Norse Mythology

by Patrick Auerbach

  Still the heat grew stronger, and the cow Audhumbla was formed from the melting ice. Ymir and his children drank her milk, and she herself was nourished by licking the salty ice. As she licked she freed another being trapped in the ice, a very handsome figure called Buri - the first of the gods, whose son was Borr. Borr married Bestla, one of Ymir’s daughters, and their children were Odin and his brothers. Buri and Bor vanish from the stories after Odin’s birth.

  Odin and his brothers killed Ymir and from his body they built the worlds; his flesh became earth, his bones rock, and his blood the water of the rivers and oceans. Most of the giants died in the floods that rose as Ymir’s blood spilled, but a few escaped to the cold wilderness of Jotunheim.

  The gods built Midgard, the human world, inside a protective wall made from Ymir’s eyebrows. They took sparks from Muspelheim and threw them into the sky to shine as stars. From that fire they also made the sun and moon, and they appointed Sol and her brother Mani to drive the chariots which carried the sun and moon across the sky marking days, months and years. Behind the chariots ran two ravenous wolves, eager to devour the light and its protectors. The gods did not destroy those wolves, but the chariots were so swift that the wolves could not overtake them until the end of the worlds and the gods at Ragnarok.

  Now there was order where there had been chaos, and the worlds grew with green plants and other living beings. Maggots had begun to breed in Ymir’s body before the work of creation was finished, and these were given the gift of life and will and became the race of dwarves. In Midgard three of the gods took two trees and formed them into the first human beings. Ask, the first man, came from the ash tree and Embla, the first woman, from the elm. Odin gave them living souls. According to some stories, Honir gave them their five senses and Loki gave them warmth and color. Other stories leave Loki out and say that Odin was helped by his brothers Vili and Ve, who don’t come up much in the rest of the mythology.

  Chapter Four: The Fortification of Asgard

  The gods established life, order and beauty in their own world of Asgard. They made high buildings and strong citadels, including Valhalla of the warriors and Valaskjalf from which Odin watched over all that happened in the nine worlds. They met and made peace with the gods of Vanaheim after initial suspicion. According to some of the stories Honir, one of the creators of humankind, went to Vanaheim as a peace-pledge while Njord, Freyja and Freyr of the Vanir came to stay in Asgard. There was much joy in Asgard, but there was fear as well. The gods could not forget that Ymir’s children held a grudge against them and might attack at any time. So they were overjoyed when a builder came to them, offering to raise them a great wall as a sure defense against the giants.

  The builder’s promise was tempting; all the more so as he promised to complete the work within two winters and a summer but the price he asked was terribly high. He asked for Freyja’s hand in marriage, and also for the sun and moon. Freyja was quite unwilling to marry him, and the gods feared to lose both her beauty and the light and order they had made. But someone-and when the gods tried to remember the matter later they agreed it must have been Loki-suggested that they accept the builder’s offer, with conditions. All the work had to be done by the builder himself and all had to be completed within one winter; if anything was left unfinished on the first day of summer, the builder would go unpaid. The gods believed that the builder could never complete his task in time, so they made the offer. The builder accepted, with one condition of his own: that his stallion could help him haul stone. The gods agreed, and many oaths were sworn.

  But what a stallion that was! He was strong and tireless and got more work done than his master, and three days before the beginning of summer all the wall was built except for the gate. There seemed to be no doubt about the builder finishing his work on time.

  Then the gods, especially Freyja, regretted their bargain. They feared that the builder had come from Jotunheim, meaning to take away the light and the loveliness of their home without having to fight for it. They decided that Loki had made the suggestion which was about to ruin them, and they threatened Loki with torment and death if he didn’t find some way to stop the work from being finished on time. Loki begged the gods for mercy and promised to do whatever it took to prevent the work being from completed and the builder’s price paid. Then he left the citadel alone.

  That night when the builder took his stallion with him to haul stone, they heard the whinnying of a mare in the darkness ahead and the stallion caught the mare’s scent. He neighed with joy, broke his reins and galloped off into the night, following the mare who ran away from him, deeper and deeper into the woods. The builder chased the horses, shouting and cursing, but they left him far behind.

  That morning there was no stone ready for the builder to raise around the gates, and he builder knew that he had lost his wager. In his anger he took his true form, and the gods saw that he was indeed a giant of Jotunheim just as they had feared. Thor was furious and struck the giant with his hammer, killing him at once.

  A few months later Loki, in the shape of the fleet-footed and beautiful mare who had led the stallion astray, gave birth to a grey foal with eight legs who was the best horse in the worlds. Odin took that horse for his own, and he rode it ever after along the roots and branches of the great World Tree.

  Chapter Five: Iduna’s Apples

  On one occasion Odin, Honir and Loki, the three who had made humankind, traveled over mountains and fields into a country they did not know. After long journeying they were hungry, and when they found a herd of oxen grazing they slaughtered one and set about cooking it but the meat remained raw. They argued about why this had happened until the eagle who had sat hidden in the branches above them called to them and said that his magic kept the meat from cooking. If they gave him a portion of the meat, he said, their food would cook and they could eat.

  The gods, tired and hungry, agreed but the eagle swooped down and took the best parts of the meat. Loki, who was never noted for his patience, tore a great branch from the tree and swung it at the eagle. The eagle seized the other end of the pole and lifted the branch, Loki and all, into the sky and flew far from Loki’s companions. Loki cried out in terror, and the eagle said that he would never set Loki down again until Loki promised to bring him both Iduna and her Apples of Youth from Asgard.

  Now this was a dangerous promise for it was only Iduna and her apples that kept the gods from death; whenever they felt old age stealing over them they ate of her apples and grew young again. But Loki was afraid for his life, so he made his promise and re-joined his companions.

  On returning to Asgard, Loki went to Iduna and told her that on his travels he had found a marvelous apple tree whose fruits she would greatly admire. Perhaps, he said, they were better than the apples she had. He suggested that she bring her apples to the new tree so they could make a comparison. Iduna was a trusting goddess, and she agreed and went with Loki. They traveled together out of sight of Asgard’s walls and into the wild country, where the eagle swooped down from the sky and carried both Iduna and her apples away to his home in the wild mountains of Jotunheim. There he took on his true shape again, revealing himself as the wealthy and powerful giant Thiassi.

  In Asgard the gods felt old age stealing over them, leaving gray in their hair and weariness in their bones and they had no remedy. Many of the gods assembled and asked each other what could have become of Iduna and where she had last been seen. The last that any god had seen or heard was that she had gone away with Loki.

  Loki was brought by force into the assembly and once again threatened with pain and death if he did not bring Iduna back. Fearing for his life, he made his promise to them as he had to Thiassi and asked for the loan of Freyja’s falcon-feather cloak so that he might change his shape and fly. Freyja gave him what he asked for, and he flew swiftly and lightly to Jotunheim where he waited until Thiassi was gone far out to sea. Then he changed Iduna and her apples together into the shape of a nut, and picked the
m up and flew on the wings of the wind back toward Asgard. But Thiassi took on his eagle shape and flew after them, gaining at every beat of his wings which were longer and stronger than Loki’s.

  The gods looked out from the walls of Asgard and saw the falcon and the eagle coming. They piled tinder atop the walls. As soon as the falcon crossed the wall in a last desperate burst of speed, the gods fired the tinder so that flames caught in the pursuing eagle’s wings. Thiassi fell to the ground in eagle shape and was killed.

  Thiassi had a daughter named Skadi, a giantess both strong and brave. When she heard of her father’s death she was furious, and she armed herself and marched alone into Asgard vowing to avenge her father. But the gods, instead of attacking her, offered her ransom. She agreed to peace on three conditions. First, that the gods would set Thiassi’s eyes into the sky as stars so that he would always be remembered. Second, that they would make her laugh, which she hardly thought possible. Third, that she might choose for herself a husband from among the gods.

  The gods agreed to all. The first condition was easily met. The second was harder, but at last Loki succeeded by tying himself to one end of a rope and a billy-goat to another and engaging in a furious tug-of-war. When he fell into Skadi’s lap she laughed despite herself. For her third request, the gods set the condition that they would come before her masked and cloaked with only their feet showing, and she should choose her husband thus. She saw a particularly beautiful pair of feet and thought they must belong to Balder, fairest of the gods, but when he uncloaked himself she saw instead Njord the sea-god, the calmer of winds and storms. For a time it seemed they might be content together. But when Njord came with her to her mountain home he hated the crying of the wolves and longed for the sea, and when she came to Njord’s home on the seashore she hated the screaming of the seagulls and longed for the mountains, so she left him- not happy, perhaps, but at peace.

  Chapter Six: Odin in Midgard

  King Hrauthung, a ruler of the Goths in Midgard, had two young sons. One day when Agnar, the eldest and heir to the crown, was ten years old and his brother Geirroth was eight, they went out fishing together in a small boat. A wild wind rose and drove the boat far from shore. Far into the night they were blown across the sea, and in the darkness they were shipwrecked on an unknown coast. They might have died that night in the cold, but an old man and an old woman- two poor peasants, as it seemed- took them in, fed then and sheltered them. The weather grew steadily worse and the boat was beyond repair, so they princes stayed all winter with the old couple. The woman tended Agnar, while the man tended Geirroth and taught him wisdom. When spring came the peasants gave the princes a new boat and bade them farewell. Just before they set out to sea the old man whispered something in Geirroth’s ear. The princes sailed away together, not knowing that their hosts had been Odin and Frigga in disguise.

  The little boat made the return journey safely, and Geirroth was the first to jump out of the boat at their father’s deserted landing-place. But instead of holding the boat steady so Agnar could climb out as well, he pushed the boat back out to sea as hard as he could saying, “Go thou now where evil may have thee!” The wind arose, and Agnar alone could not steer the boat which drifted far out to sea again. No one was there to see what Geirroth had done. When he came to his father’s city he found that his father was dead- men hailed his return as a miracle and he was crowned the King. He grew up, married and had a son, whom he named Agnar after the brother he had betrayed.

  One day, when little Agnar was ten years old, Odin looked out from Asgard toward Midgard and laughed. He told Frigga that her fosterling, the older Agnar, was living in a cave and begetting children with a giantess while his own fosterling, Geirroth, was a ruling king. “Yes, and what a king!” Frigga said angrily. “He tortures his guests if there are too many of them making demands on his hospitality.”

  Odin swore that this was a lie, but it was hard to be sure of such a thing-for while Odin on his high seat could see into all lands, he could not see everything at once. So Odin and Frigga made a wager, and Odin disguised himself as a traveling man and made ready to go back to Midgard. But Frigga, unbeknownst to him, sent her maidservant ahead to Geirroth warning that a dangerous enchanter was traveling the countryside; he could be recognized, she said, by the fact that no dog would leap at him.

  Now Geirroth was not generally an inhospitable man, but when an old man in a dark-blue mantle came to the door and the dogs let him pass as though he were an accustomed guest the king was suspicious. He had his guards seize the stranger and hold him for questioning. The stranger gave his name as Grimnir, ‘the hooded one,’ but he refused to say more about himself no matter how the guards threatened him. So Geirroth had his guest bound hand and foot and set close between two blazing fires until he was willing to answer the king’s questions.

  For eight days and eight nights Grimnir was bound there, given nothing to eat or drink. The fires were gradually built up until the mantle burned on Grimnir’s back, but still he said nothing. At last Agnar, the king’s young son, saw what was being done and pitied the stranger. He brought Grimnir a full horn of mead, and he said that the king did wrong to hurt Grimnir when Grimnir had done him no harm.

  Grimnir drank, and Grimnir spoke. He complained of his pain and of the men who had stood by and let him suffer. He praised Agnar for giving him a drink, and foretold that Agnar alone would rule the Goths. Then he began to speak of the beauty and strength of Asgard and its inhabitants. All this time Geirroth listened and said nothing. Grimnir cried out that the mighty gods themselves saw how Geirroth abused his guest, and that while the gods had once helped Geirroth, he was now under their curse and would soon die by the sword. Geirroth listened grimly with his sword half-drawn. At last Grimnir called on his godly power and named himself as Odin. At this Geirroth leapt up, sword in hand and hurried toward his prisoner, meaning perhaps to free him or perhaps to attack him. He had the chance to do neither. The sword fell from his hand, hilt down, and he fell on the sword and died. Odin disappeared. Agnar ruled the Goths for many years, and we may guess that he was kind to mysterious strangers.

  Chapter Seven: Thor’s Adventures Amongst the Giants

  I: Thor in Utgard

  One day Thor and Loki, together with Thor’s human servant Thialfi, traveled from Asgard toward the giant’s city of Utgard. They traveled a long time in wild lands until they found a great hall standing in the midst of the wild forest. When they knocked at the door no one answered, but the door opened at Thor’s touch and they spent the night in that hall, with Thor guarding the threshold. In the middle of the night they heard a terrible noise and felt the ground shaking under them, but the hall stood firm. When they went outside in the morning they saw what had caused the roaring sound. A huge giant lay snoring on the ground not far from the doors of the hall.

  Thor took up his hammer, put on the magic belt that doubled his strength and prepared to defend himself and his companions. But the giant, when he woke, seemed friendly enough. He introduced himself as Skrymir, announced that he knew Thor already and invited the gods and their servant to accompany him. They agreed, though they were daunted when Skrymir asked where his glove was and they realized that his glove was the hall in which they had spent the night.

  Skrymir offered to carry their provision sack as well as his own. All day they journeyed together, Thialfi and the gods struggling to keep up with Skrymir’s great strides. Later that night, Skrymir lay down to sleep after telling the gods to untie the sack and take out their own provisions from it. But even Thor could not begin to loosen the knots of the sack. Hungry, angry and afraid, Thor struck at Skrymir’s head as Skrymir lay sleeping. He struck hard but the hammer bounced off, and Skrymir blinked, half-woke, and said he thought a leaf had fallen on his head. Twice more Skrymir seemed to sleep and Thor struck at him to no avail. In the morning they were ready to part company with Skrymir, who gave them directions to the city of Utgard. He warned them, however, that the folk of Utgard
were even larger than himself, and that Thor and his companions had better behave themselves and make no boasts while they were in that city.

  The walls of Utgard were higher than cliffs, and the gate-bars were so strong that Thor could not lift them so they had to creep in between. When they came to the king’s great hall which was indeed filled with giants of Skrymir’s size, the giant king looked scornfully at them saying he supposed that the little man must be Thor, who had such a misleading reputation for strength. He added that if Thor and his friends wished to stay as guests in Utgard they had better be able to do something impressive to prove themselves worthy guests.

  Loki claimed that he could eat faster than anyone else. A man named Loge was chosen as his opponent, and a great dish of meat was placed between them. Each man started eating from one end and they met in the middle, but Loki had eaten only the meat from his portion of the dish while Loge had eaten up the bones and the dish as well.

  Thialfi offered to race with anyone that the king might choose. The racecourse was set and Thialfi ran fast enough, but his opponent, Huge, was twice as fast as he was.