Norse gods

Chapter 2 Prologue

It is as difficult to choose your favorite traditional fairy tale series as it is to choose your favorite cuisine. (Sometimes I crave Thai food, sometimes sushi is more my thing, and sometimes all I crave is the home-cooked food I grew up with.) But if I really had to pick a favourite, my The answer will probably be Norse mythology.

My first encounter with Asgard and its inhabitants occurred when I was a young boy.At that time, I was not yet seven years old, and I was reading the "Thor" comic series created by the American cartoonist Jack Kirby[1].Bryant and Stan Lee[2] wrote the plots for these stories, and Stan Lee's brother Larry Ribeau wrote the dialogue for them.Bryant's Thor is handsome and strong; his Asgard is a sci-fi city full of skyscrapers; his Odin is noble and wise; his Loki is a mocking prankster wearing a horned helmet.I love Kobe's hammer-wielding Thor and want to know more about him.

So I borrowed a copy of Myths of the Nordic Peoples by Roger Lanslin Green.I read it with joy and misgivings: In this book, Asgard is no longer the futuristic sci-fi city Kirby described, but a Viking palace and a bunch of buildings towering on the frozen polar land ; Odin is no longer the gentle, wise and irritable father of the gods, now he is a smart, knowledgeable, but also very dangerous figure; Thor is still as strong as in the comic "Thor", His hammer still has magical powers, but he's...well, cleverness isn't his strong suit; and Loki isn't evil anymore, although he's certainly not a positive person either.Loki is... very complicated.

In addition, I also discovered that the Norse gods are destined to have a day of destruction: Ragnarok, the end of all things.The Protoss will fight the Frost Giants, and they will perish together.

Has Ragnarok already happened?Will it still happen?I had no clue at the time.Now I still don't know.

Whole worlds and stories come to a tragic end and come back to life after their end, making the gods, frost giants, and other characters tragic, tragic heroes or villains.Ragnarok made the Nordic world resident in my mind, making it seem so close to us.Other mythological systems, some of which are more thoroughly documented, feel like history, ancient relics that have passed away.

Norse mythology comes from cold regions with extremely long winter nights and endless summer days.The people of this land of mythology do not fully trust or love their gods, though they do respect and awe them.The best we can know is that the myth of the Asgardian gods came from what is today Germany, spread throughout Scandinavia, and then spread throughout the Viking-dominated world—reaching Orkney and Scotland, Ireland and Northern England.In these places, mythology has left its footprints in its own way, and many place names are named after Thor and Odin.In English, these gods also cast their shadows in the names of the seven days of the week.You can find Tyl alone (Odin's son), Odin, Thor, and Frigga, queen of the gods, hidden in Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday[4].

We can also find traces of wars in ancient myths and ancient religions, peace agreements between the Vanir and the Asir.The Huaner Protoss seem to be all nature gods. They are brothers and sisters. They are not very warlike by nature, but they are as dangerous as the Asa Protoss when they are serious.

That's more than likely the case -- and it's a hypothesis worth exploring.Historically, people from one tribe believed in the Huaner Protoss, and people from another tribe believed in the Asa Protoss. These Asa believers invaded the territory of the Warner believers, and then made a series of compromises and arrangements.The Vanir gods, like the twin brothers and sisters Freya and Frey, lived in Asgard with members of the Aesir.History, religion, and mythology are integrated, and we wonder, imagine, and speculate from them.We are like trying to piece together the details of an unsolved mystery long forgotten in the past.

Many stories in Norse mythology have been handed down to this day, but a considerable part has been lost, and we don't know what they are about.We have only myths handed down in the form of folk tales, through retellings, poems, and troubadours.By the time people began to write down these stories, the worship of Christianity had begun to replace the worship of the Norse gods.Some stories were recorded and circulated out of fear that if they were lost, the allusions from these myths would become meaningless.For example, people use the poetic allusion of "Freya's tears" to refer to gold.In some versions of the story, the Norse gods are depicted as kings and heroes in their prime or old age, and they tell these adapted Norse myths within a Christian frame world.These handed down Norse mythological stories also echo and tell other stories, but unfortunately, we don't know those stories.

If an analogy were to be drawn, it would be as if the only stories survived from Greek and Roman mythology were those of Theseus and Hercules.

Undoubtedly, many stories were lost.

There are many Norse gods.There are some gods whose myths, stories and rituals have not been handed down, although we know their names, their affairs and their powers.How I wish I could retell the stories of El, the goddess of medicine, of Lofin the comforter, goddess of marriage, and of Sophim, the goddess of love.Not to mention Vaal, the God of Wisdom.Yes, I can make up some stories about them now, but I can never "retell" them.These stories were lost, buried, or forgotten.

I have tried my best to retell these myths as accurately as possible and as vividly as possible.

Sometimes the details of the story contradict themselves, but I hope these details give us a picture of the world at a certain moment.In retelling these stories, I try to imagine that I was in a very long time ago, in the land where these stories were born and first told.Maybe it's a freezing night under the Northern Lights, or maybe it's sitting on an endless midsummer's day before an audience eager to know what Thor's been up to and what rainbows are made of? how they made it, how they lived their lives, and where bad acid poetry comes from.

I was amazed when I wrote the whole story and looked back at it.Because all this is like a journey, from the ice and fire, everything begins; from the ice and fire, everything ends.Along the way, we met many characters, each with its own unique characteristics, such as Loki, Thor, and Odin, and those we wanted to know more (my favorite is the character of the character). A favorite is Angel Poda, Loki's giant wife, who bore him three monstrous children, and who reappeared as a ghost after Baldr's death).

I haven't had the guts to go back to my favorite Norse mythology narrators, Roger Lansling Green and Kevin Crossley-Holland, to reread their stories.I devoted myself to studying Snorri Sturluson's Prose Edda and the Rhythmic Edda of Poetry, which is more than 900 years old[5].I picked out of them the stories I wanted to tell, and thought about how to tell them well for my readers.I have combined or excerpted stories from prose and poetry versions. (For example, the story of Thor's visit to Himmel in this book, which I tell in this book is a mixed version: it starts with "Poetry Edda", and then adds Thor to go fishing according to Crossley's version the adventurous part.)
In the process of this research, I have a priceless treasure - a "Dictionary of Norse Mythology" that I have torn out.It was written by Rudolf Simok[6] and translated by Angela Hall.I have been consulting this informative book throughout the writing process, and it has often brought me unexpected new knowledge.

Special thanks to my longtime friend Alisa Whitney for her work in editing this book.She was a wonderful echoing wall, she was forthright, thoughtful, very reasonable and very intelligent.It was she who made this book possible, as she kept pushing for the next story.I am grateful to her for helping me organize and find the time to write this book.I would also like to thank Stephanie Montaigne, whose knowledge of Norse mythology and eagle eyes helped me spot several mistakes I didn't realize were wrong.Thank you Amy Cheney of Norton Publishing Group, the world's most patient editor, for this prescient suggestion at my birthday lunch eight years ago - "You might try retelling the myth" .

All errors, all absurd conclusions, and all odd ideas in this book are mine and no one else's.I sincerely hope that my retelling will be true to the original, but also sparkle with joy and innovation.

This is the joy that mythology brings.It is the joy of telling them yourself—and it is my full hope that you will do the same.Read the stories in the book, then keep them for your own, and then, on a dark winter's night, or a midsummer's night when the day never sets, tell it to your friends, Thor's Hammer What happened when it was stolen, and how Odin regained the mead of poetry for the gods...

neil gaiman
Lisson Orchard

April 2016

(End of this chapter)