Norse myths

I'm Norwegian.  Well, I'm one-fourth Norwegian, but that one-fourth supplies all the ethnic flavoring to my vanilla background of British ancestry.

What do I know about my cultural background, as an arguable son of Norway?  I'm talking ancient history of the race -- not Ibsen's plays or Grieg's compositions.  I'm talking about gods and heroes, triumphs and defeats, the way a Greek might talk of Theseus and Agamemnon.

Well, let's see:

In college, under duress, I read Njal's Saga (in English translation).  Icelandic, not Norwegian, but closely related. 

For two consecutive years, I attended the entire Ring Cycle.  Four Wagner operas on four weeknights, while also attempting to practice law.  German, not Norwegian, but dealing with the same gods and heroes, sometimes under somewhat different names.

I know the gods after whom four of our weekdays are named.  Old English, by way of Anglo-Saxon, not Norwegian.  But, again, the same gods.

So, let's face it.  Like most Americans (and Europeans) I know Greek mythology far better than I know the Norse mythology of my Norwegian forebears.  (I'm ignoring modern graphic stories using Norse gods as superheroes -- these may or may not (I suspect not) convey a feeling for the world created in the ancient myths.)

And then, a few days ago, I ran into Norse Mythology by Neil Gaiman.  Some of you may know of Mr. Gaiman.  As Wikipedia puts it, he is "an English author of short fiction, novels, comic books, graphic novels, audio theatre, and films."  He is the author of a popular fantasy novel, American Gods, whose central premise, again relying on Wikipedia, seems to be that gods and other mythological creatures exist so long as people believe in them.  He has won numerous prizes, including both the Newberry and Carnegie Medals for his children's novel, The Graveyard Book.

Norse myths, like Icelandic sagas, can be a bit off-putting, because they tend to be written and translated in -- what seems to modern readers -- formal, stylized, and difficult language.  Gaiman sweeps all that aside.  He has re-written some of the most important of the Norse stories in modern English.  Not just in modern English, but in modern popular English.  He is a friend of British comic fantasy writer Terry Pratchett (the Discworld series), and his language and sense of humor show the affinity.

Gaiman's fifteen stories begin with the Creation of the Universe:

Before the beginning there was nothing -- no earth, no heavens, no stars, no sky: only the mist world, formless and shapeless, and the fire world, always burning.  ...  [Between the mist world and the fire world] was a void, an empty place of nothingness, without form.  The rivers of the mist world flowed into the void, which was called Ginnungagap, the "yawning gap."

Then begin the stories of the great Norse gods -- Odin, Thor, Tyr -- and the half god, half giant Loki the trickster.  There were giants in those days, and elves and dwarfs.  In an empty spot, in the middle of this universe, a place called Midgard, the gods made humans.  And here we are today.

The stories are written dramatically, with much breaking of skulls and random killings of people or giants or gods who happen to get in the way.  Yes, killings of gods, too, because the gods too can suffer violent death, although they don't age.  The gods aren't particularly inspiring in any modern sense, and they have no interest in being so.  They eat, they drink, they brawl, they bed goddesses, giants, dwarfs, and anyone else who happens to be handy.  They betray each other.  To die bravely in battle is the goal of life, permitting entrance to Valhalla.

Loki, especially, is without scruple.  Clever, yes.  Beautiful, yes.  Friendly and sociable, often.  But dangerous and without scruple.

The book ends, appropriately, with the end of time -- Ragnarok, or what the Germans call Götterdämmerung and which we translate as the Twilight of the Gods.  An apocalyptic battle, whose concept might seem familiar to us as we consider our own world.  Everybody's killed.  Everything will be consumed by fire, and the sea will flood over the ashes.

Some may feel that they are reading literature that is merely a verbalization of those comic books that Gaiman also loves and creates.  But Gaiman notes in his Introduction that, in preparing this work, he had pored over the Prose Edda and the Poetic Edda -- the primary sources of Norse legend.  The eddas -- like Greek mythology -- often contain conflicting accounts of the same stories.  Gaiman has picked and chosen and pieced together the versions that he liked best and that would make the best stories for his readers -- just as the ancient tellers of tales no doubt did themselves while whispering around a fire to spellbound villagers.

I hope I've told these stories honestly, but there was still joy and creation in the telling.

For me, the stories were a pleasure to read.  I want to read more Norse mythology.  I may also want to read other works by Neil Gaiman.