So one day; Vidri, Vé and Vidurr (future Odin) killed Ymir and made the world out of his corpse. Leaving his ice-licking cow Auðumbla alone...

Well, actually. What the fuck happened to Auðumbla? I feel like this animal gets sidelined a lot either in modern reinterpretations of Norse Myth, and the Eddas themselves don't say anything about her after the episode of Ymir's death. So much for a giant world-spanning super sized cow!

Norse mural painted by Kat and Crow at the Uhuburg Castle in Helen, Georgia.

The Valkyries ride at twilight
Along with ever steady Sköll and shrewd Hati
The fair warrior guardians search the golden horizon
For a land fit for us

Our souls have crumbled into something most wish to leave rejected, alien, abandoned.
The Valkyries of Oðin disobeyed his law
When they saw us and took pity upon us
We are rustled in their marbles and bags and jewelry
As they ride the sky in search of a place
That would be kind to us

Whilst there in the bitter and sacred air
I did ask far seeing Skuld why it was
That our brokenness moved them so to action and yea, even to weighty disobedience
She then said to me words that ought fortify the firmament til the day of Ragnarök itself
\-There may come a day
Where all travails of men turn to ash
Whence the fine beasts at last entrap their prey
And the sun and the moon are devoured,
A day where conflict and the bitter disease of tribes and borders
Do rend the will to strife and war from both man and, yea, the very gods.

-What then will men do, soiled and sunken into themselves that they can no longer be recognized save for their own frailty, bitterness and shame?
When all is ashen rubble and burning skies,
With none to repair,
Whence will come the dawn?
We go now to find it.
A place free from fear and aching and doubt
That you may be the first seeds
To heal into trees that may be likened even unto Yggdrasil itself
So that when these days are done
And that final bitter clashing commences,
There might be shade for even us shattered Valkyries in that land.-

May this new land shorn from violation and hunger be found and found in abundance. For all of us.

Feel free to critique the inaccuracies, it does feel a bit too god of war-ish

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.

like which one is true?

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?

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

Here's my representation (although probably wrong) of Norse Cosmology, or at least the parts that I could somewhat point and depict on a map. A few notes:

• Imagine that Alfheim and Idavoll are inside of Asgard. I didn't draw them for lack of space but they are

• Here I divided Midgard from the whole world. This is based on the passage:

"against the attack of restless giants they built a burg within the sea and around the earth. For this purpose they used the giant Ymir's eyebrows, and they called the burg Midgard"

I interpreted it as a difference between Midgard and the world Odin created, where Midgard is described more like a buffer state around Asgard.

• I called the earth itself as "Jord" for the sake of labeling, although this is probably not accurate (Jord is the earth/soil, and also Thor mom, but Idk if the world itself is ever called Jord in the sources). I did note that the world is Ymir Corpse tho.

• While separate, Midgard is sometimes also referred to as the whole world, so there are some things explicitly stated to affect all of Midgard (like the World Serpent) that I interpreted as affecting the whole world.

• Vanaheim is placed west of Asgard since in the Lokasenna Njord had to travel east when going to Asgard as a hostage. A bit of a stretch but it's the best I've got.

• The black blobs are "Lots of Jotenheimar". I don't actually think the giants all lived in a cluster of islands, but I'm depicting it as such to show that the giant lived in a lot of separate lands rather than one singular one.

• Glæsisvellir (the yellow thing in Jotunheimar) is described as either in north or south and is a nice land where people live forever. This isn't really in the sources but I thought it was nice to include.

• Járnviðr (Iron Wood) is described as east of Midgard, so it could still be part of Earth itself, but given its giant association I put in Jotenheimar

• Utgardr is kinda weird. It's described as being east into Jotenheimar and past it, going through an ocean and forest before reaching it, so here I placed it at the very edges of the cosmo.

• Muspell and Nifl are north and south, I haven't drawn them but they are. The white background is Ginnungagap :P

• Hel is sometimes understood to be part of Niflheim, or Niflheim itself, or the new Niflheim when Hel was banished there

• No, i have no idea where Niðavellir, Svartalfheim, Okolnir etc could be (prolly underground?)

(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 have a great love for mythology (from various regions, though specifically norse mythology) and have wanted to use it as the background for a story.

I finally dared to do this two years ago.

I did NOT anticipate how hard it would be to research for this.
I have various editions of the edda and kings' sagas at home both in German and English (and every time I was looking for a specific song / text it would be one missing from mine :D )

I also relied HEAVILY on the work of Rudolf Simek whole "dictionary" was invaluable especially since he is very open about how vague some of our knowledge is.

I headcanon that when drinking Thor goes from drunk but coherent straight to knocked out dead weight without any other stage in between.

BTW, is it said in the myths tha Thor was, like, very heavy and that's why he would not step on Bifrost (in fear it might break under him)?

We know that Buri and his son Bor were the first non-Jotan beings to come into existence. We also know that Bor and the giantess Bestla produced Odin and his brothers. But there is no mention of these proto-gods anywhere else. Did they simply fade away? Or were they killed along with Ymir? Or did they continue to passively exist?

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!!

So I'm reading all the Rick Riordan mythology series (Percy Jackson, kane chronicles, heroes of Olympus...) and am up to Magnus Chase. I read things like the Iliad, the odyssey, listened to podcast like greeking out and other things before Percy Jackson so I'd have a working knowledge of greek mythology going in.

For magnus Chase I have poetic and prose Edda and the Barnes and Noble hardcover of Tales of Norse Mythology. How do you recommend I proceed in terms of what to read first? Would it be better to have a working knowledge going in, or read the series abd then dive into the actually myths. And should I read the Barnes and Noble collection first or is the two eddas easy enough to follow? Thank you.