r/norsemythology

Hi all

My 9y son has a keen interest in Norse mythology. The Neil Gaiman book is his favourite - but he just reads it over and over again!

I wonder if anyone can recommend other books, documentaries, etc I could get him?

As I said, he is 9y but he’s a very confident reader so he could probably handle something for teens.

Please let me know if there’s a better subreddit for this question.

I'm trying to make some stuff up for my fictional world, but i can't quite nail down the realms, but just recently, i think i've had a stroke of genius.

The general list would be: Asgard, Midgard, Vanaheim, Alfheim, Svartalfheim, Jotunheim, Helheim, then Muspelheim and Niflheim.

But Snorri has 2 other terms. Asaheim and Mannheim, which he uses interchangebly with Asgard and Midgard. But i think Snorri is wrong here.

I think the nine realms are Asaheim, Vanaheim, Mannheim, Alfheim, Svartalfheim, Jotunheim, Helheim, Niflheim, and Muspelheim, thus, Niu heimar.

Which leaves Asgard, Midgard, and Utgard to explain relationships between these different realms.

By no accounts is this gonna be an accurate reflection of the old belief, at least its incredibly unlikely, but i need something to bounce off of.

What do you people think?

Edit: Seriously, i can't be the only one who noticed, right? It's been driving me nuts trying to figure out the nine realms.

I keep coming back to stanza 138 of the Hávamál, the account of Óðinn's nine nights on Yggdrasil, spear-wounded, given to Óðinn, himself to himself (gefinn Óðni, sjálfr sjálfum mér). Every translation I've read tries to soften that phrase into something more comfortable, but the plain sense is what makes it strange: there's no altar, no other god, no external power he petitions or bargains with. The one paying the price and the one receiving it are the same being.

Read against most other self-sacrifice myths, this stands out. Prometheus pays Zeus. Christ mediates between humanity and the Father. Even Inanna's descent involves gatekeepers and a substitute demanded by underworld law. Óðinn's sacrifice has no third party at all. He's not paying a toll to fate, he's staging an encounter with something in himself that only becomes visible once everything else is stripped away: food, drink, help, and by this point in the corpus, already one eye.

I've spent a fair amount of time in the Hávamál for something I was writing some years ago, and this is the stanza I can't get a clean reading on. Is the reflexive phrasing best explained as an initiation formula borrowed from shamanic practice (the standard Eliade line), or is there an internal logic in the poem itself, i.e. wisdom in the Hávamál generally costing something given away, and self-sacrifice being the limit case of that principle?

Curious what other people make of it.

In the Encyclopedia of Mythology (by Arthur Cotterell), the primordial ice-giant Ymir, from whose corpse the world was made, is described as "utterly evil". This characterization can be found in both the entry on Ymir himself and also in the entry on Vé, who together with Odin and Villi killed Ymir. The latter entry also points out that the idea of the world being made of the posthumous remains of an evil creature is not unique to Nordic mythology but appears also in the Babylonian story of Marduk slaying the chaos-dragon Tiamat.

Moreover, the entry on Loki points out that Loki was likely evil because his parents were giants, and all giants (which would include Ymir) are evil.

Wikipedia also seems to concur that Ymir was evil, describing him as having been born from (or made of) some sort of nasty venom or bile ("atter", pus), which likely symbolizes a rather unpleasant disposition.

I wonder, is there any basis for this in the original Nordic texts like the Eddas, or some other lore? I've scanned the poetic Edda but couldn't immediately find any passage that obviously confirms this idea.

Ok, so as a preface I don’t know much about this, as my main exposure is through rick riordan’s work, but if the entire reason that baldur was near immortal was frigg made everything (except mistletoe) promise not to harm him, what’s to stop someone from just killing him with their bare hands?

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I've been kinda interested in her since God of War Ragnarok, but I couldn't find much of anything on her other than she survived Ragnarok and she's a Valkyrie

Hi, sorry, this has probably been answered before but I struggled to word this in a way I could find an answer, so I’ll just ask it now and hope no one is bothered!

So I would really like to learn a lot about the history and mythology side of things, but I’m really struggling as I’m both Dyslexic and have ADHD, which makes comprehension of terms, words, and phrases I don’t recognize/understand really really hard. I want to learn, but everything thing I’ve found feels like, a lot? And I keep getting confused? So basically, does anyone know any great “beginner” level things I can read that can actually break things down in a way my dumb little pea brain can understand? Please? Even like a “here’s how I’d explain it to a toddler” level stuff, and I can grow from there? Help would be endlessly appreciated

(This is a theory of mine. I have not read it somewhere. Elements of it may circulate in academic material but I have not found it anywhere as a whole. If you happen to find it somewhere, please give me the source, so I can read it)

 

Facts:

-         The senna (flyting) is an existing Germanic tradition (antagonistic verbal performance)

-         A great part of the material used as insults in the Lokasenna is obscure

-         It has not been successfully dated

-         The structure of the flyting proper is not narrative but highly modular: you can change the insults, change the gods speaking, their order or omit parts of it and the essence of the poem remains intact. What you need is Loki entering and Thor ending it. Everything is between can be altered.

An attempted refutation:

-         It has been expressed as an idea that it was written during a period that faith to the gods was dwindling. Otherwise the insults would be unacceptable. Would they? For one, an already existing tradition (the senna) can be transferable to the gods, because it is socially acceptable. And then, insulting the gods as entertainment exists in other traditions as well. Aristophanes is especially notorious for repeatedly and caustically insulting the gods in his comedies. The Greeks laugh, then go home. The gods are there the next morning.

My suggestions:

-         The Lokasenna is not a poem but a performance tradition that results in a somewhat different poem each time, according to context.

-         The performing poet would each time alter the stanzas according to the audience and the social context of their time and specific location.

-         The performing poet could easily use the Lokasenna as social criticism of actual political or known personas of their social context and use the gods as masks for socially recognizable targets. That would deliberately protect both the gods from insult (since they are practically substitutes) and the actual persons being alluded (why is everyone looking at me? … that one was about Freyja!). Also the poet… for obvious reasons! Still, the audience would understand and be thoroughly entertained. This proposal is speculative and - unfortunately - unfalsifiable, drawn from Aristophanes and… well… the human tendency to gossip and expose.

-         At some point, one particular version was written down. And this is the only one we’ve got.

-         This could possibly partly solve the problem of the obscurity of the mythic material referenced. Could it be lost myth? Certainly. Could it be social context that we could not possibly be aware of? Yes.

-         Dating is dauntingly pluralistic. If the above is true, what exactly would we try to date? When the tradition started? When was our version written down? When the particular exchanges / insults entered the repertoire? Date that our version got first performed?

So my thought is that the Lokasenna was a performance form and not one poem, Loki was put in its centre (because of course!) and it eventually crystalized to what we have.

 

Thanks for bearing with me.

I watched the first Marvel Thor movie for the first time and I loved it and now thx to it I wanna get more into Norse mythology!!! Are there any books I can read? I’m very interested. I’m looking particularly for books that explain the gods and other important things. Like worldbuilding but I’m also looking for the stories that have been told. I’m sure you guys could help :) Thx I appreciate it!!

Ratatosk acts as a messenger between the eagle and Nidhogg, but Viktor Rydberg argues that this eagle is actually Odin.

Apart from Rydberg, is there anyone else who supports the theory that this eagle is Odin?

I know there are those who argue that the conflict between the eagle and Nidhogg represents the conflict between the gods and the giants.

I am aware that Odin takes the form of an eagle,

and I also know that this eagle is generally considered to be the ravn.

Whether this theory is correct or not is beyond the scope of this discussion.

What I want to know is whether there is a theory that identifies this eagle as Odin.

I am Japanese, and I am writing this text using a translation tool.

Thank you for reading.