Norse Mythology

A casual reading of the surviving sources paints a rather unflattering picture of Loki. He is presented as a thief, a liar, a father to monsters and murderer of the Sun god Balder. But he's also the source of many of the items most treasured by the Norse gods: Thor's hammer, Odin's horse, Sif's golden hair.All of these things were brought to Asgard through Loki's efforts. Upon closer consideration, a more nuanced picture of Loki emerges. By exploring Loki's role among the gods and among men, we can learn more about this not-so-merry prankster and the society that described him in so many stories.Although Loki made his home with the gods, he was achild of the Jotuns.

Snorri Sturlsson, the 12th century author of the Eddas, wrote... "Also numbered among the Æsir is he whom some call the mischief-monger of the Æsir, and the first father of falsehoods, and blemish of all gods and men: He is named Loki or Loptr, son of Fárbauti the giant; his mother was Laufey or Nál; his brothers are Byleistr and Helblindi." Interestingly, Helblindi ("One Who Blinds With Death") is one of the kennings or poetic titles awarded to Odin. In another poem -- the Lokasenna -- Loki said,     "Remember, Othin, in olden days     That we both our blood have mixed;     Then didst thou promise no ale topour,     Unless it were brought for us both." Other sources claim Odin was the child of the giants Bor and Besla. These sources name his brothers as Vili and Ve, or as Hønir and Lothur (variants include Lodur or Lodhur). The Völuspá saga describes how these three created man:     "Then from the host three came,     Great, merciful, from the God's home:     Ash and Elm on earth they found,     Faint, feeble, with no fate assigned them     Breath they had not, nor blood nor senses,     Nor language possessed, nor life-hue:     Odhinn gave them breath, Haenirsen......

The Viking Age was a period of considerable religious change in Scandinavia. Part of the popular image of the Vikings is that they were all pagans, with a hatred of the Christian Church, but this view is very misleading.It is true that almost the entire population of Scandinavia was pagan at the beginning of the Viking Age, but the Vikings had many gods, and it was no problem for them to accept the Christian god alongside their own. Most scholars today believe that Viking attacks on Christian churches had nothing to do with religion, but more to do with the fact that monasteries were typically both wealthy andpoorly defended, making them an easy target for plunder.The Vikings came into contact with Christianity through their raids, and when they settled in lands with a Christian population, they adopted Christianity quite quickly.

This was true in Normandy, Ireland, and throughout the British Isles. Although contemporary accounts say little about this, we can see it in the archaeological evidence. Pagans buried their dead with grave goods, but Christians normally didn't, and this makes it relatively easy to spot the change in religion.As well as conversion abroad, the Viking Age also saw a gradual conversion in Scandinavia itself, as Anglo-Saxon and German missionaries arrived to convert the pagans. By the mid-11th century,Christianity was well established in Denmark and most of Norway. Although there was a temporary conversion in Sweden in the early 11th century, it wasn't until the mid-12th century that Christianity became established there. As part of the process of conversion the Christians took over traditional pagan sites. A good example of this can be seen at Gamle Uppsala in Sweden, where the remains of an early church stand alongside a series of huge pagan burial mounds.

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Do elves exist? Like many Icelanders, Hildur Hakonardottir considers the question to be more complicated than it appears."This is a very, very, very delicate question," Ms. Hakonardottir, a retired museum director, said. "If you ask people if they believe in elves, they will say yes and no. If they say yes, maybe they don't, and if they say no, maybe they do."Hypothetically speaking, what does she think elves look like? "Well, my next-door neighbor is an elf woman," she declared suddenly. "She lives in a cliff in a rock in my garden." Despite having seen the elf only once in 15 years - enough timeto determine that she was "bigger than life and dressed like my grandmother, in a 1930's national costume" - Ms.

Hakonardottir, 67, has no doubt of her existence. "My daughter once asked me, 'How do you know where elves live?' " she said. "I told her you just know. It's just a feeling." It is a feeling that many people in Iceland apparently share. Polls consistently show that the majority of the population either believes in elves - generally described as humanlike creatures who are fiercely protective of their rocky homes - or is not willing to rule out their existence. But while believing in elves is rooted in Iceland's culture, it remains a touchy subject. "You have to watch out for the Nordic cliché," the Icelandic singer Bjork told The New Yorker magazine several years ago. "Afriend of mine says that when record-company executives come to Iceland, they ask the bands if they believe in elves, and whoever says yes gets signed up." Yet even Bjork cannot say no for sure. "We think nature is a lot stronger than man," she said in another interview, when the Elf Question came up. "A relationship with things spiritual has not gone away." A belief not just in elves but also in the predictive power of dreams, in the potency of dead spirits and in other supernatural phenomena, is closely linked to Iceland's Celtic traditions and punishing, powerful landscape - especially the harsh weather and the rocks that appear everywhere. "If there was a large stone in the garden, and somebody said to an Icelander, 'That's an elf stone,' would they blow it up? They wouldn't," saidTerry G......

Long before the people of Scandinavia took to Christianity, pagan Nordic spirituality had its own view of Creation.Indigenous Nordic peoples' perception of the spiritual universe is sourced from poems and folklore that have survived through oral tradition since the time of the Vikings. Snorri Sturluson, the 12th century Icelandic chieftain devoted to literature and scholarship compiled poems and stories (The Edda) that reflect the spiritual beliefs of the Vikings, their gods and goddesses, detailing the creation of the world and the deeds of the gods.A description of what prevailed before chaos and the creation of heaven, earth and seas talks about the great abyss, the Ginnungagap,without form and void. Like the Rig Vedic hymn that describes the Beginning, the following Nordic verse resounds with philosophic profundity: "In the beginning/ not anything existed,/ there was no sand or sea/ nor cooling waves;/ earth was unknown/ and heaven above/ only Ginnungagap/ was — there was no grass". On either side of the great abyss lay Muspellheim, the land of fire and Niflheim, the land of ice.

A spirit, Fimbultyr, moved upon the face of the abyss and the movement made the rivers of fire and ice collide. As they flowed into the abyss, the melting and melding gave birth to the sleeping giant Ymir.Ymir was the first living creature, ancestor of the evil race of giants. From his different body parts were created male and female beings who started the race of frost giants. So out of chaos were born evil giants,conjured from a cosmic soup of fire and ice, with a spirit breathing life into them. The giant Ymir sustained himself by drinking the milk dripping from the teats of the cosmic cow Audhumla, who was also a creation of melting ice. The cow in turn lived by licking the salty blocks of ice which, when melted, revealed a male figure, Buri. He married Bestla the giantess and fathered three sons, the Aesir gods, and the first of who was Odin, the first Nordic God. The gods lived in Asgard, a Divine City.The spirit, Fimbultyr, ordered that Ymir be slain so that chaos could be replaced by order. Odin and his brothers mortally wounded Ymir and from his body they made the universe. His flesh yielded the earth, his blood became the sea, rocks formed from his bones, his hair became trees, his skull the vaulted heavens and from his eyebrows formed Midgard, the eternal stronghold. The gods madem......