Odd and the Frost Giants

by Neil Gaiman

Odd meant the tip of a blade, and it was a lucky name.

There were no full-time Vikings back then. Everybody had another job. Sea raiding was something the men did for fun or to get things they couldn’t find in their village. They even got their wives that way.

“We weren’t arguing,” said the bear. “Because we can’t talk.” Then it said, “Oops.”

There was silence then in the tiny hut. Only the crackle and spit of a pine branch on the fire.

“My father used to say that the carving was in the wood already. You just had to find out what the wood wanted to be, and then take your knife and remove everything that wasn’t that.”

“Talk is free,” said Odd, “but the wise man chooses when to spend his words.”

Ice is only water, so it must have rainbows in it too. When the water freezes, the rainbows are trapped in it, like fish in a shallow pool. And the sunlight sets them free.”

“The wise man knows when to keep silent. Only the fool tells all he knows.”

There were icicles in its eyebrows, and its eyes were the color of lake ice just before it cracks and drops you into freezing water.

If magic means letting things do what they wanted to do, or be what they wanted to be .

“No. He doesn’t learn. None of them do. And they don’t change, either. They can’t. It’s all part of being a God.”