Don’t Know Much About® Mythology (44 page)

Bragi
God of poetry and eloquence, Bragi is called the “braggart” by Loki, and the word “brag” is derived from his name. He is married to Idun.

Freyr
(
Frey
) The god of agriculture, fertility, and plenty, Freyr (“lord”) and his twin sister and consort, Freyja (“lady”), the goddess of love and fertility, are Vanir—or deities of earth and water rather than sky gods (Aesir). But they are significant enough to have a place among the other gods in Asgard. The twin children of
Njord
, the sea god, and
Skadi
, the goddess of mountains and forests, Frey ensures the success of a harvest, while Freyja blesses marriages.
As fertility gods, Freyr is associated with rites that may have involved orgies, while his sister, Freyja, is linked with sexual freedom in the pre-Christian world of Europe. A sexual free spirit in the mode of Inanna and other Near Eastern fertility and love goddesses, Freyja sleeps with four dwarves on successive nights in return for her prized possession, a “flaming necklace,” the symbol of her fertility. In some accounts, Freyja is counted as the leader of the Valkyries, the women sent to choose who will die in battle, and bring them to Valhalla, where they become heavenly cocktail waitresses. Freyja also selects from among the dead warriors who will live with her in her palace at Asgard.

Frigg
The mother goddess, Frigg is the principal wife of Odin, father of the gods. Ruler of sky and clouds, Frigg also protects the household and marriage and is the bestower of children. Choosing not to live with Odin, she resides in a modest home of her own, where she and her handmaidens spin golden thread and weave clouds. Clairvoyant, Frigg knows of events in the present and future, but cannot affect them. When she learns that her son Balder is fated to die, she tries to alter his destiny by extracting a promise from all things in creation not to harm him. But she neglects the mistletoe, thinking that it is too young and weak to threaten her son. Loki uses Frigg’s omission to bring about Balder’s death and his exile to the underworld. In some traditions, Frigg’s tears become the berries of the mistletoe. When Frigg learns that Balder will be restored to life, she hangs the mistletoe and promises to kiss all those who walk beneath it—adding to the ancient source of the Christmas tradition of mistletoe, which, in Celtic rites, was a sign of goodwill.
Frigg is related to another earlier Germanic goddess, named
Frea
, and her name is the source of the word “Friday.”

Heimdall
Known as “world brightener,” Heimdall is god of dawn and another of Odin’s sons. He is famed for his acute hearing and vision—he can hear grass grow and see for hundreds of miles, day or night—and serves as the lookout on Bifrost, the Rainbow Bridge that leads to Asgard, ready to blow a horn signaling that the battle Ragnarok is to begin. Heimdall is also credited with creating social order among humans during his visits to Midgard. In one tale, Heimdall sleeps in a poor man’s hovel and is given meager food. Nine months later, a woman gives birth to
Thrall
, the first of the race of serfs, or slaves. Next, he sleeps in a farmhouse, where the hardworking people treat him well and he fathers
Karl
(source of the word “churl”), first of the race of free peasants. Finally, he sleeps in a fine hall, where he is well treated and fathers
Jarl
(source of the word “earl”), first of the race of noblemen.
When the Battle of Ragnarok finally comes, Loki steals his sword, but Heimdall manages to kill the trickster before dying of his wounds.

Hel
The daughter of Loki and a giantess, Hel is the sinister goddess of death and the underworld, who is said to be half-black and half-white. She is cast into the cold regions by Odin, who decrees that she will rule over those who die of sickness or old age. Hel is also the sister of the monstrous wolf
Fenrir
and the serpent
Jormungand
, the other creatures who lead the final battle against the gods.
Hel rules the land of the dead, which bears her name. According to descriptions of it, the road to the Norse Hel is a freezing river filled with blocks of ice and weapons, its entrance guarded by a mighty dog similar to the Greek Cerberus.

Idun
Wife of Bragi, Idun is goddess of immortality and keeps the golden apples of youth that preserve the gods’ eternal youth. When Loki is coerced into luring Idun away from Asgard so a giant can steal the apples and weaken the gods, Odin and the other gods begin to wither with age. Using a magical falcon skin and citing the secret words—the runes—Loki becomes a bird and flies to the giant’s palace and returns with Idun and the apples, rescuing the gods after having put them in peril in the first place.

Loki
The supreme trickster god of uncertain parentage, Loki might be the offspring of the giants—the sworn enemies of the gods. But he is a frequent companion of the gods Odin and Thor. At times destructive and mischievous, Loki is also an appealing god who helps the other deities out of difficulties—usually the very ones he has created.
In the Eddas of Snorri Sturluson, Loki is described as “pleasant and handsome in appearance, wicked in character and very changeable in his ways. He had much more than others that kind of intelligence that is called cunning and stratagems for every eventuality. He was always placing the Aesir into the most difficult situations; and often extracts them by his wiles.”
In a typical story, Loki taunts Odin, who wants to sleep with Freyja after she has bedded the four hideous dwarves in exchange for the marvelous “necklace of the Brisings.” Turning into a fly, Loki finds Freyja asleep, so he next turns into a flea and bites her breast When the goddess rolls over, Loki undoes the clasp on the necklace and takes it to Odin, who agrees to return it to Freyja only if she will stir up a war among men.
As time goes by, Loki becomes so bitter at the gods’ dislike and mistreatment of him that he triggers Ragnarok. This great battle is set in motion after Loki brings about Balder’s death by learning how to harm him with mistletoe. Loki’s punishment for this crime is to be secured to three rocks with the intestines of his own son, which harden like metal to bind him. A snake is then placed above Loki’s head and drips poison on his face until the day Loki breaks free and leads the giants in the apocalyptic Battle of Ragnarok. During the fight, Loki’s offspring, the monstrous wolf Fenrir, swallows the sun and bites the moon while another of Loki’s children, the venomous serpent Jormungand, which swims in the great ocean surrounding the world, stirs up the ocean depths and fights with Thor.

Odin
Also known as Woden or Wotan, Odin is derived from an earlier Germanic god, and is chief among the Norse pantheon. The father of Thor, Balder, and other gods, Odin lives and rules in Asgard, the home of the gods.
In order to learn the secret knowledge of the runes, Odin pierces himself with his own spear and then hangs from the World Tree, Yggdrasil. After nine days and nights of pain and self-sacrifice, Odin learns all the hidden knowledge and casts off death. An old myth recorded after Christian times, this story would clearly connect Odin with the figure of Jesus, who also is pierced by a spear and dies hanging on a wooden cross often referred to as a tree before being resurrected.
Associated with battle, magic, poetic inspiration, and known as the protector of kings and heroes, Odin is a one-eyed god who had traded his other eye for a drink from the spring that provides clairvoyance. When the time comes for a warrior to die, Odin dispatches the Valkyries to the battlefield to select who will be brought to Valhalla, the Hall of the Slain in Asgard. His most devoted warriors are known as “Berserkers,” which probably means “bear shirt,” to describe those who wore bear or wolf pelts into battle. The Berserkers were renowned and feared for their ecstatic state of battle frenzy, possibly brought on by hallucinogenic mushrooms. The battle ecstasy also connects Odin to the state of inspiration that was believed to grip poets in their artistic frenzy. At the climactic Battle of Ragnarok, Odin is killed and swallowed by the monstrous wolf Fenrir. His Germanic name, Woden, is the source of the word “Wednesday.”

Thor
Second in importance in the Norse pantheon after Odin, Thor is ruler of the sky, the god of lightning and thunder. He causes thunder with his great ax-hammer, Mjolnir, “the destroyer,” a weapon of such devastating power that it can destroy giants and mountains with a single blow. When Thor throws the hammer, it magically returns to his hand like a boomerang. He is probably derived from an older Germanic god named Donar, and has also been associated with the Celtic thunder god Taranis. (See above.)
Immense in stature, with a great red beard, Thor has flaming eyes and a huge appetite. He is the most popular Viking god, because his life reflects the values of Viking warriors. A generous and gentle giant, he flies into a great rage when provoked.
In one popular tale, a giant steals Thor’s hammer and will only return it in exchange for Freyja, the goddess, as a bride. Thor and Loki go to the giant disguised as Freyja and a handmaiden with the massive Thor hidden beneath a bridal veil. At the wedding feast, Thor almost reveals his identity when he eats and drinks in his usual insatiable way—he was capable of drinking an ocean—but Loki cleverly explains that “she” hasn’t eaten in eight nights in anticipation of the wedding. The “bride to be” asks to see the fabled Hammer of Thor, which he then uses to crush the giant’s skull and then shows no mercy on the wedding guests.
During Ragnarok, Thor dies by drowning in the venom that pours out of his victim, the dying World Serpent, Jormungand.
Thursday was named after Thor.

Who is the most important hero in Norse myth?

The quintessential Norse warrior Sigurd was a King Arthur of the Northern world, a figure with a possible historical origin who became the magnet for many stories, as Norse-myth authority Kevin Crossley-Holland describes him. Son of a warrior and grandson of a great king favored by Odin, Sigurd was a handsome, stately dragon-slayer and rescuer of women—a mortal with possible divine ancestors. He ranks as the most important human hero in Norse mythology—more than half of the Poetic Edda are about him—and the stories of his exploits had an impact well beyond the Viking myths. Tolkien clearly borrows much from these heroic tales of a gold ring made by dwarves, which increases the wealth of its owner but comes with a dreadful curse. The stories of Sigurd also became the model for the mythical German hero Siegfried, who appears in the
Nibelungenlied
(“Song of the Nibelungs”), a famous German epic composed around 1200, which, in turn, served as the basis for Wagner’s opera cycle
The Ring of the Nibelung
(1869–1876).
*

The stories about Sigurd probably originated in Germany around the Rhine in the 400s CE and reached Scandinavia, where they were given poetic treatment in the Elder Edda, the collection of poems composed in Iceland between 1000 and 1100. The prose
Saga of the Volsungs
, written in Iceland during the 1100s or 1200s, tells the stories more fully.

According to these myths, Sigurd is born after his father, Sigmund, is murdered. As he is dying, Sigmund predicts that his unborn son will accomplish great deeds and his name will never be forgotten. Raised by a king, Sigurd is tutored by the dwarf Regin, who gives him a magical horse and forges a wondrous sword, Gram, from the shards of his dead father’s sword—a gift from Odin—which he then uses to avenge his father’s death.

The central story in Sigurd’s adventures is his killing of the dragon Fafnir. At first a powerful, greedy, and violent man with magical powers, Fafnir is the son of a farmer who also had magical skills. Fafnir and his brother Otr are both shape-shifters. One day, while out with the other gods, Loki kills an otter, which is actually Otr (source of the word “otter”) in the animal’s shape. When Otr’s father realizes what has happened, he demands compensation from the gods, and Loki agrees to fill the otter skin with gold. Conveniently, the trickster finds a nearby dwarf with a large treasure, including a gold ring, which Loki commandeers. Stripped of his treasure, the dwarf curses the ring, dooming whoever possesses it. Once given the treasure, the farmer is first to die when Fafnir kills his father, steals the gold, and then turns himself into a dragon, spending the rest of his life hoarding the treasure. (Readers of Tolkien will surely recognize these themes as similar to the tale of the Ring of Power, jealously guarded by whoever possesses it.)

Eager to take the treasure for himself, Fafnir’s brother Regin, the dwarf who tutors Sigurd, instructs the young warrior in how to kill Fafnir, planning all the time to kill Sigurd after Fafnir is dead. As a dragon, Fafnir only leaves his lair and the treasure hoard occasionally to drink from a nearby river. Sigurd digs a hole in the path that leads to the river and hides inside. When Fafnir passes over the hole, Sigurd stabs Fafnir in the heart. Having killed Fafnir, Sigurd roasts the dragon’s heart, as Regin had instructed, but he accidentally burns his fingers and puts them in his mouth. After tasting the dragon’s magical juice, Sigurd is able to understand the language of some nearby birds, who warn him that Regin plans to kill him. Sigurd lops off Regin’s head, drinks some of his blood, eats more of the dragon’s heart, and then discovers Fafnir’s lair and the ring of gold.

Possessed of the ring, Sigurd also falls under its curse. He is loved by a Valkyrie, Brynhild (Brunhilde in the Wagnerian version), whom he promises to marry, but who is imprisoned in a ring of flame for offending Odin—à la Sleeping Beauty. Sigurd rescues her, but does so to give Brynhild to another man. When Brynhild discovers that she has been tricked, she has Sigurd killed before immolating herself in his funeral pyre.