Treasury of Norse Mythology

by Donna Jo Napoli

  Thor caught Loki and the gods bound him to a rock in a cave. A serpent hung above him dripping poison. Sigyn, one of Loki’s wives, caught that poison in a bowl. But whenever she left to empty the bowl, the poison burned Loki.

  Why did Loki accept this suffering, for surely he did accept it, he must have. He was the shape-shifter supreme. He could have become a flea and slipped out of those knots. But he stayed. Was he just waiting there … waiting for the inevitable, for his chance to play his part in the final conflagration? Or had he somehow given up? Especially after the widening misery he’d caused with Balder’s death, had Loki finally come to revile his own trickery? Whatever his motives might have been in accepting the punishment, Loki’s very punishment shows how vengeance is a scourge of its own. Think of Vali and Nari. We know little of them. They may have been blameless, guilty of nothing more than being Loki’s sons. Guilt by association … is that what the Aesir used to justify the violent undoing of these two men? What a cowardly thing. Perhaps, despite all the wrong motives, Loki was ultimately right in casting aspersions on the characters of the Aesir.

  The brother dwarfs Fjalar and Galar were envious of the poet Kvasir because he was so admired and respected. They invited him to their cave for a feast—with the very worst of intentions.

  KVASIR’S ENDURING POETRY

  In a cosmos with so much violence, the last thing one might expect to thrive was poetry. Yet it did.

  At the close of the war between the Aesir and the Vanir, all the gods on both sides spat into a large crock and from that spittle the Aesir made the man Kvasir. This is the same Kvasir that looked upon the net in the fire that Loki had built and recognized it as a fishing net, thus giving the rest of the Aesir information that led to the capture of Loki. Kvasir understood things, and little wonder: He was, after all, made of tiny parts of every god. His very essence was the combination of all their vast knowledge from the beginning of time. Nothing was a mystery to him.

  Thus, Kvasir traveled through the cosmos carrying forth his knowledge. Dwarfs, giants, gods all posed him questions. Farmers abandoned their plows, women their salting and sewing, children their chattering, all to gather and listen to Kvasir. If they asked a simple question of fact, he answered forthrightly. But if they asked what they should do, if they wanted his opinion on right or wrong, Kvasir would lean back in his rumpled clothes and let his eyelids slide shut and prod them along. He listened, he nodded, he met questions with questions, and soon they arrived at their own answers. This type of help won him the title of finest poet. And it won him admiration and respect.

  And the envy of a pair of brother dwarfs: Fjalar and Galar. They invited Kvasir to feast with them in their underground cave. Though the stalactites dripped chalky-like, and the floor grated under his feet, Kvasir enjoyed the food, especially since it was served on hammered gold plates. After the meal, Fjalar and Galar led the unsuspecting Kvasir into a deeper chamber. They stabbed him and caught his spurting blood in the crocks Son and Bodn and in the kettle Odrorir. Kvasir’s huge heart pumped his body dry.

  Norse Poetry

  Odin with his ravens, 18th-century Icelandic manuscript

  There were two kinds of poetry in old Norse society. Skaldic poetry was high-style and obeyed complex rules. It was performed at high-status events. Eddic poetry was more straightforward and might occur at gatherings of ordinary folk. But poetry and storytelling, no matter what style, were an important part of communal life. These oral poems and stories recorded historical facts, religious beliefs, and hopes and fears. They gave excitement to nights that might otherwise have seemed interminable.

  Fjalar and Galar sent word to the Aesir that Kvasir had choked to death on his own knowledge. Then they mixed honey into Kvasir’s blood and brewed a mead of which one sip would turn anyone into a poet. The brothers hid the mead away.

  A short while later, the giant Gilling and his wife visited these brothers. The giant quarreled with them about this and that, and the brothers, incensed, suggested that Gilling might enjoy a sea breeze. So they rowed the giant out into the deep sea surrounding Midgard and slammed the boat into an underwater reef. The boat flipped and the giant drowned. The brothers righted the boat and returned to their cave, where they told Gilling’s wife that he had died in an accident. The giantess wept so copiously that the cave was awash with tears. Was there no end to the annoyance of giants? One brother offered to show the wife where Gilling had gone under; the other ran to find a millstone. As Fjalar stood with Gilling’s wife on the shore, Galar dropped the millstone on her head.

  The wicked brothers Fjalar and Galar killed the giant Gilling. When his wife came looking for him, they said he had drowned in an accident. One ran off to get a millstone to drop on her head and kill her.

  Gilling and his wife had a son, Suttung, who came looking for them when they didn’t return that night. The brothers Fjalar and Galar droned on and on about the sorry accidental deaths of his parents, but Suttung would have none of it. He grabbed them by the scruff of the neck and sloshed with them out to sea, where he fully intended to drop them. It was too long a distance for them to swim back; the brothers were doomed. So they offered Suttung a trade: the magic mead from Kvasir’s blood in exchange for their lives. Suttung recognized a good deal when he heard it; after all, his parents were already dead and the joy of vengeance was short-lived at best.

  Suttung allowed himself one sip of the brew, and then he put the two crocks and the kettle in a rock box he hewed himself. He hid the box deep in a mountain. He set his daughter Gunnlod to guard it.

  The god Odin shape-shifted into a giant. When he came across Baugi’s servants in a field, he sharpened their scythes and then threw his whetstone into the air. The servants ran to catch it, slaying each other with their sharpened scythes as they did so.

  Suttung wasn’t an entirely smart fellow, however. He bragged about that magic mead far and wide. Word reached Odin—and Odin, we know, had a lust for knowledge. Odin shape-shifted into the form of a giant and called himself Bolverk. He tramped across Midgard until he came to the field that belonged to Baugi, the brother of Suttung. Nine workers were scything the tall grass. The one-eyed Bolverk generously sharpened the thralls’ scythes with his whetstone to an edge much finer than any of them had seen before. They all wanted to buy that whetstone. Bolverk threw it high and the thralls ran to catch it, bumping into each other in excitement, still holding their newly sharpened scythes. In all that confusion, they ended up slaying each other.

  Bolverk wandered on, taking his time. When night finally fell, he went to the home of Baugi and begged for food. Baugi, of course, was beside himself; all his thralls lay dead. He had no one to do the field work. So the one-eyed Bolverk, who was really Odin, offered himself as a field hand, but his price was one sip of the magic mead. Baugi agreed to ask his brother Suttung for the mead. In the meantime, Bolverk worked Baugi’s land all summer. When it came time for Bolverk to get his wages, Suttung refused.

  So Bolverk enlisted Baugi into helping him steal the mead. And Baugi agreed simply out of fear of this giant who had done the work of nine thralls without shedding a drop of sweat. He led Bolverk to the mountain where the mead was stored and bored a hole into it. Bolverk shape-shifted into a snake and slid through the hole. Baugi tried to gouge him with the auger, but the snake was already gone, into the heart of the mountain.

  Gunnlod, Suttung’s daughter, moped inside the mountain chamber, desolate and bored, guarding the rock box. Suddenly a giant appeared before her, for Odin the snake had shape-shifted back into Bolverk. Odin in the form of Bolverk sang one of the nine precious songs he had learned when he hung delirious from the sacred tree Yggdrasil. The inexperienced girl was overwhelmed. It was wonderful to have company at last, and it was exquisite to have such handsome male company, who fixed on her only one eye, but such a passionate eye. Besides, who could resist that beguiling song? Gunnlod fell in love. Bolverk asked the besotted girl for three draughts of the mead. With his first gulp, he
drained the kettle Odrorir; with his second, the crock Bodn; with his third, the crock Son. Then he shape-shifted into an eagle and flew back toward Asgard.

  Suttung saw the eagle overhead and realized at once that the mead had been stolen. He murmured enchanted words that he knew only because he had tasted that mead—and thus turned himself into an eagle, too. He flapped after Odin the eagle.

  Odin, in the shape of the giant Bolverk, befriended the young giantess Gunnlod by singing a sacred song. She brought him the kettle Odrorir, filled with the magic mead. Odin drained it in a gulp.

  Odin filled himself up with the magic mead. Then he shape-shifted into an eagle and flew back to Asgard, with another eagle in chase—the giant Suttung. Odin spewed the mead into pots below, so that Suttung couldn’t get it.

  The Aesir saw Odin the eagle coming and they filled the courtyard with bowls and crocks in anticipation of the mead he was bringing. But then they watched a second eagle gain upon the first. They wrung their hands in despair.

  Odin the eagle, however, survived; he soared and dove over the wall of Asgard, spewing the mead into the waiting pottery. Some fell outside of the wall, though, and formed a small pool. Anyone who dared could take a sip, for that was the amateur poets’ portion. Odin kept the rest of the mead to himself, and only occasionally offered a draught to a lucky god or man.

  The story doesn’t end there, though. When the frost giants came to Asgard to find the giant Bolverk who had stolen the mead, Odin proved himself to be as great a liar as Loki; he swore that Bolverk was not there. How the frost giants could look at Odin’s one eye and not realize that the one-eyed Bolverk stood before them is a puzzle. Perhaps they understood only what they wanted to understand, for taking on Odin himself would have been formidable. They went back to the grieving Gunnlod with no news.

  When he grew up, Bragi, son of Odin and the giantess Gunnlod, had a way with words. He went to live with the Aesir and married Idunn. She carved runes in his tongue to enhance his poetry.

  But Gunnlod must have known the truth in her heart, for she gave birth to a son Bragi, and when the boy was old enough, she sent him to Odin—just as a mother might send her son to his father. The boy was a wordsmith like no other, as though shaped by simply having an origin redolent with the perfumes of that magic mead. Odin made him god of poetry. Bragi married the goddess Idunn, the goddess of the apples that ensure continuing youth. She carved magic runes in her husband’s tongue, to help him be a better poet. As a skald—fine poet and storyteller—Bragi gave names to ideas that people had sensed only vaguely until his words clarified and limned them. With his stories, he bragged about the histories of the creatures in this complex cosmos, infusing all with pride in their heritage. His songs gave eternal life to their spirits.

  Thus, even in the most thwarted of circumstances, poetry arose and endured, just as it does today no matter where you wander. Suffering and joy—and everything in between—all are fodder for poetry.

  Humans fought in hideous ways, and the cosmos reflected that. Winter lasted year-round, springs froze, the roots of trees rotted—even those of Yggdrasil. The firmaments split open, winds roared, and the serpent, Jormungand, writhed on the land. All this preceded the battle Ragnarok.

  DESTRUCTION

  Despite poetry, stories, songs, bad things kept happening. Too many bad things, too much mischief, too much sorrow, it all weighed down the cosmos.

  Disputes popped up among humans. Ping, ping, ping. Robbers and brutes. Ping, ping, ping. They turned into wars. Bang, clash, boom. This town against that town, neighbors against neighbors, finally the ultimate violation: brothers against brothers, fathers against sons. The sands turned iron. The waters ran red. And it went on and on and on, through one year, the next, the next. The first winter bit at eyes till they teared. The second bit at cheeks till they bled. The third devoured everything and everyone. No summer intervened, just winter blowing into winter blowing into winter, one enormous snow called Fimbulvet. Clouds, storms, ice in a gore-splattered cosmos.

  Urdarbrunn, the sacred well where one of Yggdrasil’s roots ended, now froze hard, and the burbling, bubbling spring of destiny that welled from it ceased. The very roots of the towering ash rotted, and the dragon Nidhogg finally gnawed through the icy one. The leaves yellowed and fell while the lovely Norns looked on and grieved. The tree shook. It couldn’t stop shaking. Creatures everywhere curled in fear.

  Firmaments shuddered. Trees swayed till their roots gave up and let them splat to the ground. Boulders tumbled off mountains. Everything burst.

  Including all chains. Hel’s howling hound, Garm, burst free. Fenrir, the wolf who had bitten off the god Tyr’s hand, the wolf who was bound in chains on the island of Lyngvi in the lake Amsvartnir, that vicious son of Loki ran free as well. His trickster father, Loki, trapped in a mountain cavern, tied with the entrails of his own son Nari, festering with hatred toward the Aesir who had devised his torment, that shape-shifter slipped free, squatted like a beast, and then hopped away.

  Winds shrieked and waves roared, and still, through all the clamor, three cock crows rang out. Up in Valhalla, the cock Gullinkambi crowed so loud his gold comb nearly shook off. From the bird-wood of the giants, the cock Fjalar crowed a screech as red as his feathers. And down in Hel, the third cock crowed to alert the dead. This was it. This was the call to the final battle, Ragnarok. The great conflagration was at last upon them all.

  Ice & Fire

  Hekla volcano, Iceland, 19th century

  The Norse migrated to Iceland starting in the mid-800s. They met a harsh land where the interior highlands freeze deep in winter. Those highlands are a desert created by volcanoes. Eighteen of Iceland’s 130 volcanoes have been active in the past 1,200 years. When a volcano erupts, ash darkens the sky and coats the land. The lava flow sets trees afire, killing everything in its path. The fires and earth-splitting in the battle of Ragnarok bring to mind a volcanic eruption, don’t you think?

  At the start of Ragnarok, three cocks crowed; the serpent Jormungand left the sea and rolled across the earth; and the dead came out of Hel and climbed into a boat to go join the horrible battle.

  A branch broke off Yggdrasil and struck the serpent Jormungand, who released his own tail and left the sea behind. He rolled like terror upon the earth, writhing his way to the vast field called Vigrid. Fenrir ran beside him to that battlefield, leaving a trail of hungry slobber to match his monstrous brother’s trail of venom.

  The frost giants, meanwhile, left the land behind and crowded their own terror into a ship and headed for Vigrid. Loki looked around and grimaced. No one was going to have a battle without him! Why, he’d be the leader! Under his command the Aesir would be destroyed. He gathered the dead from Hel and dumped them into a second boat called Naglfar, made of the fingernails and toenails of dead men. They sailed for Vigrid.

  The fire giants followed mighty Surt with his flaming sword and tramped over the bridge Bifrost, which cracked under their boots.

  Heimdall blew on Gjallarhorn and woke the gods, though how they managed to sleep until now, no one could ever explain. They stumbled together and looked around in bleary confusion, at a total loss. So Odin mounted Sleipnir and galloped to the well Mimisbrunn to seek advice from the head of the wise giant Mimir. But what advice was possible? Odin’s own sacrificed eye looked out from its hiding spot in the well at all that was, and he knew: Battle was how they had always done things; battle was how they would end things. And so the gods and goddesses and all the fallen warriors that lived in Valhalla and Folkvang put on their breastplates and mail and advanced on Vigrid, Odin at the front holding his spear, Gungnir.

  The gods and goddesses and all the fallen warriors who lived in Valhalla and Folkvang put on their armor and went to battle. Odin led the way with his spear, Gungnir.

  Odin and the wolf Fenrir went straight for each other. As if that was a signal, the carnage began. The fire giant Surt swung his bright sword at the god Frey. Now was the moment of regret: Frey
had given his best of swords to Skirnir in his quest to marry Gerd. All he could do was jam his deer horn through Surt’s eye. And so, slash, slash, Surt cut Frey down. Hel’s hound, Garm, threw himself at the throat of the god Tyr and both soaked the earth with their blood. Thor killed Jormungand with his hammer, Mjolnir. Then Thor staggered backward, but at the ninth step he, too, fell, vanquished by the venom of the serpent. Loki and Heimdall threw their spears at each other at the same moment; both died. By this time Odin and Fenrir were exhausted, but in a last burst of energy, even with Gungnir stuck deep in his chest, Fenrir stretched his enormous jaws wide and swallowed Odin whole. Odin’s son Vidar immediately ripped Fenrir’s jaws apart. The wolf lay dead, but so did Odin. The fire giant Surt wielded his flaming sword, setting fire to all even as he sank, blinded and dying from the wounds Frey had inflicted.

  From the very beginning of time, the wolf Skoll had snapped and growled behind Sun. Now he caught her. His fangs sank deep. And he swallowed her. Daylight was no more.

  The wolf Hati Hrodvitnisson, who had run with lolling tongue after Moon for so very long, seized him and chewed him pitilessly. The night sky went black, not a single star glittered.