Children of Ash and Elm

by Neil Price;

  Connecting all these realms, again, was the great ash tree, Yggdrasill. There have been numerous attempts at visualising the spatial relationships of the Norse worlds, all of them speculative and some plunging into New Age fantasia with careless abandon. Were they formed as concentric discs, one inside the other, moving outwards in two dimensions like ripples from the thrown stone of the World Tree? Or were they a stack, a vertical tier of realms threaded on Yggdrasill’s trunk like a spindle? Perhaps they perched on its individual branches. According to the Grímnir’s Sayings poem, the tree had three roots that covered respectively the worlds of humans, giants, and the dead; Snorri has it slightly differently as they stretch over the gods, the giants, and Niflheim.

  Yggdrasill was evergreen, unlike its earthly counterparts, and was nourished from three springs at its roots. Again, the sources differ, but it seems clear that at least two of them rose from wells. Beneath the root that led to the realm of the frost giants was the Well of Mímir, guarded by a being of the same name. Its waters contained all wisdom and could be drunk from the Gjallarhorn. The root of the gods rose into the sky (says Snorri, following the contradictory physics of the Norse cosmos), but under it was the Well of Urd, the ‘spring of fate’ that was also the location of the Aesir assembly. The third root went down into the dark world, feeding from the spring Hvergelmir, ‘the bubbling cauldron’, in which all the worlds’ rivers had their source.

  Clearly, some of the Norse cosmology was based in physical nature—after all, almost everyone has seen Bifröst, the rainbow bridge, at one time or another. Similarly, the volcanic landscapes of Iceland, where most of the sources were written down, are a natural backdrop to the volatile mix of fire and ice from which the worlds were formed. The Tree may also have a manifestation in everyday perception. Relatively little is known of how the Vikings understood the night sky, the stars, and the constellations; beyond a few ambiguous references in Snorri, which some dismiss while others take seriously, there is little to go on. However, one Icelandic scholar is convinced that Yggdrasill can be read as an interpretation of the Milky Way—surely a plausible idea, especially when one escapes the nocturnal light pollution of our cities and sees its majesty rearing overhead, impossibly vast, with its cloudy arms spanning the sky like branches.

  The shape of the Norse worlds can be dimly perceived across centuries of distance, the great Tree connecting them through the void. But what of their inhabitants?

  The extent to which the Vikings have suffered from stereotyping is more than matched by how their gods and other supernatural beings have been perceived. In the popular imagination, the divine world of Asgard holds a single hall: Valhalla (actually a Victorian misspelling of Valhöll), home of Odin and famous worldwide today as ‘Viking heaven’, the destination of the worthy dead and synonymous with the Norse afterlife itself. However, the myths are clear that Valhöll was only one of many such residences, as each of the major gods lived on their own estate. These would have been understood as a main hall and surrounding huts, barns, and stables for the household and the animals—god-sized reflections of the manors of the elites in Midgard. Asgard was very much a landscape, a world in its own right.

  The literal origins of the oldest gods, emerging from the primal ice, by no means account for all the Norse divinities. They came from two families, the Aesir—of whom Odin is the head—and the Vanir, who in some strange way seem to be the older of the two, despite the fact that they do not appear in the basic creation myth. The Vanir were gods of the earth and its riches, representing the dependent relationship between humans and the land in an agricultural society. The Aesir were distinct, with a more patriarchal family structure and a greater propensity for violence (which is not to say the Vanir were entirely peaceable). The Seeress’s Prophecy describes how the families at first clashed in a mighty war, with fighting that shook Asgard, resolved only after complex negotiations and the giving of hostages.

  It is unclear what the two divine families really signify, or even whether that is a meaningful question. Are the Vanir the remnants of the supposed earth-based religions of the Bronze Age and the early Iron Age, many centuries back in the past? Is the war of the gods a magnified image of turbulence in the real human world and (in the artificial terms of historians) a metaphor for the fifth-century transition to the ‘late Iron Age’? Some scholars certainly think so, but it is far from clear what the more distantly prehistoric Scandinavians really believed. Despite extraordinary archaeological evidence amassed over the past two centuries and analysed in depth, we cannot be sure. The sun and the cycle of the celestial bodies were important, as were liminal places such as bogs and wetlands, a suggestion of chthonic powers below. All this was referenced in material culture, depicted in art, and honoured through water offerings of gold, costly metals, food, animals—and sacrificed humans. There seems to have been a clear concern for propitiation, a sort of sacred insurance policy for agricultural prosperity, individual fertility, and probably success in war. The people of the Iron Age were hardly alone in such preoccupations, but it is not difficult to fit the Vanir into this picture.

  In the tales, the Vanir joined the Aesir after a truce was declared in their war, and thereafter they appear together in Asgard—an image of a society remade? The particular qualities of the older gods then emerge as specific skills and attributes alongside those of their new cousins, rather than differences that fundamentally separated the families.

  The head of the Vanir is Njörd, a fount of wisdom and provider of abundant crops, full catches of fish, and a fair wind in the sails. As patron of farmers and sailors, he would have made an appropriate high god back in the Bronze and early Iron Ages. His hall is Nóatún, the ‘ship enclosure’. Right from the start, this founding figure embodies one of the main aspects of the Vanir as they appear in the sources—a disconcerting, and disapproving, taint of sexual deviance. His children are Freyja and Freyr, and their mother was Njörd’s own sister. In turn, they, too, were rumoured to be lovers as well as twin siblings. While open carnality was certainly a Vanir trait, the notion that it was a negative one may well be a Christian intervention in the sources. Freyja, in particular, was exactly the sort of sexually independent woman that terrified the Church.

  Freyr appears in the texts as a lord of rain and sun, the god in the corn, rider of a golden boar, and master of a special ship that could be folded into a pocket. For some reason he is often associated with giants and can be found both fighting and courting them. His attempt to seduce the giantess Gerd, conducted by proxy, is made with violent and abusive threats. Freyr is very much a sexual being, and an eleventh-century description of what seems to be his image in a temple describes him as endowed with a gigantic erection. His hall is at Álfheim, ‘Elf-home’.

  His sister, Freyja, is routinely imagined as a goddess of fertility, and sometimes even love, as if she were a sort of Viking Venus. Such clichés bear little resemblance to how she emerges in the tales. Freyja is primarily an embodiment of women and every aspect of their lives, agency, and potential, including childbirth. Above all, she is a being of power, one of the greatest of the deities. Always in control, she defies the attempts of gods, dwarves, giants, and others to objectify and coerce her. She drives a wagon pulled by cats. Freyja’s sexuality is at the core of her being, for her enjoyment and use, sometimes with affectionate overtones but also as manipulation and a means of violence. Although married to Ód, her husband is virtually absent from the mythology, and Freyja instead takes many lovers (according to Loki, she has slept with every elf in Asgard, as well as all the Aesir). She bought the necklace of Brísingamen by bedding its four dwarf smiths in turn, and was much courted by giants. She seduced kings, coaxing them to a fatal mistake; she divided her affections between rivals, driving them to mutual destruction; she exploited the lust of others for her own material gain. Some of the other gods, especially Loki, attempt to slut-shame her with accusations of promiscuity; Freyja ignores them all. It is clear that her body and favours
are hers alone to command (which is probably what annoyed the gods) and also that she has little regard for the opinions of others. She is also very much a deity of the battlefield and its aftermath. Contrary to the general assumption that the Viking warrior dead went to Odin in Valhöll/Valhalla, only half of them actually found a posthumous home there; the remainder travelled to Freyja in her great hall of Sessrúmnir, ‘Seat-Room’.

  Similar attitude problems (both ancient and modern) tend to afflict the other goddesses, to whom connotations of ‘fruitfulness’ and ‘fecundity’ have also become so regularly attached as to constitute a sort of reflexive trope. Thus Idun, the keeper of the golden apples that ensured the gods’ eternal youth, is seen as a passive goddess of ‘plenty’ rather than as the one holding the very lives of the immortals in her power. She was not the only goddess with influence over destiny and fate. Frigg, whose husband was Odin, acted as a manager of Asgard and held sway over its disposition; others bowed to her authority, which was her own rather than an allowance bestowed by a male god. Yes, the goddesses were beautiful, just as stereotype would have it, but in a way that inspired terror as well as desire.

  Among the Aesir, the leading figure is clearly Odin, although whether he really is the lord of all is often left ambiguous in the written sources. He has over two hundred names: he is Mask, he is Third, the Hawk, Victory-Tree, Ghost-Lord, Ripper, Battle-Screamer, and so many more. Odin is a war god and a killer, shaking his spear, Gungnir. He is the protector of kings and outcasts, but also a consummate liar. He may grant you the beautiful gifts of poetry, or trap you with betrayal. He will probably sleep with your wife or, just possibly, your husband—a being of contradictions and seduction, unwise to trust. But wisdom is his prize, his hunger (he gave his eye for it), and there are few things he will not do to really know. In particular, he speaks to the dead through spells and makes bodies on the gallows talk. Odin is skilled at teasing open the seams where the worlds join, just enough to slip through, riding his eight-legged stallion whose name, Sleipnir, means the ‘sliding one’, its teeth etched with runes. He is the supreme master of sorcery, sending out his mind and memory in the form of ravens to scour the worlds for news. Odin has several residences as befits a king: Valaskjálf, Gladsheimr, and, of course, Valhöll, the ‘hall of the slain’.

  3. A Power on the throne? This tiny cast silver chair with occupant was found by metal detector in 2009 near the royal site of Lejre in Denmark. Dating to c. 900, its details of ravens, wolves, and the fact that the figure is one-eyed (confirmed by microscopic analysis) suggest that this may be Odin on his seat of power, Hlidskjálf. The fact that the figure is wearing what would conventionally be interpreted as women’s clothing only deepens its interesting ambiguity. Photo: Ole Manning, © Roskilde Museum, used by kind permission.

  The leaders of the Aesir were largely related, albeit through the most tangled of family trees. Thor was Odin’s son by a giantess in one of many liaisons outside his marriage to Frigg. Thor was the strongest god, lord of wind and weather, caller of storms and thunder. A great belt doubled his already prodigious brawn, and his iron gloves gave him power, especially to wield his famous hammer, Mjölnir. Amulets in the shape of this weapon have been found throughout the Viking world, and he was clearly venerated by humans. Thor was the scourge of giants; one poem is simply a list of his many victims, and these encounters make up the bulk of the myths. His hall is Bilskírnir, which Snorri calls the largest building ever made, with 540 rooms. He shares it with his wife, Síf, whose blonde hair was the envy of all who saw it and used by poets as a metaphor for gold.

  Baldr, the bright god, is the son of Odin and Frigg, with his hall at Breidablikk. Beloved by all things, he is thereby impervious to damage. Baldr’s unexpected death, engineered by Loki at the hands of his unknowing, blind brother, Höd (another of Odin’s sons), set in motion events that will in time lead to the end of the worlds. Höd will in turn be slain by Váli, yet another son of the war god by yet another goddess, Rindr—layers within layers of family killing.

  Then there is Ull, the archer, tracker, hunter, skier, and son of Síf (although not, it seems, with Thor). Ull appears hardly anywhere in the myths and yet is found in sacral place-names across Scandinavia, especially in Sweden. His cult seems to have been widespread once. Snorri says, “He is good to pray to in single combat”. Ull’s hall was at Ýdalir, and he used a shield as a boat.

  4. Hammer of the gods. Thor’s sacred weapon, Mjölnir, seems to have been adopted as a symbol of his cult relatively late in the Viking Age, perhaps in reaction to the Christian use of the cross. Found as pendants and on amulet rings, these items are among the most common objects connected with the traditional religion. This example from Købelev, Lolland, Denmark, bears the helpful runic inscription “Hammer”. Photo: John Lee, © National Museum of Denmark, used by kind permission.

  Heimdall, the horn blower, has his residence at Himinbjörg. It lies by the end of Bifröst, guarding the rainbow bridge against the inevitable moment when the giants will finally come to war on Asgard. His stories are buried in obscurity, but he was evidently very old when the somewhat contradictory tales were finally written down. Heimdall is the son of nine mothers; he has golden teeth; he can see for a hundred miles; he can smell the grass growing. He will spend eternity as the watchman at the wall until the rooster Gullinkambi (‘golden comb’) crows that the Ragnarök has begun.

  Týr, whom Snorri says was yet another son of Odin, but other sources have descending from giants, is one of the oldest gods, with roots going far back in Germanic prehistory. He was known for his courage and bravery, although with very little detail, and his cult was popular (to judge again from place-names). Like the other great gods, he has given us a day of the week. After Sunday and Mo(o)nday, Týr’s Day comes before the day of his ‘father’ Odin (Woden’s Day) and then the days of Thor and Freyr. The week ended with a day that in English is named after a Roman god, Saturnus, but in the Scandinavian languages is still lördag, derived from the Old Norse word for a hot thermal spring—in other words, bath night, a lovely insight into Viking habits of hygiene.

  And finally, there is Loki, one of the most prominent beings in the mythological tales but also something of a mystery. Born of Laufey, one cannot even really say if he is a god at all. Some see him as a demi-god and trickster, a classic figure with parallels in many other cultures, but this kind of nomenclature may not help in understanding him from the perspective of the Vikings themselves. Loki changes form, appearing as a fish, a bird, or an insect as he chooses. With the giantess Angrboda, he fathered monsters, including the wolf, Fenrir; the Midgard Serpent; and Hel, who keeps the dead. In the shape of a mare, he gave birth to Sleipnir, Odin’s horse (an act of truly troubling perversity in the Norse mind). In the many, many tales about him, he causes unending mischief for the gods and stirs up trouble with the giants, only to almost always solve the resulting mess himself. He is handsome and humorous, sly and malicious, all at once. It was Loki who cut off Síf’s original hair, and then made a deal with the dwarves to make her new locks that shone like gold but grew from her head; he also had an affair with her, to Thor’s fury. Having caused Baldr’s murder, Loki will at last be bound in the entrails of his own son, poison dripping on his face forever, until the Ragnarök, when all chains are broken. At the end, he will steer the ship of the dead against the gods.

  The lists of the Aesir are long. The goddess Sága in her hall at Sökkvabekk, ‘Sunken Bank’, where she drinks every day with Odin. Skadi, daughter of the giant Thjazi but also named as one of the goddesses, first married to Njörd and later the lover of both Odin and Loki—homesick in Njörd’s hall by the sea, she eventually returns to her beloved mountains and her residence in Thrymheim. Forseti, Baldr’s son, in his gold and silver hall at Glitnir.

  Many of these gods had children, with giants or their spouses, and often in so many combinations that the family structure is truly complex. There are also many more deities mentioned only once or twice—
a name and nothing else, occasionally a brief glimpse of what they must have been, but incomplete and difficult to see. Bearded Bragi, a god of poetry, married to Idun of the apples. Fulla, the goddess-handmaiden of Frigg, and keeper of her secrets. Vídar, son of Odin and the giantess Grithr, who will avenge his father’s death at the Ragnarök. Eir, a goddess of healing. Gefjon, in some tales a goddess of virginity, in others a lover of one of Odin’s sons. A poetic list of ásynjur, the goddesses, is the only source for some of them: Sjöfn, inciter of passion; Lofn, the comforter; Vár, goddess of the oath; Vör, an embodiment of awareness; Syn who guards the doors, whose name means ‘refusal’; Snotra, the wise; Gná, the messenger, whose steed can cross the sea and sky.

  Some of them were probably relics by the time of the Vikings, perhaps just names even then. They would have resonated, certainly, but as distant echoes of old beliefs from the ancestral memory-world that the Scandinavians always perceived behind them in deepening layers of lore and heritage. It should never be forgotten that the Vikings, too, had a past; they told its stories, and they were not averse to mystery themselves.

  The sheer variety of the many tales raises an important issue. Beyond the gods’ individual personalities and qualities, their adventures that make up many of the myths, is the more basic question of what they actually do. Outside the great monotheistic faiths, we have somehow become accustomed to divinities being gods of something, sole personifications of the weather, the harvest, the hunt, and the like. This is not true for the Aesir and Vanir, as many of them embodied several things at the same time, often overlapping with each other in their interests and activities (rather like us, in fact). There were certainly gods of war, for example, but each of them related to it in a manner that suited their personalities. In this context, Thor was brute force and the business of fighting; Odin was planning, command, luck, and frenzied aggression; Freyja was malice, the calculated viciousness necessary to prevail against odds; and there were others, too, more personal in their allegiances and favourites.