Review : The Norse Myths (1)

Following my absolute delight at reading Buxton's The Greek Myths That Shape The Way We Think, I immediately rushed to the bookshop for the others in the series. Alas, they only had the one, so I've had to order the Celtic one online to complete the trilogy. No matter. I have piles of booky goodness to keep me busy until then.

The Review Bit

It's interesting to note that the other two books get glowing reviews but this one only has four stars on Amazon, with one complaining that the myths have "been made palatable for modern audiences and feminists." The first part of the complaint here is actually not without foundation, but the second is garbage. Larrington does spend a long time describing modern retellings of the Norse myths, sometimes too long and without much analysis – sometimes. This I would agree is the book's biggest weakness. In addition, it can be a bit non-linear, referring to future sections more often than is perhaps ideal, but given the nature of the book, it's also hard to see how it could have been done otherwise.

But making the stories palatable for feminists ? That is laughable. She clearly sets out how there's a lot more abject feminism in the earliest known versions than in some of the more recent hyper-macho interpretations. What's more, it's never anything that's "in your face" or "rammed down your throat". There's maybe one or two remarks in the whole book that I'd say sounded very silly to me, but to get hung up on these would be stupid. In fact I found this aspect, on the whole, to be one of the most interesting parts of the book. She also very gently and non-judgementally relates how Norse myths have been culturally (in)appropriated* by the far right, but you'd have to be truly raving in your insecurities (and/or of such ill-bred ilk yourself) to let this lower your rating.

* As an aside, I've long been mystified by what anyone ever means by "cultural appropriation", which seems like a nonsense term to me. Then I remembered a comment on Tolkien trying to claim the fairy myths for the English at the deliberate expense of the Welsh, and finally it made sense. One culture adopting the practises of another is never, by itself, "appropriating" of any sort. But if that culture then turns around and denounces the original inspiration – that's where there's a legitimate grievance. 

By and large, the prose is excellent, especially the summaries at the end of each chapter which are invariably eloquent and concise. My only real complaints besides the occasionally excessive descriptions are minor : use of the original Nordic script is quite annoying (just Anglicise the names so I can read them properly !), and she seems a bit obsessed with disproving the myth that Vikings used skulls as drinking cups – I never heard of this as any sort of stereotype before. Even the excessive descriptions, though, are hardly a serious deficiency : the lack of analysis is only felt in some places, by no means all.

Overall, provided you take the subtitle "That Shape [PRESENT TENSE] The Way We Think" seriously, this work is every bit the equal of the Greek Myths book in the same series. In presentation it has a good balance of similarity and differences in style to keep it feeling familiar but engaging. I don't have any issue in giving this one too a 9/10, and I find myself an increasing fan of Thames & Hudson – they seem committed to making their history books both physically beautiful objects but also with excellent writing... a rare combination indeed !

As I was reading the book and then later distilling my notes, four main themes stood out to me. In this first part I'll look at trickery (how the Norse gods use both knowledge and deception in their quests beyond the popular image of Loki) and tragedy (exploring how the Norse heroes never seem to get any sort of lucky break). In part two I'll move to transgender issues (and also more broadly the feminist aspects of the stories) and the transcendent, the cosmic symbolism of the nature of the universe, time, fate, and free will.

1) Trickery

The Greek myths feature plenty of examples of the gods behaving badly, but the Norse take this to another level. Loki is of course the most famous example, but even Odin seems like the sort of chap who would lie for no particular reason – not even for funzies, but seemingly because he thinks lying is innately a good thing. His deceit is often intimately connected with knowledge. Odin promises to only take three draughts of the mead of wisdom but swallows the whole lot and flies away as a bird. Like Zeus, he's frequently found in disguise but his powers are distinctly limited. It's quite hard to imagine Zeus the Thunderer ever getting into a riddle contest with a mortal king and (again) turning into a bird to escape his wrath. 

Odin's association with knowledge runs deep. He hangs himself from Yggdrasill "without food or drink for nine days and nights", also loosing an eye, for the sake of knowledge of the World Tree. And he has two ravens, representing Thought and Memory, which fly out into the world each day and report back, with Odin worried more about the vulnerabilities of memory than thought, representing its decline with age. Finally, he's continuously seeking out information about Ragnarok, the apocalypse he's ultimately unable to prevent. Odin has wisdom aplenty, and apparently noble intentions, but seems to have few scruples about lying and manipulation when it suits his purpose.

A couple of stories Larrington relates are emblematic of the sort of trickery found throughout old folk tales, of the "too good to be true" variety. Gefjun asks her lover for as much land as she can farm in one day, which he grants, but then she turns her four huge sons into oxen and ploughs an entire island. Then there's the master builder who promises to build fortifications for the gods if they'll give him the Sun and the Moon. The gods agree but place a strict time limit on the contract, but the builder's stallion can "cart huge amounts of stone" so he easily succeeds. Not wanting to surrender the heavens, in response Loki draws him off, as we'll see next time, and Thor breaks the god's promise and kills the builder. He hasn't tricked them exactly : he agrees to their terms, but he hasn't revealed crucial information. The response is oath-breaking.

Loki himself is an even more inscrutable character than Odin, with an even stronger connection between lies and knowledge. While it's hard to know where to stand with Odin, who seems to be assumed to be basically good but actually is a bit of a bastard, Loki takes this further. He begins as a mean but essentially harmless prankster, loyal to the gods when push comes to shove, but ultimately is instrumental in Ragnarok. His very nature is even more unclear than Odin's : his father was a giant, there's no evidence he was worshipped as a god, and he can not only change shape but also gender.

Whereas Odin and Thor have clear adversaries to fight (the giants), Loki's stance is much more ambiguous. His initially amusing and inconsequential pranks (poking an eagle, shagging a horse, that kind of thing) evolve from trickery into outright treachery. He sires the world-destroying monsters of a wolf, a serpent, and the half-woman half-corpse goddess of Hel. Ultimately this ends in tragedy, with Loki's sons tearing each other to pieces and, in a particularly grisly finale, their guts are used to bind their father in torment.

2) Tragedy

Deceit rarely ends well, except occasionally during moments of comic relief. But, just like with the Greek myths, the stories rarely feel like moralising tales : the gods hardly seem like role models of any sort, and at most there might be aspects of their behaviour the audience was intended to emulate. Again, they're none of them any sort of goody-two-shoes like Jesus, nor are they even repentant sinners like Jonah. The tales have an almost history-like quality about them, as though they were telling the audience look, this is what happened without passing judgement, just relating the kind of weird shit the gods got up to. Sometimes there's deep physical and psychological symbolism about them, but the moral meaning is usually veiled in the extreme.

The ultimate tragedy is of course that the gods and Loki and all the rest are ultimately doomed. But much smaller, more everyday sorts of tragedy pervade the tales as well, even when the consequences are mythically profound. I found the story of Fenrir (Loki's wolf-son) a particularly good example of the backfire effect and the self-fulfilling prophecy. Initially friendly, he only becomes suspicious of the gods when they mistreat him due to a prediction he will one day devour the world. The gods challenge him to break the bonds they put upon him; Fenrir allows this, but demands one of them puts his hand in his mouth at the same time. Realising the bonds are not the thin silk they appear, he bites off the hand, loses faith in the gods, and ultimately becomes the monster that brings about the end of time.

Other legends are decidedly more ordinary. In the earliest stories, Ragnar "Magical Trousers" Lothbrok (he of of History Channel fame) starts out by fighting a dragon with a traditional mixture of cunning and prowess – and dragon-proof trousers. But after that, while he raises many legendary sons, he himself has a series of failed marriages and dies on a hopeless expedition to England, taking just two ships to demonstrate his warrior mettle. It's all a bit sad, really. Later versions have made him a far more epic and interesting character.

Like Ragnar, Sigurd (or Siegfried) peaks early in his career by killing a dragon. And like Ragnar, he isn't especially likeable, with little about him that seems especially worthy of emulating. His life is certainly an interesting one, wrapped in stories of cursed gold and Valkyries surrounded by not-quite-impenetrable flame, but it's all a bit soap-opera full of narratively-unnecessary complications. The curse is by far the most interesting aspect, this notion of inescapable fate : Sigurd doesn't do anything wrong but cannot avoid his doom. He's brave, but whereas in Beowulf the hero's "naked will and courage" is successfully pitted directly against the cosmic forces of the dragon, in the Sigurd tale the dragon is almost incidental. It's the curse that matters, and that is something that no amount of bravery will overcome.

The hero dies, realising all too late how he has been deceived and what he has lost to his enemies flattery and manipulation. This most ancient of Indo-European mythological patterns resonates remarkably with modern preoccupations : our apprehension that the real horror does not emanate from the mythological monster, but rather from the multiple ways in which human beings are prepared to betray one another.

This is brilliantly argued by Larrington, but all the same, I cannot help feeling that using a dragon just to fool the audience is to rob it of its power unjustly. Yet, perversely, I don't agree that Euron Greyjoy's slaying of a dragon is "outrageously subversive", what with him being an utterly dislikable cunt. Well, I do, but the fact that he doesn't deserve to kill a dragon, that he isn't worthy of a such a pure and noble creature, is exactly why he's (deliberately constructed to be) easy to hate : he has no redeeming qualities and is just a brute, but in real life brute force too often succeeds. If not a very nice message, this is at least self-consistent within the world of Westeros, and the dragon's nobility and potency is never in doubt. The dragon is only partly undermined, remaining a potent and deadly force to be reckoned with : in contrast in the Sigurd story the dragon is ultimately just a man in disguise, having no greater cosmic significance himself.

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In Greek stories the hero often gets some level of reward, at least for a time. Odysseus struggles but ultimately wins back his home, Jason recovers the fleece, Perseus becomes king, Hercules becomes a god. Of course plenty of them do end tragically (Paris, Agamemnon, Achilles) but there's at least some semblance that if you act well and the fates are kind, you'll live an honoured life : at the least you'll be remembered and emulated. But while Beowulf at least got to rule peacefully for many years before the final encounter with the dragon, many Norse myths seem to screw both gods and men alike. If in Greek myths some people suffer some of the time, in Norse tales it feels almost like everyone is suffering all of the time.

This may be an exaggeration, and there are plenty of comic moments in the Norse myths : it isn't all doom and gloom and it certainly isn't perpetual angst. There's a sense of fun about the world-devouring monsters, something appealing in this draw of the cosmic down into the ordinary. The Greek stories, at least those selected in this series, focus heavily on character, with actions and feelings we can relate to in principle if not in practise. The Norse have this aspect as well, but are replete with a sense of mortal dread that the Greek tales lack. Ragnarok can be avoided for a time but it's always looming in the background. So that is what we must face, head-on, in part two.