Norse Mythology: The Unofficial Guide

Our sources for Norse mythology are pretty male-centric. But even so, when we tally up the names of all the gods we have vs. all the goddesses, it turns out we actually have a lot more goddess names than gods. Goddesses certainly played an important role in the lived religion of ancient Scandinavians, so this episode is a tribute to a few of the goddesses forgotten by time.

Sources:

• “Germania” by Publius Cornelius Tacitus, 1st century
• “Great Goddess Theory in Ancient Germanic Studies” by Joseph S. Hopkins, 2019
• “Goddesses Unknown I: Njǫrun and the Sister-Wife of Njǫrðr” by Joseph S. Hopkins, 2012
• “Goddesses Unknown II: On the Apparent Old Norse Goddess Ilmr” by Joseph S. Hopkins, 2014
• “Goddesses Unknown III: On the Identity of the Old Norse Goddess Hlín” by Joseph S. Hopkins, 2017
• “Heimskringla”, transl. by Alison Finlay and Anthony Faulkes, 2011
• “Meeting the Other in Norse Myth and Legend” by John McKinnell, 2005
• “The Poetic Edda”, transl. by Carolyne Larrington, 2014
• “The Prose Edda”, transl. by Anthony Faulkes, 1995

Contact:

• Write in: waelhraefn (at) gmail (dot) com
• Join the Discord: https://discord.gg/Nvw5hmkRsW

Music:

Celebration by Alexander Nakarada (www.serpentsoundstudios.com) Licensed under Creative Commons BY Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

There's an intriguing stanza in one of our source poems mentioning a compromise between the goddess Freyja and the god Óðinn. It seems to tell us only half the slain warriors are received by Óðinn in Valhöll because the other half are chosen by Freyja for a place called Fólkvangr. But what does it really mean to choose the slain? Who decides who dies? And what happens when the god of the slain wants something that goes against the decrees of fate? This episode is a little more interpretive than others, but isn't speculation what makes the study of mythology fun?

Sources:

• “Dictionary of Northern Mythology” by Rudolf Simek, 2007
• “Norse Mythology: A Guide to the Gods, Heroes, Rituals, and Beliefs” by John Lindow, 2001
• “The Ship in the Field” by Joseph S. Hopkins and Haukur Þorgeirsson, 2012
• “The Poetic Edda”, transl. by Carolyne Larrington, 2014
• “The Prose Edda”, transl. by Anthony Faulkes, 1995

Contact:

• Write in: waelhraefn (at) gmail (dot) com
• Join the Discord: https://discord.gg/Nvw5hmkRsW

Music:

Celebration by Alexander Nakarada (www.serpentsoundstudios.com) Licensed under Creative Commons BY Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

In one of the most famous Norse myths of all time, Thor's hammer is stolen by the jǫtnar and the only way to get it back is to dress in drag. But this story is much more than a surface-level comedy. It turns Norse ideas about gender and societal expectations on their heads and teaches us a lot about the personalities of the gods. It also seems to prove the age-old adage that comedy is the one place where anything goes.

Sources:

• “Negative Reciprocity” by Margaret Clunies Ross in “Prolonged Echoes” Volume I, 1994
• “Níð, Ergi and Old Norse Moral Attitudes” by Folke Ström, 1974
• “Paganism at Home: Pre-Christian Private Praxis and Household Religion in the Iron-Age North“ by Luke John Murphy, 2018
• “The dating of Eddic poetry – evidence from alliteration” by Haukur Þorgeirsson, 2017
• “Þrymsvkiða, Myth and Mythology” by John Lindow, 1997
• “The Poetic Edda”, transl. by Carolyne Larrington, 2014
• “The Prose Edda”, transl. by Anthony Faulkes, 1995

Contact:

• Write in: waelhraefn (at) gmail (dot) com
• Join the Discord: https://discord.gg/Nvw5hmkRsW

Music:

Celebration by Alexander Nakarada (www.serpentsoundstudios.com) Licensed under Creative Commons BY Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Thanks for all of your support and feedback so far! The purpose of this announcement is to let you know that you are all invited to join me on a new Discord server! If you aren't familiar with Discord, it's an app you can visit in the browser or download to your devices that allows you to chat with people who are interested in similar topics. Our community is intended to be open and friendly. Here's the link:

Contact:

• Join the Discord: https://discord.gg/Nvw5hmkRsW
• You can also write me at waelhraefn (at) gmail (dot) com

Thor hasn't always had his famous hammer. And for that matter, Óðinn hasn't always had his famous spear. As it turns out, these gods only came to possess their signature weapons as the result of Loki being a trouble-maker. In this episode we'll talk about rowan trees, golden hair, infidelity, dwarves, and some likely shape-shifting shenanigans. By the end, we'll have finally gotten to the bottom of what magical powers the weapons of the gods actually have, and why Loki once had his mouth sewn shut.

Sources:

• “Avlsten” by P. V. Glob, 1959
• “Myth and Religion of the North: The Religion of Ancient Scandinavia” by Gabriel Turville-Petre, 1964
• “The History of the Archbishops of Hamburg-Bremen” by Adam of Bremen 10th century, translated by Francis Tschan.
• “Norse Mythology: A Guide to the Gods, Heroes, Rituals, and Beliefs” by John Lindow, 2001
• “The Poetic Edda”, transl. by Carolyne Larrington, 2014
• “The Prose Edda”, transl. by Anthony Faulkes, 1995

Contact:

• Write in: waelhraefn (at) gmail (dot) com
• Join the Discord: https://discord.gg/Nvw5hmkRsW

Music:

Celebration by Alexander Nakarada (www.serpentsoundstudios.com). Licensed under Creative Commons BY Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/