To fart or sneeze | lest Fjalar should hear."

Thor spake:
27. "Thou womanish Harbarth, | to hell would I smite thee straight,
Could mine arm reach over the sound."

In this back and forth, Harbarth (Odin in disguise) is saying that Thor only receives the souls of Thralls and Peasants into his hall-of-the-dead* and Odin is better because he gets all the REAL, NOBLE warriors to fight for him. Thor replies easily, implying Harbarth knows not of what he speaks, but either way it isn't up to Harbarth who goes where, so NYAH.** And Harbarth responds in turn by calling Thor a big fat coward (a natural progression, I guess) which of course provokes Thor (short-tempered at the best of times) to reply with the Hammer-Smash argument.

Odin gets serious points for saying that Thor was too terrified even to fart in stanza 26, I'm not going to lie. But Thor's "Womanish" response is pretty weak, even before we reach the Hammer-Smash. I feel like this is some kind of test by Odin -- to see if his son has the CHOPS for flyting. I don't think Thor is going to be taking home an A+ on this exam, but he proves he can think on his feet at least a little bit.

...until he loses his temper.

(Part TWO!)

*This supposed hall of the dead belonging to Thor, strictly for the spirits of Thralls and Peasants, isn't referenced anywhere else, according to the note attached -- but I'll tell you what, if Thor DID have such a hall, it just makes him that much AWESOMER in my book.

**I think  he's also implying that he doesn't care or need to care about getting warriors, personally, because he's so powerful already, and this is a pretty good comeback! I mean -- it is kind of true. The Aesir are always calling Thor up to do their dirty work when it comes to defeating giants. Odin has all this power -- can see the future and turn peoples minds and blah blah blah rune magic, but does he USE it to save the gods some trouble? Case in point: that whole wall-building episode, with the builder who wanted Freyja, the sun, and the moon for payment, and the gods setting him up to fail and then uh -- well, he is clearly going to not fail, so they make Loki stack the deck even further, not that they ever had any intention of keeping their word to begin with, but to add insult to injury after totally jerking the builder around, they just go ahead and call Thor in to kill him so they don't have to arrange for any alternate compensation. Guys, I would not advise making any DEALS with the Aesir if Loki is around. Just a word to the wise.

The Runic Superpowers of Odin: Part II

Odin using his SUPERFLIRT powers

When last we left our hero-king-Allfather, he had learned the first 9 of 18 runic spells of power and magic while hanging himself from the world-tree, Yggdrasil. In this post, I present you with the back nine, pulled from the Hávamál:

     10. Odin has the power to ward off witches and send them back home confused -- and it's kind of interesting to note, also, that most of those who use magic in the sagas are women. Males, as a rule, did not engage in such things, with the exception of Odin the Allfather, of course.

     11. Odin can protect his people if he leads them to war. By singing beneath his shield, he can bring them safely through the battle and home again.

     12. With runes and spells, Odin can speak to a hanged man. More precisely, he can bring them down to speak to HIM. I bet the dead have some interesting stories to tell. Gruesome, too.

     13. If Odin sprinkles a new baby with water, they'll never fall in battle. (Kind of sounds like a baptism to me.)

     14. I'm not sure how to interpret this one, exactly, so I'll feed you the quote: "I know all the nature of gods and of elves" (stanza 158).*

     15. With a song, Odin can give extra strength to the gods (I am envisioning little +1s or +5s floating over their heads), bonus SKILL to the elves, and uh -- well, more wisdom to himself, I guess. I wonder if this is temporary or continual. Either way, I wonder why he doesn't bonus-wisdom himself constantly. Maybe he does. WHO CAN SAY.

     16. Odin can win the affection and love of any woman he wants. Ladies man SUPREME, to say the least. No question at all in my mind that Odin got plenty of use out of this one.

     17. Even the SHYEST of ladies will be charmed and reluctant to leave him.**

     18. I'm tempted to believe this one is something to do with professing his own feelings, but it's kind of another riddle -- I guess it could just be that he is withholding the final spell, but I don't know. Odin gets with a lot of ladies, so if he's telling all of them what this one is, he's kind of contradicting himself. I'll give you the quote, here, too (stanza 163):

An eighteenth I know: which I ne'er shall tell
to maiden or wife of man
save alone to my sister, or haply to her
who folds me fast in her arms;
most safe are secrets known to but one-
the songs are sung to an end.

As you can see, Odin is a pretty talented god. And this is just the tip of the iceberg -- he also won a LOT of wisdom and information from Mimir's well, at the cost of his eye. I'm betting Odin has no regrets about that trade, especially since his spear is magicked to hit whatever he aims for, anyway. And I guess you don't really need depth perception when you have two ravens to see everything in the world for you in advance.


*The Norse Myths by Crossley-Holland interprets this as being able to name all the gods and elves, but that seems pretty weak to me. And also, not really something to do with the runes, so much as just being some extra knowledge picked up along the way. I'd be much more impressed if he saw into the hearts of said elves and gods, and KNEW them with a glance instead. 


**I kind of feel like this is a cheat. This is totally just 16 part two, but whatever, Odin, I will give you the pass.

The Runic Superpowers of Odin: Part I

Odin riding Sleipnir

In the Hávamál, Odin describes the 18 magic rune spells he discovers during his hanging.* I'm not sure he ever made use of some of them, with all the trouble that the giants made for the Aesir, but they're pretty impressive all the same. I always read it in the poem, but I've never really thought about them before, and the language kind of gets in the way for me -- besides which, I don't commit things to memory until I've written them down again in my own words. So, without further ado, A LIST:

1. Odin knows a spell called Help, which (as you can probably guess) brings help in times of "sorrow and strife."
2. Odin can heal the sick, and I would imagine it comes in handy for a king of a warrior pantheon, to say nothing of all those worshipers who go off a-viking...ing.
3. Odin learns a spell to blunt swords and stop weapons from doing harm. Again, quite practical, all things considered. 
4. Odin cannot be bound by fetters or chains or rope or anything, because he has a spell to break any binding. I bet he got use out of that right off, to spring the noose from his neck. At least, I'd have used it for that, just to you know-- see if it worked.
5. Apparently all Odin has to do is glimpse an arrow as it flies and he can "stay its flight." I think I'd like to consider this KUNG FU AWESOME.
6. Odin is rubber and his foes are glue, because any curse made against him bounces off of him and sticks to... you? Anyway, a spell that turns curses back on their inventors. Not YOU. Unless you happen to be the one carving runic curses against Odin. 
7. Odin is also a one-man Fire Brigade, putting out fires with a song/spell.
8. The All-father can soothe the savage beast, so to speak, by calming their hate. It sounds like this particular spell is one that anyone could use -- I'm almost wondering if its something like poetry or some kind of bardic wordsmithery, really. 
9. Odin can calm the seas and the wind to protect his vessel.

And I think we're going to take a breather here, because it feels like it is getting kind of long. Part II with the last nine will be forthcoming! Probably the next blog post. I don't know about you, but I am never going to forget the curse reversal thing, now that I applied the rubber and glue expression.

ONWARD TO PART TWO!

*Odin sacrificed himself to himself by hanging himself from what is usually considered to be Yggdrasil, the world-tree. (There are a lot of himselfs in that sentence.) It's one of the many ways he accrued wisdom and, it seems to me, the primary source of his magical skills, such as they were.

Thor and Loki (No Footnotes, Just Gut)

A long time ago I posted about The Essential Thor -- that is the Thor I had come to know through reading the myths and researching him half to death (or possibly half to life) -- and today I want to kind of continue that thought.

So much of how I judge Thor is related to how he interacts with others, his relationships with the other gods, his loyalty to the people he loves. His relationship with Loki, of course, is at the center of a lot of this in the myths. Thor and Loki are always traveling together, always getting into mischief and bailing each other out of it, and until recently, I didn't really understand the dynamic between them. It is so easy for me to see Loki as the villain, the deceiver and the troublemaker, and so hard for me to see what Thor does in the myths: a companion and friend, someone worth seeking out for adventures, someone to keep at your back or turn to in a crisis.

Then it occurred to me that Loki was sometimes considered a blood brother to Odin, Thor's father. And Odin was king of the gods, king of Asgard, ruler and warrior. No doubt he was a very busy god. What if Loki stepped in where Odin did not have the time to spend? What if Thor had been raised from a young age to consider Loki as his uncle? What if that was the foundation of their relationship? It explains everything so perfectly, fits everything together like matching pieces in a puzzle.

Loki was the cool uncle who let Thor do all the fun stuff. Loki was the person who took him on adventures and rescued Thor from trouble at the last minute. We see it in the myths, too, that when Thor is in trouble, he goes to Loki first, not Odin. Just consider the cross-dressing Thor, incident. When the Mjollnir disappears, Thor doesn't race to his father, the man with the seat that allows him to see everything in the nine worlds, Thor goes to Loki. Thor goes to Loki because Loki has always gotten him out of scrapes in the past, and Loki isn't going to judge him, or give him a hard time, or punish him, the way a father might, for getting into the scrape to begin with. Even though Odin could have discerned the location of Mjollnir faster and more easily, Thor appeals to a different power for help.

We see in the myths that it is most often Loki leading Thor on these trips which always end in some kind of disastrous fix -- but why is Thor following along so blithely? Why is it so hard for Thor to see what's coming when he gets involved in these adventures? Even Thor isn't that dumb. I mean, sure, he isn't the brightest of the gods, but that's a whole different level of blind naivety. But if Thor was raised to trust him, raised looking up to him as his fun uncle, raised to trust that Loki will take care of him from childhood, it all makes so much more sense.

And it also explains how difficult it is for Thor to finally face the facts of Loki's nature, and just why Thor has given him forgiveness after forgiveness. It makes sense that in the Lokasenna, Thor blows a gasket even to see the uncle who betrayed him, betrayed his whole family, by engineering Balder's death. The first words out of his mouth are shut up, or I'll hammer your mouth shut -- and  after all the trouble Loki has gotten Thor into before now, after all the times Thor has just laughed and forgiven him, that kind of immediate response seems like a break in character. But Loki has finally crossed the line. His sins are too great to overlook.

Thor responds to Loki like a child who suddenly realizes the truth about his parent. Balder's death, his brother's murder, shatters Thor's ideal of who Loki is in a way nothing else could have. Suddenly, Thor is able to see clearly, man to man, god to god, giant to giant. Thor should have expected some kind of betrayal from Loki -- but he didn't. He couldn't see around the idea of the Uncle he had looked up to all his life to recognize the truth of his character. He couldn't see that the mischief hid malice, because he was a boy who saw the best in the uncle who had half-raised him.

Loki and Thor's relationship is tragic. It ends the way so many of Loki's adventures did -- in disaster. And when it really mattered, when it might have made all the difference, Loki went out of his way to be sure it couldn't be fixed.*

*Hermod went all the way to Hel and bargained to bring Balder back to life, and Hel promised Balder could return if everything in the world wept for him. Everything did, but for Loki, disguised as a Giantess who refused to mourn, and so Hel  refused to release Balder. Loki could have fixed everything, they all could have had a laugh over their mead and Loki would have been redeemed. 

Saga of the Volsungs (III -- Genealogy)

The family tree of the Volsungs is something else. King Volsung, for whom the family is named, is the son of Rerir, himself the grandson of Odin through Sigi. And Volsung was born after six long years of labor (the result of an apple of fertility during Rerir's advanced years), and had to be cut from his mother's body.

On top of the Aesir blood and favor, Volsung married the daughter of a giant, Hjlod -- a giantess and "wish-bringer" in Odin's service. (Hjlod was also the person who provided Rerir with the apple which produced Volsung.) It was from his giantess of a wife that the twins Signy (from last week's blogpost) and Sigmund were born (Sigmund was, by the way, the toughest, most powerful, most impressive man around), and from Signy and Sigmund's incestual affair, Sinfjotli was born. 

Sigmund the Fabulous

Sinfjotli was birthed primarily to avenge the death of his grandfather Volsung and all his uncles by murdering his mother's husband. The Norse seem to trope on this idea of the child born and raised to murder someone, since Odin accomplished the same thing with Váli, who was birthed to avenge Baldr's death by killing Hod. But Sinfjotli is kind of a sidebranch (though remind me sometime to post about the epic trashtalk in this saga). I assume because he's a child of incest, which was unacceptable enough that Signy had to go to her brother disguised as someone else to accomplish it.


And we still haven't made it to Sigurd, the supposed hero of our Saga. 

Sigurd slaying Fafnir

Sigmund, after defeating his nemesis and brother-in-law King Siggeir, went on to make a name for himself (he was so tough he could drink poison without any effect, and he happened to be in possession of a sword gifted to him by Odin, which made him practically undefeatable... until it broke), and he married twice (his son Helgi, by his first wife, is another sidebranch in the saga). The second time, to a woman named Hjordis. Sigmund died in the same battle his sword broke (all signs point to Odin himself breaking it in the heat of things), but Hjordis was, fortunately enough, pregnant with his son. 


Which brings us, finally and at last, to Sigurd, born of Hjordis after his father's death, and his own tragic tale of love and betrayal. Just in case you hadn't already had enough of it.


Odin > Sigi > Rerir > Volsung > Sigmund > Sigurd, with a mixed heritage of no less than three races. Which is probably why he got to slay the dragon. 

Author Interview: Kevin Hearne and the Mythology of the Iron Druid Chronicles

Kevin Hearne is the author of the Iron Druid Chronicles, a new Urban Fantasy series (Hounded and Hexed are out already, and Hammered will be out on Tuesday, with another three in the works!). Of COURSE I had to read his books, seeing as the main character Atticus is constantly finding himself in fights with living breathing gods and goddesses in modern day Arizona. In HOUNDED, he faced the Celtic Tuatha Dé Danann and in HAMMERED, it's looking extremely likely--thanks to a tousle with some witches in HEXED--that he'll be toe to toe with the Norse gods, including Thor. How can you RESIST? Besides which, Atticus (accompanied by his Irish Wolfhound, Oberon) is pretty hilarious, and written with a fantastic voice.

Kevin was kind enough to chat with me about what he's doing with gods and goddesses and druids in his books and here are the results of that interview! Mostly, I stuck to topics concerning the mythology he's creating, updating, and revisiting, and for those of you who love mythology in your fiction, definitely get reading!

Be sure to come back to the blog on Tuesday for information on a giveaway-- Hounded and Hexed, and if all goes according to plan, Autographed! Now, to the interview (and if you happen to be hopping over here from GeekaChicas, you can go ahead and skip down to the first bolded question!). My questions are in purple, and Kevin's answers are in black.


Amalia: Since Mythology is kind of the thing around these parts, let's start with that! Demons, werewolves, vampires, the Virgin Mary, Norse gods and Irish gods, witches, and references to other pantheons, all seeming to inhabit the same world. Can you tell us a little bit about the mythology behind The Iron Druid Chronicles and the myth-multiverse you've built?

Kevin Hearne: It started out with just the Celts, but once I realized that I was treating myth like history—or at least closely related to history—the question that I simply had to answer was, why treat only the Celts this way? What if everything were true, to some extent, and the gods are still with us, albeit hidden? So that's what I'm exploring here. And I'm not limiting myself to "dead" gods, either; current religions are treated in the same way—those gods are all real and empowered by our faith in them.

A: Can you give us a general rundown of the major Irish deities in your books? Just a quick who are they and what do they do? And can you suggest any good primary or secondary sources to learn more about them (mostly this is for me, I'm not going to pretend otherwise. Nothing like going back to the source material!)?

KH: The deity that everyone seems to know is The Morrigan, and she appears in various tales in one or more of her three forms. One is that of a crone, one is that of a young seductress, one is the infamous battle crow. I've only presented her in the seductress and crow forms so far. She's the Chooser of the Slain, a role very similar to that of the Valkyries in Norse tradition, but she's handy in battle herself and something of a wild one in bed. Aside from her, I'm using Brighid, goddess of Poetry, the Forge, and Fire; Bres, a god of agriculture who's married to Brighid; Aenghus Og, god of love; and Flidais, goddess of the hunt. I really like her because she's so different from her Greek counterparts; she has an insatiable libido and isn't afraid to show it. Some of the other Irish gods will show up in later books, like Manannan Mac Lir, Fand, Ogma, and Goibhniu.

In terms of source material, you want the Dictionary of Celtic Myth by James MacKillop as a starting point. Though he tends to skimp a bit on the Scottish stuff, he's great with the Irish. You'll probably have to pick this up used somewhere, but it's not that hard to find. Also get yourself familiar with The Annals of the Four Masters and the Ulster and Fenian Cycles of Irish legend. Great stories in there.

A: Aenghus Og as the god of love-- Is your interpretation of him as more about the vengeance and the darker emotions that come with love direct from the myths, or is this an interpretation you've read into them (like with Ratatosk)?  

KH: It's based at least partially on his own actions. Those allusions in HOUNDED about Aenghus tricking his own father out of his home, etc. are straight from the old Irish stories. To be fair, he does some noble things in the old stories too, but Atticus kind of ignores those and focuses on the possessive, vindictive side of love that Aenghus exhibits to him.

A: What drew you to the Irish mythology, both in general and as the primary mythology in this series? Related: Why a Druid, and what kind of research did all this require?

KH: Part of it was interest in my own Irish background, and part of it was an appraisal of the marketplace. I'd been reading a lot of urban fantasy, and I noticed that the Irish stuff was wicked cool, but the extant fiction always featured either the Morrigan or the Wild Hunt, and that puzzled me. The rest of the figures are so interesting—why not have fun with them too? I realized after a while that it might come down to nothing more than the names. It's easy to say "the Morrigan" or "the Wild Hunt," but many people look at the rest of those Irish names and get intimidated by them. So that's why I put those no-pressure pronunciation guides in the books, to let people know that it's okay to pronounce 'em any way you want, but if you DO want to say the names semi-correctly, here's how. As far as why a Druid specifically, it's also a two-pronged answer: the market niche was there—I think there's only one other Druid series out there and it's completely different from mine; compare that with how many series there are about vampires—and since there is so little concrete information on the Druids, I got to make a lot of shit up. Druids are blank canvases compared to vampires and werewolves. The research required was much of what I already listed above, along with some examination of accounts by Caesar and Tacitus.

A: In HEXED Atticus says that most Celtic artworks are spells. Is this something you made up for the books, or something based on your research? (Because it is super cool!)

KH: I made that shit up. See? This is why I picked Druids!

A: Who is your favorite god? Both from those in your books, and from mythology in general?

KH: I think I already gave away that I love Flidais more than is probably healthy. She fully embraces her wild side but she's also a fierce steward of the forest, if fierce stewards are not an oxymoron. I think nature could use more fierce stewards; it certainly has more fierce exploiters than it needs. Generally speaking, I loooove the various versions of Coyote that are celebrated throughout Native America.

A: In the opening chapter of HEXED, Atticus tells Leif (an Icelandic Vampire) he doesn't want to kill Thor, because even if he takes out Version 1.0, Comic book Thor might descend to smite them. Can you tell us a little bit about this theology? Are there infinite versions of every god running around in Atticus' world? (Also, does comic book Thor live in comic book Asgard? Or do they all live together in the same place? -- it would explain the 540 rooms in Bilskirnir!)

KH: Ah. Well, yes and no, and, um, yeesh. Complicated. OK. Atticus was messing with Leif because he didn't want to do this. Comic book Thor can't do jack because he's not empowered by faith the way the original is/was. But is there a comic book Thor? Undeniably. We all went to see the movie, yes? And now we all have that vision of Thor in our heads. He's out there because we warp and change the universe by living and thinking in it. And 7-11 year old boys have a vision of Thor in their heads, too, that they read in their monthly comics. But they probably don't really believe in him or worship him any more than American moviegoers do. The old Norse, however, really believed in Thor. They wore little hammers around their necks to compete with the Christian cross. They thought Thor smote the frost giants every winter and caused the spring to return and the sun to shine again. The original Thor, therefore, is the most powerful, and the comic book Thor is kind of a wuss. Faith is the motor driving gods. And you see in HEXED that the widow's formidable faith allows the Virgin Mary to visit Tempe and bless some arrows for Atticus. Are there infinite versions of the gods and the planes they live on? There are as many as there are conceptions of them in human minds—all unique, yes? No two people conceive of any god in precisely the same way. But like Schrodinger's cat, at some point, those gods have to stop being multiple things at once and settle on a single state when they want to walk in our world. That's what we see in The Iron Druid Chronicles—one form for each god chosen from a vast number available. You're going to see a specific example of that in HAMMERED, where a modern god chooses to manifest in a form that most people aren't used to.

A: So, kind of a one-god-many-aspects thing, for each of the gods within a pantheon? Well now I'm wondering if that opening in HAMMERED where Atticus talks about Middle Earth is just a big tease too. Or does Middle Earth "really" get to exist because Tolkien meant it as a mythology? 

KH: They all exist if people believe in them. Some are just sketchy and weak compared to others. Tolkien's Middle Earth is richly imagined and adored by millions of people, so it's a much stronger plane than an imagined heaven a single tribe of thirty people believed in ten thousand years ago. These infinite universes are out there—and I'm not the only fella who's played around with the idea. I'm just coming at it from a fantasy perspective instead of a sci-fi one. Try Heinlein's Number of the Beast. That was a trip!

A: According to what I've read on your website, a good portion of HAMMERED takes place in Asgard. Does this mean we'll be getting to know some of the Norse pantheon in addition to Thor (and it seems like maybe Idunn)? 

KH: Well, some of them you won't "get to know" very well, and I don't want to give away too much, but here's who shows up in HAMMERED: Thor, Odin, Vidar, Tyr, the Norns, Ullr, Freyr, Freyja, Idunn, Bragi, the Valkyries, the Frost Giants, and Ratatosk. I keep the Valkyrie numbers fairly low because I had trouble finding a definitive number for them. Even more of the Norse show up in later books.

A: Which of the Norse gods is your favorite and why?

KH: Loki is my fave—I just like tricksters, I guess. But he won't show up in HAMMERED because he's bound by the entrails of his son until the beginning of Ragnarok.

A: Any chance we'll see Olympus one day? Or is Greco-Roman mythology something you mean to steer clear of? 

KH: I'm not afraid of them! :) Bacchus shows up in HAMMERED and the central conflicts of TRAPPED and HUNTED involve the Greco-Romans. They scare the bejesus out of Atticus because they're truly you-can't-end-my-existence immortal, unlike the Tuatha De Danann and the Norse, who are just eternally youthful.

A: We get a glimpse of Ratatosk (the squirrel of the world tree in Norse mythology) in the preview of HAMMERED at the end of HEXED, and I love the reasoning behind your (and Atticus') interpretation of him. It really is all in the texts! What kind of research did you do for HAMMERED (re: Norse myth) and can you suggest any good resources?

KH: Heck, I'm probably just doing what everyone else is doing; I'm reading the Prose and Poetic Eddas online and hoping to Hel that the translation is a decent one. The thing about the Norse body of myth is how much fun you can have with inconsistencies in the cosmology. I just spotted that Ratatosk thing by accident—he never uses Bifrost, yet he can scamper from the top of the tree to the bottom, so how does he do that? Another thing I had trouble with is figuring out whether Hel is in Niflheim or in her own realm? Are there nine worlds or ten? How do we make any of that Yggdrasil business work with our present understanding of how the universe works? I lay down my own interpretation of things in HAMMERED and even drew up a map of Asgard because damn it, somebody had to!

A: Do you have a favorite Mythical Creature?

KH: MANTICORES! Creepiest one I've ever seen in a story is the one in The Books of Magic trade paperback called Bindings. Gave me the heebie-jeebies.

A: Atticus seems to find himself surrounded by femme fatales, from witches to goddesses, and all of them seem to have their own agendas for his future. Is there any chance that Atticus is going to meet up with a love interest who wouldn't be just as happy to see him dead? (The romantic in me had to ask...)

KH: Well, you're going to find out in HAMMERED that Atticus had a pretty amazing relationship centuries ago, and he hasn't really been the same since it ended. However, Atticus does have a romance looming on the horizon, though right now he's fighting it.

A: It seems like none of the goddesses we've seen so far are very um... warm. For the most part, they're pretty distant and cool in regard to humanity in general, fellow gods, and Atticus. Is this a product of their immortality? Or something else?

KH: Yeah, you're touching on something I'm exploring in the series. Wouldn't long life give you a different set of priorities and cause you to look at the short-lived a bit differently? And if you were a product of an extremely different culture—bronze age, iron age, or even antebellum America—wouldn't you seem odd by today's standards? I'm having fun contrasting the gods with Atticus, and then contrasting him in turn with sort of middle-of-the-road characters, like Leif and the werewolf pack.

A: Speaking of products of immortality, Atticus is a pretty grounded guy for having lived 3000 years, especially in contrast to some of the other ageless characters. Is this part of his being a Druid? Or would you say it's been more motivated by survival instincts to blend in and keep his head down?

KH: Yep, Atticus's fugitive status has ironically been what's kept him grounded. To blend in, he has to immerse himself in his surroundings and live in the present. He keeps himself tied to humanity, forms relationships and stays abreast of current events.

A: I know you've discussed your take on Thor widely, between your blog and your other interviews, but being that his character is so close to my heart, I have to ask: How do you reconcile the villain you've built with Thor's extreme loyalty to his friends and family (even when they abuse him, as Loki does frequently) in the Eddas?

KH: I know I'm messing with Thor's image in the Eddas, but I feel it's plausible for an avatar of violent weather to descend into sociopathic behavior over time, especially when he can supposedly die only at the fangs of Jormundgandr and that prophesied day keeps refusing to come around on the calendar. Atticus knows that Thor is generally reviled, but he won't find out the specifics of Thor's shenanigans until HAMMERED. Now, is that reconciling the behavior? Eh, perhaps not. But I can see Thor turning into a villain over time, whereas I could never picture Odin that way.

A: Really? I'm curious about why Odin doesn't seem like someone who might become a villain? (I have a hard time reading about him that way, myself-- that was one of the things that bothered me about AMERICAN GODS, in fact. But I had no trouble believing it in GIANTS OF THE FROST by Kim Wilkins.)

KH: Can't speak for anyone else, but for me wisdom and evil are mutually exclusive. If I'm going to accept that Odin is wise, then he simply can't be bad. I can accept bad guys as evil geniuses, you know, brilliant people who are "wicked smart," but I can't think of them as wise once they become selfish and destructive.

A: And finally, I love Hallbjörn Hauk, Atticus' werewolf lawyer. He really grew on me in HEXED, and usually werewolves are a tough sell for me!  Especially now that you have the next three solicited, (congratulations!) will we get to learn a bit more about him and his history in future books? 

KH: You'll actually learn a bit more about Hal and the pack in HAMMERED because they have a beef with Thor too, but going forward from there the Tempe Pack will play a smaller role simply because Atticus will be forced to leave Tempe.

Thanks so much to Kevin for the interview! Hopefully you'll all be intrigued enough to pick up copies for yourselves!