Myths of the Norsemen Read online

  Contents

  Author’s Note

  Introduction by Michelle Paver

  1 Yggdrasill the World Tree

  2 Odin in Search of Wisdom

  3 The Apples of Iduna

  4 Loki and the Giants

  5 Loki Makes Mischief

  6 Freya the Bride

  7 Thor’s Visit to Utgard

  8 Odin Goes Wandering

  9 Geirrodur the Troll King

  10 The Curse of Andvari’s Ring

  11 Ægir’s Brewing Kettle

  12 The Death of Baldur

  13 Vali the Avenger

  14 The Punishment of Loki

  15 Ragnarok

  Read On

  A stranger came out of the darkness, a one-eyed man wearing a long cloak and a broad-brimmed hat. Up the hall he went until he came to the trunk of the great oak tree round which the hall was built.

  When he reached it the stranger drew a great, shining sword and plunged it into the hard wood so that it sank to the very hilt.

  ‘Who so draweth this sword from this stock, shall have it as a gift from me, and shall find that never a better sword was borne in hand by mortal man in Midgard!’ he cried.

  Then he went out from the hall and vanished into the night: and King Volsung and his warriors knew that their visitor had been Odin.

  Dedicated to

  the Masters and Boys of

  Dane Court, Pyrford, Surrey,

  my own contemporaries and

  those of my sons

  ‘Legends that once were told or sung

  In many a smoky fireside nook

  Of Iceland, in the ancient day

  By wandering Saga-man or Scald’

  – LONGFELLOW

  Author’s Note

  ‘This is the great story of the North, which should be to all our race what the Tale of Troy was to the Greeks.’

  – WILLIAM MORRIS

  This book is an attempt to present the surviving myths of the Norsemen as a single narrative, from the making of the world to the vision of Ragnarok. Into the framework of the Volo-spa, the finest of all the poems of The Elder Edda and one of the oldest, I have fitted the myths contained in the rest of the ancient Norse poems, and the prose tales collected by Snorri in the two books usually known as The Prose Edda. Many of the poems have found their way into my text in almost literal translation, and much of Snorri’s narrative; gaps have been filled from Saga fragments – notably in Chapter 10 which follows The Volsunga Saga where Snorri’s synopsis is inadequate. In the stories of Odin’s wooing of Rinda and the two voyages of Thorkill the Wanderer, the rationalized versions given by Saxo Grammaticus have been restored to their mythological state, since no earlier authority survives. Scraps of ballad and folk-tale have helped to fill in small gaps – though I have been forced to skate over one or two, such as Loki’s introduction to Asgard, on the thinnest of evidence.

  Norse mythology is the very antithesis of Greek from the reteller’s point of view. The wealth of literature and legend available for studying the gods of Olympus is positively embarrassing, and the problem there is one of selection. The gods of Asgard, on the other hand, remain strangely aloof: the difficulty here is to find enough about them. And when the scanty material is collected, it is still harder to fit together the incomplete jigsaw-puzzle which is all that remains to us.

  Most previous retellers of the Norse myths have contented themselves with a selection of isolated stories – or else have tended to exceed the licence of invention which a reteller should be allowed. Even that classic version The Heroes of Asgard by Annie and Eliza Keary, written just over a hundred years ago (1857), spreads a gentle and romantic glamour over the stories there woven together which opens the magic casements on a very misty view of the Nine Worlds of Norse mythology and the deeds wrought in them.

  Of course any version of old myths, legends, or fairy-tales must reflect the outlook of the teller of these tales – and doubtless Myths of the Norsemen is as ‘dated’ as any.

  I have, however, tried to the best of my ability to keep to the spirit of the original, that air of ‘Northernness’ which is so apparent even in Vigfusson and Powell’s literal translations in their Corpus Poeticum Boreale of all the surviving poems. I have tried to vary the poetic quality of the Volo-spa with the folk-tale quality of Heimdall’s visit to Midgard or Odin’s rough and ready dealings with the Giants when intent on stealing the magic Mead, or the burlesque quality of some of Thor’s adventures, with the fate-ridden saga of Sigurd and Brynhild and the sheer epic of Baldur’s fate – one of the great tragic stories of the world.

  To mould all these together into one narrative, always following my originals closely, has been an interesting experiment, and one worth making. For the great Norwegian and Icelandic Sagas of the deeds of real or half-legendary men and women were woven much in this way, and out of just such diverse material – strung together often on the thin thread of a single family’s history.

  The Sagas of Midgard, whether the heroes be Gunnar or Grettir, or Sigurd himself, all end in tragedy – in the picture of the brave man struggling in vain against the powers of fate – ‘And how can man die better than facing fearful odds?’ This was the Norseman’s view of life – and the deeds and fate of the heroes of saga must have been but the earthly counterpart of the deeds of the Gods of Asgard in their struggle against the Giant forces of nature so apparent to the men of the North, and of the doom, the Ragnarok, which was to overtake them.

  With this view in mind I have tried to tell the tale of Asgard and the Æsir – The Saga of Asgard, though in this new edition I have called it Myths of the Norsemen, since my original title was found to be too obscure.

  Introduction by

  Michelle Paver

  A god who rides an eight-legged horse and plucks out his own eye to gain the gift of wisdom. A rainbow which makes a shimmering bridge between the worlds of gods and men. A creature whose body is half alive and half stinking decay. A serpent so vast its coils encircle the world. A necklace so beautiful it drives even a goddess to madness …

  These are just a few of the unforgettable stories that are waiting for you in this book.

  But, first, what actually is a myth? It’s a story that people tell about ancient times in order to explain some aspect of their lives. Maybe they want to understand why storms sink ships, or what stars are, or why things die. And the sorts of stories they tell depends on where they live, and what kind of people they are. So I want to tell you a bit about the Norsemen – or the Vikings, as they’re sometimes called – because that’ll help you get even more out of their amazing myths.

  The Norsemen were the people of ancient Scandinavia: that’s what we now call Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Iceland. They wrote down their myths in about ad 800–1200, although it’s thought that they’d been speaking or singing them for much longer than that.

  Their land had, and still has, a harsh beauty all its own. It has stormy seas and glittering fjords, brooding mountains and endless forests. It’s a place of extremes. In the far north of Scandinavia, the summer sun never sets, but winter brings blizzards and months of darkness. So it’s no surprise that the Norsemen peopled their land with ice giants and stone trolls, underground dwarfs and shadowy elves. I’ve been to Scandinavia many times, and, believe me, when you’re alone in the mountains and the fog’s rolling in, it’s easy to imagine a troll lurking behind every boulder … Or was it the boulder itself that just moved?

  The Norsemen were brave, self-reliant people. Their lives could be brutal, but they loved singing and telling riddles, as well as feasting on roast boar and mead. They liked fast ships, beautiful horses and strong-willed women. They also went in for quite a lot of fighting, and they were
n’t above using trickery to get what they wanted.

  Above all, the Norsemen were tough. They were the best sailors of their day: they discovered Iceland, Greenland and North America – and they did it in open boats. Just think about that. You’re out on the north Atlantic, icy waves sloshing over the sides of the ship, no sign of land – and no cabin to warm up in. It’s not surprising that the Norsemen believed that at the bottom of the sea lived a green-haired Giant with nine beautiful Wave-Daughters, and a merciless wife who dragged sailors to their doom …

  Toughness, cunning, bravery, determination and a fierce love of beauty. The Norsemen had all these qualities, and so did their gods and goddesses. Their myths have come down to us in many pieces: some long poems, and lots of fragments. It was the brilliance of Roger Lancelyn Green to form these into a coherent whole, while keeping many of the original words and images, so that we too can hear the echo of those ancient Viking voices. As he says in his Author’s Note, his aim was to preserve ‘that air of “Northernness” ’. He succeeded magnificently.

  I first read Myths of the Norsemen when I was eight, and they’ve haunted me ever since. I’ve just re-read them to write this Introduction, and I’ve been astonished to find how much of an influence they’ve had on my own stories. If I hadn’t read them over and over when I was growing up, I don’t think I’d have written about the ghosts of the far north, or about Torak and Wolf.

  Myths are powerful things, and the myths of the Norsemen are among the most powerful in the world. When you read this book, you’ll be taking your own journey over the rainbow bridge, and into the strange, violent world of the Viking gods.

  Who knows where your journey will take you after that?

  1

  Yggdrasill the World Tree

  In the northern lands the summer is short and the winter long and cold. Life is a continual battle against the grim powers of nature: against the cold and the darkness – the snow and ice of winter, the bitter winds, the bare rocks where no green thing will grow, and against the terrors of dark mountains and wolf-haunted ravines.

  The men and women who lived there in the early days needed to be strong and much-enduring to survive at all. They were tillers of the ground, but also warriors who did battle against the wolves, and against men even more savage who came down from the mountains or up from the deep sounds or fiords of the sea to burn their homes and steal away their treasures and their food, and often their wives and daughters as well.

  Even when there were no wild beasts and wilder men to fight, it seemed that the very elements were giants who fought against them with wind, frost, and snow as weapons. It was a cruel world, offering little to hope for; yet there was love, and honour, courage and endurance. There were mighty deeds to be done and bards or skalds to sing of them, so that the names of the heroes did not die.

  And, just as the deeds of men were remembered in song and story, tales were told of the gods, the Æsir, who must surely have fought even greater battles in the beginning of time against those Giants of Ice and Frost and Snow and Water who were still only kept at bay with difficulty.

  In the very beginning of time, so the Norsemen believed, there was no Earth as we know it now: there was only Ginnungagap, the Yawning Void. In this moved strange mists which at length drew apart leaving an even deeper Gap, with Muspelheim, the Land of Fire, to the south of it, and Nifelheim, the Land of Mist, to the north of it.

  Surtur the Demon of Fire sat at the world’s southern end with his flaming sword, waiting for the Day of Doom, to go forth and destroy both gods and men.

  Deep down in Ginnungagap lay the Well of Life, Hvergelmir, from which flowed rivers which the cruel breath of the north froze into grinding blocks of ice.

  As the ages passed the grinding ice piled up mysteriously above the Well of Life and became Ymir, the greatest of all Giants, father of the terrible Frost Giants, and of all the Giant kin.

  Ymir grew into life, and with him appeared the magic cow Audumla whose milk was his food. And very soon the ice of Ymir broke off in small pieces and each became a Rime Giant – a father of witches and warlocks, of ogres and trolls.

  Audumla herself needed food, and she licked the ice about her and found in it the salt of life that welled up from Hvergelmir.

  On the first day that she licked the ice there came forth in the evening the hair of a man; the second day she licked, and in the evening there was a man’s head showing; and by the ending of the third day the whole man was there.

  He was the first of the Æsir, and his name was Buri; he was tall and strong, and very fair to see. His son was called Borr, and this Borr married the giantess Bestla, and they were the mother and father of the Æsir who planted the World Tree, Yggdrasill, and made the Earth.

  Borr had three sons called Odin, Vili, and Ve, and of these Odin, the Allfather, was the greatest and the most noble.

  They fought against Ymir the great Ice Giant, and slew him, and the icy water gushed from his wounds and drowned most of the Rime Giants, except for one who was named Bergelmir. He was wise and clever, and for this reason Odin spared him.

  For Bergelmir built himself a boat with a roof, and took shelter in it with his wife and children so that they escaped being drowned in the flood.

  But Odin and his brothers thrust the dead Ymir down into the void of Ginnungagap and made of his body the world we live in. His ice-blood became the sea and the rivers; his flesh became the dry land and his bones the mountains, while the gravel and stones were his teeth.

  Odin and his children set the sea in a ring round about the earth, and the World Tree, the Ash Yggdrasill, grew up to hold it in place, to overshadow it with its mighty branches, and to support the sky which was the ice-blue skulltop of Ymir.

  They gathered the sparks that flew out of Muspelheim and made stars of them. They brought molten gold from the realm of Surtur, the Fire Demon, and fashioned the glorious Sun Chariot, drawn by the Horses Early-waker and Allstrong, with the fair maiden, Sol, to drive it on its course. Before her went the bright boy, Mani, driving the Moon Chariot drawn by the horse All-swift.

  The Sun and Moon move quickly, never pausing to rest. They dare not stop, even for a moment, for each of them is pursued through the day by a fierce wolf panting to devour them – and that fate will befall them on the day of the Last Great Battle. These two wolves are the children of evil, for their mother was a wicked witch who lived in the Forest of Ironwood: her husband was a giant, and her children were werewolves and trolls.

  When Odin had set the stars in their courses and had lit the earth with the Sun and Moon, he turned back to the new world which he had made. Already the Giants and other creatures of evil were stirring against him, so he took more of the bones of Ymir and spread the mountains as a wall against Giantland, or Jotunheim. Then he turned back to the land made for men, which he called Midgard or Middle Earth, and began to make it fruitful and fair to see.

  Out of Ymir’s curly hair he formed the trees, from his eyebrows the grass and flowers, and he set clouds to float in the sky above and sprinkle the earth with gentle showers.

  Then for the making of Mankind, the Allfather Odin took an ash tree and an elder upon the seashore and fashioned from them Ask and Embla, the first Man and the first Woman. Odin gave them souls, and his brother Vili gave them the power of thought and feeling, while Ve gave them speech, hearing, and sight.

  From these two came children enough to people Midgard: but sin and sorrow overtook them, for the Giants and other creatures of evil took on the shapes of men and women, and married with them, despite all that Odin could do.

  The Dwarfs also had a hand in this for they taught men to love gold, and of the power that comes with riches. They were the little people who lived in Nifelheim, the region of mist, and in great caves under the earth. They had been made out of the dead flesh of Ymir, and the Æsir gave them the shape of men but a far greater cleverness in the arts and crafts of working with iron and gold and precious stones.

  The
se Dwarfs, with Durin as their king, made rings and swords and priceless treasures, and mined gold out of the earth for the Æsir’s use.

  For after Midgard was made, wise Odin turned to the shaping of Asgard, his own strong and beautiful land, high in the branches of Yggdrasill the World Tree. The first palace was all of shining gold, and it was called Gladsheim, the Place of Joy: there Odin sat on his high seat, with beautiful Frigga his queen beside him.

  Next they made palaces for their children, the great gods and goddesses who were so soon to play their part in the long struggle against the Powers of Evil: for Thor the Lord of Thunder and his wife Sif of the golden hair; for brave Tyr the young and battle-eager, guardian of the gods; for bright Baldur, fairest of all the Æsir, and sweet Nanna his wife; for Bragi and Iduna, who delighted in music and youth; for Uller of the Bow, and Vidar the Silent, and many another.

  Round about Asgard stood great walls and towers, halls and palaces; and in the middle was the fair plain of Ida, where grew gardens of delight in front of Odin’s palace of Gladsheim.

  Every day Odin and the Æsir rode forth over the Bridge Bifrost, which appears to men on earth as the rainbow, and went down to the Well of Urd beneath one root of the Ash Yggdrasill – all, that is, except mighty Thor who dared not tread on that delicate arc for fear his weight might break it. He had instead to go round by the rough road over the mountains, and the Giants ran in terror whenever they saw him coming. Bifrost Bridge glows in the sky, for at its foot burns a bright fire to prevent the Giant kind from crossing it and so reaching Asgard.

  Down in the shady gloom at the foot of the World Tree the Æsir held their council, to decide how they might bring help to mankind, and what must be done in the long war against the Giants. Down there under the Ash, beside the Well, stood a fair hall where dwelt the Norns, the three weird sisters Urd, Verlandi, and Skuld, who knew more even than Odin himself. For Urd could see all that had chanced in the past, while Verlandi had the power of knowing what was being done in all the worlds at the present; but Skuld was the wisest of all, for she could see into the future – and that not even Odin himself could do.