PATIENT
Norse mythology
SOURCES
Prose Edda (c. 1220), Poetic Edda (c. 1270)
PRESERVED IN
13th-century Iceland
SUPPRESSED
By Christianization, c. 900–1100 CE
CHIEF COMPLAINT
How do you live with dignity when you know you cannot win?
HISTORY OF PRESENT ILLNESS
The pre-Christian religious tradition of the Norse and Germanic peoples of Scandinavia, largely suppressed by Christianization from roughly 900–1100 CE. Most of what survives comes from 13th-century Iceland. The Prose Edda was written around 1220 by Snorri Sturluson, a Christian politician and historian who wrote the old myths down so they would not be lost, framing them carefully so as not to seem to endorse paganism. The Poetic Edda is a collection of older anonymous poems compiled around 1270. What we have is a survival, not a living transmission. The gods here are not omnipotent, and they know it: Ragnarok is coming, nothing can prevent it, and Odin knows how he will die.
REVIEW OF SYSTEMS
YGGDRASIL
The great ash tree whose roots and branches connect all nine worlds, standing over the well of fate.
MORTAL GODS
The Aesir keep their youth only through Idunn's apples. They can be killed, and at Ragnarok most of them are.
KNOWN DOOM
Odin knows Ragnarok is coming and acts anyway. That is the tradition's definition of courage.
LOKI
The trickster who is the gods' greatest helper and the cause of their doom, not simply evil: the accumulated consequences of the gods' own choices.
RENEWAL
After Ragnarok a new world rises, green and fertile. Doom is not the final word.
PHYSICAL EXAM — STYLE & STRUCTURE
- —The Völuspá is the most important single poem, the Hávamál is Odin's wisdom sayings, and the Lokasenna is Loki's flyting with the gods.
- —Snorri sometimes rationalizes the myths as history, because he was working through a Christian filter.
- —Odin hangs nine nights on the wind-swept tree, wounded by a spear, 'myself to myself', to gain the runes.
- —The warrior ethic: courage, loyalty, honor, hospitality and acceptance of fate. The guide treats these as existential virtues, not only martial ones.
- —Unlike most other traditions in the library, there is no continuous living community of practice, though Ásatrú, modern Norse paganism, is growing.
ASSESSMENT & PLAN
Start with Odin's hanging, the Binding of Fenrir and the Death of Baldr, then Ragnarok and what comes after. Read the Hávamál last for the plain-spoken advice. It is a non-denominational reference guide. The full guide recommends Neil Gaiman's Norse Mythology as an accessible entry, Jackson Crawford's translations (scholarly, readable), Kevin Crossley-Holland's The Norse Myths, and Snorri's Prose Edda (Faulkes translation).