SW Reads: Norse Mythology (Neil Gaiman)

The past few years, I've been digging a bit into Norse myths and whatnot, somewhat spawned by what I saw in the Ring Cycle operas and my absolute certainty that Marvel's Thor is probably not accurate.

Let me be clear before someone with a PhD in Norse mythology shows up in the comments to correct me:  I am just scraping the surface, looking into this on my own, and moving slowly/ piecemeal.  Feel free to leave helpful information in the comments, but trust I'm no expert.* 

If you read any Sandman, you've known since the 90's that Neil Gaiman has some particular ideas about myth, and some pretty solid knowledge pulled from traditional sources.  

Recently, I finished the Prose Edda, which I probably should have written up, but I didn't.  It's a transcription by a 13th century monk of what were the oral traditions of the Scandavian and Germanic folklores, touching cultures stretching from Germany to Iceland.  Previously, I'd read Beowulf and Saga of the Volsungs.  I'll be making my way to the Poetic Edda, but...  that feels so much more challenging.  Me and poetry have a difficult relationship.  There's plenty more I need to dig into in the way of Germanic epics and legends, but it's going to be slow going.

The myths and stories in all of these volumes are from a world far rougher than our own, and because you will likely not have heard the myths over and over, can sound strange, illogical and - in the case of the Volsungs - brutal.  If you think "gee, that movie The Northman sure is grim", pals, it comes from a place.  

What's interesting about the Eddas is that the stories and poems were passed down via oral tradition for some unknown amount of time.  It's hard to know how many versions of the stories contained within the Eddas and the Nibelungenlied, the sagas, etc...  existed.  It's hard to know how many were recycled or borrowed from other cultures and applied new heroes into the stories.

But what is true is that people have been telling these stories for a long time.  And though oral tradition may begin to fade here in this era, why not let Neil Gaiman loose to retell the stories and pass them on to another few generations?**    And so Gaiman brings his "gods can be understood as well as anyone who might live nextdoor" take on deities you may have seen in Anansi Boys or American Gods.   

Gaiman essentially pulls from the source material and delivers the stories in plain language.  The characters - whether god, giant, monster, etc...  feel like characters rather than mysteries or, in fact, deities.  They eat, they fight, they have insecurities and doubt.  They marry, have children, and get shown up by rivals.  They murder and are jealous.

Odin, Frey, Baldur (and all the rest) exist and have their stories, but at the center are Loki and Thor.  Which, if you know your Marvel, this will have a certain familiarity.  But the characterizations are so different, while still feeling absolutely understandable.  Thor is still a well-meaning oaf, but here his charm is in his every-man sort of appeal.  Loki is, if anything, is more complex than the goal-driven master of illusion we're used to.  Here, he has no eyes on the throne, but, instead, seems to want to simply live among the Aesir to cause mischief, sometimes to help the Aesir, but mostly just to cause trouble for trouble's sake.  And sometimes that trouble is deadly.

The book is focused not at all on the world of man, but on Asgard and the world of the Aesir/ Norse Gods (and a peek into Valhalla).  It begins with the birth of giants, then forming the Earth itself.  And then it takes us to the rise of the Gods as we know them, tells many a mis-adventure, including the final incident that leads to the fall of the Gods, and - at last, Ragnarok (spoilers).

Gaiman has an uncanny knack for making the complex seem reasonable and down-to-earth, whether it's giants with 900 heads or the fact that no one seems to settle on a single form in Asgard.  The stories are folksy and crazy and fun.  Some are more disturbing than others, and you will wonder why the Gods didn't chuck Loki into a volcano early on - but even that gets covered.  

There are not really heroes and villains here anymore than one finds them in other Norse mythology.  There are simply characters with motivations, and one or two get cast as protagonists - and that more or less comes from the Christian-penned source material.  While there's a moral viewpoint, it exists outside the story.  

Anyway, I did the audiobook narrated by Gaiman himself, and I highly recommend.  

*Also - certain political elements in the US have taken an interest in Norse Mythology as the Third Reich adopted some of the mythology in their own party mythology.  Clearly, we're not doing that here, and we're in no way interested in or endorsing any of that nonsense.  Nazis fuck off.

**I am aware that right now Neil Gaiman is dealing with some allegations.  I started the book before that came out - and there's currently allegations about the allegations, so...  Look.  The world is a complicated place.  I just live in it.