"Norse Mythology" by Neil Gaiman (BR)

[Olga]

Hi all!

Some of us decided to brush up on Norse Mythology (mostly after reading The Witch's Heart), so here we are.

This is the first time I'm starting a BR thread, hope to have done everything right )))

Come read and discuss with us!


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[Olga]

Listened through the stories of Sif's golden hair, Loki's children and Thor's hammer. The ones that mirror the events of The Witch's Heart the most so far.
Funny how Loki's character is pretty much the same (at least it feels so to me) in both books. Selfish, mischievous, but not truly evil at heart.
Thor, on the other hand, is very different. But need to read more to catch the difference better )))

What thoughts do you have?

[Pushkar]

I agree, Thor in Norse Mythology is vastly different from any other representation of Thor's nature. Makes me wonder how was the thunder god represented in the actual Norse text.

[Beth]

Jumping in as a Norse scholar! (I actually have a degree in this stuff)

Gaiman's interpretation is incredibly faithful to the Prose Edda composed by an Icelandic chieftain, Snorri Sturluson, in the early thirteenth century. Snorri was himself writing in a Christian context and after a point when we believe the majority of Scandinavians had ceased actively worshipping the Norse gods, so we can't ever actually know how they were viewed by practitioners, but he is the best source we have for the mythology of Old Norse religion.

I was slightly worried when I saw that Gaiman had written this because I thought it would be another Marvel style reinterpretation (not that I have anything against Marvel, it's just a very different imagining), but I was delighted to see that he's hardly changed a thing from the Prose Edda. It's more like reading a translation than a novel.

So basically Gaiman's Thor is as close to the "real" Thor as we can get. :)

[Ian]

Beth, thanks.

I feel reasonably well-equipped to second your comment: I don't have a degree in this -- my major was English -- but I took some undergraduate and graduate courses in Old Norse literature and mythology (separate topics at UCLA), plus a Comparative Mythology seminar on the major Indo-European mythologies. (And I try to keep up with current thinking, these days mainly via the Internet Archive instead of the University Research Library.)

I assume that you would recommend Faulkes' Edda for Snorri's Younger/Prose Edda, noted by Gornichec in The Witch's Heart, as it is the only complete English version, but you may prefer another translation, at least for novice readers.

Do you have any opinions on the various recent translations of the Elder/Poetic Edda? I don't feel up to that task, except on grounds of readability.

[Beth]

Ian wrote: "Beth, thanks.

I feel reasonably well-equipped to second your comment: I don't have a degree in this -- my major was English -- but I took some undergraduate and graduate courses in Old Norse liter..."

Wow Ian, those sound like such fun courses! I'd love to know more about other Indo-European mythologies. I have a good grounding in Greek/Roman and Norse but anything further east is a bit shaky. Are there any resources you can recommend?

Faulkes' Edda translation is still the best - that was the one we used when I was studying and he's a trusted authority. I think it's quite accessible too... but I might be biased :)

[Ian]

Beth wrote: "Are there any resources you can recommend?
..."

Bibliographically dated (published 1989), but very comprehensive, is Jaan Puhvel's Comparative Mythology, which is much narrower in scope than the title would suggest as it is Indo-European only: see https://www.amazon.com/Comparative-My...

I should mention that I took Professor Puhvel's Comparative Mythology course several years before the book was published, and it was a great experience, so I am somewhat biased in favor of the book based on it.

It is also deeply vested in the work of the French Indo-Europeanist and comparative mythologist Georges Dumézil (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georges...), who was very popular with some of the faculty at UCLA (where he had lectured), but seems to have fallen out of favor.

He combined philology with sociology (following Emile Durkheim, Marcel Mauss, and others), which did not make a good impression with many philologists at the time.

I remain convinced that his theory of the "Three Functions" concept in early Indo-European society and mythologies (Sovereignty, Force, Fecundity) was an important advance.

Most of the dismissals I have seen contain elementary mistakes (such as confusing Tyr and Thor, and the Vedic Mitra with the related, but distinct, Persian Mithras), suggesting that the critics have not read with the necessary attention to detail. (Or that they slipped up in proofreading.....) The fact that he changed his mind on some things over a long career is also held against him.

There is also a line of criticism based on personal attacks, mainly on his politics. E.g., in the 1930s he warned that relying on Stalin to counter Hitler was a bad policy, and argued that France instead should try to form a Latin Front against Germany with Mussolini -- also a bad idea, as it turned out.

An introduction to his work can be found in C. Scott Littleton's The New Comparative Mythology: An Anthropological Assessment of the Theories of Georges Dumezil, although the last edition has some problems -- the UC Press failed to make several corrections in old typographical errors, and incorporated an extra chapter instead of using it to replace an obsolete discussion of Dumézil's late works (if I recall the situation correctly).

One of his treatments of Germanic mythology in particular is in print: Gods of the Ancient Northmen. His reading of Norse mythology portrays it as deeply pessimistic, which should not be a big surprise.

For others reading this: if you don't mind reading pdfs, considerable material, including Faulkes' Edda editions and translations, is available in FREE downloads from the Viking Society for Northern Research: http://vsnrweb-publications.org.uk/

[Ian]

Beth wrote: "Faulkes' Edda translation is still the best - that was the one we used when I was studying and he's a trusted authority. I think it's quite accessible too... but I might be biased :)..."

The main alternative I had in mind was Jesse Byock's abridged The Prose Edda, from Penguin Classics, which some may find easier going, and is not loaded with the technical material on Old Norse meters and poetic vocabulary. I should mention that Byock is also associated with UCLA, so with me he has a home court advantage. But I prefer Faulkes for reference purposes, and it is also quite readable.

Byock is responsible for several volumes on Old Norse for students. and he has also translated two Icelandic sagas with mythological content, both now in Penguin Classics, and both of which are available in other versions:
The Saga of King Hrolf Kraki
and
The Saga of the Volsungs

The Goodreads page of the latter for some reason credits the Victorian poet William Morris, the first translator of it into English (with the help of the Icelandic scholar, Eirikr Magnusson), as though he had had acquired proprietary rights to the title. Confusingly, he also wrote an epic poem based on the saga.
There is a Kindle edition from Byock's original publisher, the University of California press.

[Jenni]

wow! Thanks for the insight Beth and Ian. This is all so fascinating! I've always been interested in Norse Mythology but never really delved into it before.

I'm a little more than halfway through the book and what I've learned so far is that I really don't like Thor. I'm also really surprised at how awful all the gods are. Like why was anyone worshipping them? I don't really get it. They are all really big jerks. I do like Freya and Tyr. They are some of the least awful of the gods.

And why is Loki always described as clever and cunning? None of his plans work and he doesn't seem to actually trick anyone.

[Ian]

Jenni wrote: "And why is Loki always described as clever and cunning? None of his plans work and he doesn't seem to actually trick anyone. ..."

One way to look at Loki is as a kind of mirror-image of Odin, perpetually trying to undermine the cosmos while Odin, also known for his deceptions in several myths, rather ruthlessly tries to maintain it. H.R. Ellis Davidson, if memory serves, raises this possibility in her long-popular Penguin volume, Gods and Myths of Northern Europe

Loki also has long been identified as more simply a Trickster figure, a mythological commonplace.

Something most tricksters have in common is what we might consider 'poor impulse control.'

They are forever over-reaching, and need to use their wits to escape the consequences of their actions -- sometimes inventing along the way something of importance to human culture or divine society.

The Trickster appears as Raven, Coyote, and Snowshoe Hare in various North American traditions, in which he is sometimes involved in the creation of the world.

He shows up as Ananse the Spider* (and under other names) in West Africa and the African Diaspora in the Americas.

I can work up some bibliography on the American and African material if someone is interested.

He (the trickster is usually male, so far as I can tell) is very familiar from Greek Mythology, starting off with the primeval Titan Prometheus, who doubles as the benefactor of humanity, but whose early major role is deceiving Zeus at the first sacrifice.

In the oldest telling, the pious Hesiod explains that this was of course impossible, but the very attempt angered Zeus. There is reason to believe that in earlier tellings the trick worked. Either way, that is why humanity gets to eat the best parts of the sacrifice, and the gods get mainly fat and bones.

And in the Greek tradition, Prometheus also has to share his craftiness with Hermes: the Homeric Hymn to Hermes celebrates the thefts, tricks, and inventions, of the infant god.

Back in remoter antiquity, the Sumerian Enki (Babylonian Ea) was also a divine trickster, although, unusually, he is counted among the very greatest elder gods. Like Prometheus he has a role in making humans: and he manages to save the human race from destruction by plagues, droughts, and a flood, when the chief god Enlil takes it into his head to destroy them because they are too noisy. See mainly the epic Atrahasis in, among other places, Myths from Mesopotamia: Creation, the Flood, Gilgamesh, and Others

*One scholar tried to identify Loki himself as a spider, on very slender evidence, but the coincidence is interesting in itself.

[Beth]

@ Ian - Thank you so much for all the links and suggestions! I will definitely have to check these out.

Another great trickster figure is Efnisien in the Mabinogion. He's very Loki-like and similarly comes to no good end. Certain interpretations of Satan could also seem to cast him in this light - a general force of disruption working counter to the efforts of God/Jesus but ultimately doomed to fail.

Perhaps we have always needed a villain and the clever villains are just the more interesting?

[Beth]

@ Jenni - Haha, they are pretty awful! But then as a general rule gods in older mythological systems are. The Greek gods didn't exactly behave well, for example.

I think it comes down to an older interpretation of what "god" means: they are embodiments of powerful natural and supernatural forces. Humans have never been able to control those forces and are constantly falling prey to them (think storms, earthquakes, shipwrecks, concepts like fate and love), and the best way for a superstitious mind to ensure survival is to try to propitiate (i.e. worship) them.

Older gods tend to be selfish and capricious because they represent forces that are themselves inhuman. I think the concept of a benevolent god is a later thing distilled from the 'best bits' of several divine figures and a deep need for reassurance.

With the Norse gods in particular, it's a combination of the above with a good dose of Scandinavian dark humour thrown in. Heaps of pride and bravado and a keen awareness of the impermanence of life make for a very unique sort of mythology.

[Adrian]

As I remember, Thor was totally obsessed with giants. And married.

[Ian]

Picking up on Trickster mythologies:

I would suggest a classic, albeit antiquated (1956), study of some North American traditions, which is inexpensive in its Kindle edition:
The Trickster: A Study in American Indian Mythology, by Paul Radin, with contributions by Karl Kerényi (Greek tricksters) and C.G. Jung (Depth Psychology)

Radin was a very prominent anthropologist, mainly known for work with North and South American indigenous peoples.

I should warn the prospective reader that these stories, like many trickster tales, involve bodily functions and substances (e.g. sex and excrement) that some might find offensive.

More recent, and not seen by me, are:

American Indian Trickster Tales, by Richard Erdoes (Author, Illustrator), Alfonso Ortiz (Editor), in Kindle
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0031PXDTQ/...

and

Coyote Stories, by Mourning Dove (Author)
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00HE2IES2/...

[Ian]

More on Tricksters:

For West Africa, there is the fairly comprehensive, but perhaps aging, at least on the bibliographical side (published 1989),
The Trickster in West Africa: A Study of Mythic Irony and Sacred Delight, by Robert D. Pelton
This is available only in paperback, and is therefore relatively expensive.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/0520067916/...

I have a suspicion that there is at least one book on Celtic tricksters, such as Gwydion in the Welsh Maginogion and Mannanan Mac Lir in Irish myths and folktales, but I haven't been able to locate it. (And it may not be in English.)

Comparative studies include:

Trickster Makes This World: Mischief, Myth, and Art, by Lewis Hyde (Author), Michael Chabon (Foreword). This has a Kindle edition
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B005KJV3RU/...

Also in Kindle is Mythical Trickster Figures: Contours, Contexts, and Criticisms, by William J. Hynes (Editor), William G. Doty (Editor) (revised edition).
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00V4KJZGK/...

[Ian]

More bibliography:

For beginners in Old Norse studies, I would suggest The Vikings, by Else Roesdahl. The third edition, translated by Susan M. Margeson and Kirsten Williams, is in Kindle:
https://www.amazon.com/Vikings-Else-R...

Very useful for the origins of the culture that later produced the Eddas and Sagas, is
Viking Age Iceland, by Jesse Byock, who I mentioned above for translations. For its Kindle edition, see https://www.amazon.com/Viking-Age-Ice...
Byock has other books on later medieval Iceland, and the Icelandic sagas, for which see Amazon's listing.

For more advanced students of Norse Mythology, and Old Norse culture in general, who are willing to read a lot about archaeology and anthropology, I would suggest two well-received books by Neil Price:

The Children of Ash and Elm: A History of the Vikings, in Kindle at https://www.amazon.com/Children-Ash-E...

and The Viking Way: Magic and Mind in Late Iron Age Scandinavia, in Kindle at https://www.amazon.com/Viking-Way-Mag...

They both have extremely useful bibliographies

For a reference book in Kindle, see Norse Mythology: A Guide to the Gods, Heroes, Rituals, and Beliefs, by John Lindow, https://www.amazon.com/Norse-Mytholog...

Two other references, with differences in focus, are Andy Orchard's Cassell Dictionary of Norse Myth and Legend, also found without the publisher's name as part of the title. It appears to be out of print, but see https://www.amazon.com/Norse-Mytholog...

Orchard also translated the Elder (Poetic) Edda for Penguin: as usual I have some reservations about his treatment (including the publisher's subtitle): The Elder Edda: A Book of Viking Lore, available in Kindle (although I haven't been able to call it up on Goodreads: https://www.amazon.com/Elder-Edda-Vik...

Much more advanced, and language-oriented, with some flaws I complained about in a review, is Rudolf Simek's A Dictionary of Norse Mythology, also not on Goodreads: see https://www.amazon.com/Dictionary-Nor...
For my very old -- 2003 -- review (which is buried) see https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-re...
Looking back, I did not emphasize enough that I have profound differences with Simek on many issues, e.g., the value of Dumezil's work (see #7). But he seems to be trustworthy on the linguistic/philological side.

[Ian]

Getting back to where I started, before the data-dump:

For detailed treatments of Loki and Thor, and their peculiar relationship as comrades/enemies, see Trickster & The Thunder God, by Marta Kvilhaug, the Kindle edition of which is at https://www.amazon.com/Trickster-Thun...
(The Goodreads link to its Amazon page currently leads nowhere.)

It contains six poems from the Elder Edda, three Skaldic poems, and the relevant passages from Snorri's Prose Edda, amounting to a casebook, with commentary. It is another book I have not yet read. The response on Amazon seems to be good, but I may report back once I have become familiar with it.

Edited to add: Having read some of this book, I can't say I recommend it. I am very much out of sympathy with some of the author's views on the nature of the myths, and their "message," and with some translation practices, including using speculative and sometimes inconsistent "translations" instead of proper names whenever remotely possible. (And I don't agree with some of the translations, although I am not equipped to argue most of the points.)

[Aga]

Wow! I love to read all the additional information. I had a plan to read Norse Mythology and The Witch's Heart simultaneously but I’ll finish the Mythology first. It’s quick and fun read. My favorite story so far is "Thor’s Journey to the Land of the Gigants".


Edit:
My first encounter with Norse Mythology was years ago. I was attending a fantasy convention and there was a guy who every year took part in Vikings and Slovians Festival on Island Wolin. He was telling those stories and the audience didn’t have enough after one hour meeting with him. We found a free room so he could continue for two more hours. We were laughing so hard hearing stories about Thor and Loki, the staff came to see what was going on and…. they decided to stay :)

The feeling comes back to my while I’m reading the book. Some parts I read out loud to my husband.

[Colin]

Ian wrote: "Beth wrote: "Are there any resources you can recommend?
..."

Bibliographically dated (published 1989), but very comprehensive, is Jaan Puhvel's Comparative Mythology, which is much ..."

Ian, I may be going too far off topic, but seeing your comments on versions of the Edda I wonder if you have thoughts on Carolyne Larrington's translation of the Poetic Edda and Jackson Crawford's book, The Wanderer's Havamal?

[Ian]

A long time ago in Amazon terms (2004) I reviewed the first edition of Larrington's translation here: https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-re...
Amazon has merged it with reviews of the second edition. And Goodreads doesn't seem to have a link to the second edition, so you can navigate to the Amazon page for it through my review.

I then spent considerable space arguing that Larrington's translation was not necessarily wrong where it differed from others, but observed that I did not like the style.

Reviews in academic journals which I later found online pointed out translation mistakes -- or profound differences of opinion -- in places where I was unable to detect anything on my own, and other translators were accused of making the same mistakes, which made comparison with them unhelpful.

The second edition is supposed to have corrected many of these problems. I no longer have a copy of the first edition to compare.

My readability score for it is still fairly low. I compared it unfavorably in that regards to the 1920s Henry Adams Bellows translation (now available in Kindle and other formats), in which it is obvious that the verse is verse. Of course, this decision sometimes prevented him from following more literal readings. Also Bellows invented his own transliteration system for Old Norse words, which can trip up the unwary. And he has copious notes, often useful-looking, but some of them are wrong -- but it takes considerable knowledge to figure out which they are.

Just sticking to Kindle editons, there are a whole bunch of modern translations besides Larrington and Orchard (mentioned above), including: Jackson Crawford's nearly complete* version for Hackett The Poetic Edda: Stories of the Norse Gods and Heroes; one by the poet Jeremy Dodds, endorsed in a Foreward by a distinguished modern scholar, Terry Gunnell The Poetic Edda; and Lee M. Hollander's 1920s translation, revised in 1962, The Poetic Edda: Stories of the Norse Gods and Heroes, which some (not me) find unreadable, because of its attempt at imitative meters, and sometimes archaic vocabulary. Its many annotations are more reliable than Bellows, although they may be showing their age by now.

Hollander also did a companion volume of Old Norse Poems: The Most Important Non-Skaldic Verse Not Included in the Poetic Edda, some of the contents of which are indeed found in other translations of the Poetic Edda; and a volume of "Skaldic Verse," which seems to be out of print. (It is also textually out of date, and rather flat.)

(I once worked my way through a copy of Hollander's classroom edition of "Seven Eddic Lays," and was of course impressed by how closely his translation followed his own glossary......)

I haven't seen Crawford's separate edition of the Havamal, and it has been awhile since I read the translation in his (more) complete version, so I can't comment on that with any confidence.

*Crawford left out one of the two "Atli" poems (roughly, the death of Attila the Hun as transfigured in Norse traditon), on the grounds that they tell the same story. They do, but very differently, and the differences are interesting.

[Colin]

Ian wrote: "A long time ago in Amazon terms (2004) I reviewed the first edition of Larrington's translation here: https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-re......"

Thank you very much for your rapid (and amazing!) reply. I will look into some of these. It sounds like fun.

[Ian]

Thanks.

There are some nineteenth-century translations out there, too, often in cheap/free Kindle editions. If I summon the energy, I may give examples of them, as warnings about what not to rely on. But they multiply and/or disappear faster than I have taken the time to follow.

Or you can check notes on the translations themselves here: https://grumpylokeanelder.tumblr.com/...

[Ian]

Another comment on the Larrington translation: some people may prefer the hardcopy, because it can be hard to consult the annotated index of names on a Kindle device or app.

This is important, because Larrington frequently translates names, making passages difficult to recognize for those who have seen them quoted with the names in Old Norse.

An egregious example is the catalogue of dwarfs (or dwarves) in the first poem. Larrington's translated names completely obscure the fact that it was major source for names in Tolkien's The Hobbit. Gandalf, for example, shows up as Staff-Elf, and you need to go to the index to find the actual name.

Others do this as well: in my opinion, giving notes for the meaning of names is more satisfactory. And some of the translations of names are subject to controversy, depending on the finer points of Germanic philology.

[Ian]

This time I will wait for a response before posting links:

If anyone is interested, there are translations of another work by Snorri Sturluson, a collection of sagas about the kings of Norway (beginning with their supposed Swedish ancestors), known, after one of the opening words, as Heimskringla, "The orb of the world [on which mankind dwells]."

The opening (Swedish) section, Ynglinga Saga, contains mythological details supplementary to Snorri's Edda, and legends of ancient kings, some of whom appear in Beowulf

Sometimes attributed to Snorri is one of the earliest of the genre of "Sagas of the Icelanders," Egil's Saga (The Saga of Egil the son of Skallagrim): there are several translations, of widely varying quality, some of which I years ago reviewed on Amazon.

This is not mythological in content, although there is a bit of magic, and some interesting, but not necessarily reliable, information on how the Viking-Age Scandinavians viewed their gods.

An important, but generally neglected, source is the Latin Gesta Danorum ("Deeds of the Danes") by the Dane Saxo Grammaticus (roughly, Saxo the Learned), probably a monk, who lived between around 1150 to 1220, and avowedly drew on Icelandic as well as continental sources for the pre-Christian "history" of the Danes, including stories of the gods, rationalized as human sorcerers.

This section, the first nine books, has been translated into English twice. Like Heimskringla, it has overlaps with Beowulf.

[Aga]

Finished. I had so much fun! I’m a little worried now if I will like The Witch's Heart

[Jenni]

Just finished. This was a fun read. I enjoyed reading up on the myths and reading them from a different perspective than from the way they were told in Witch's Heart. It's interesting that there were some things that the author of Witch's Heart decided to change, for example, the character who has the premonition of Ragnarok was different in this book than in the other. (hope that's not too spoil-y) But I really did enjoy the actual telling of the myths even though the gods themselves were big a-holes. I guess I do kind of get why. But I am very interested to keep reading up on this topic. I have saved some of the books in this thread to my "to read" list. Looking forward to learning more! Thanks for a fun read and my first Buddy Read! :-)