Review : The Norse Myths (2)

Welcome back to the concluding part of my review/summary of Carolyne Larrington's The Norse Myths That Shape The Way We Think. In part one I covered the trickery and tragedy of the Norse stories, of how lies and knowledge were two halves of the same coin, and how the heroes often suffered a much more raw deal than their Greek counterparts. While both Greco-Roman and Norse paganism have similarly complex, highly intricate mythological tales, the Norse myths are underpinned by a sense of fatalism lacking in the Greeks. Both present a series of often overly-complicated events in which protagonists act out of multi-dimensional motives rather than moral obligation, but while the Greeks might have at least some discernible morality to them, they don't often have any higher sense of cosmic purpose. 

The Norse, by contrast, are somewhat opposite to this. If the Greeks have a sense of underlying justice but are generally rooted in the concerns of mortals, the Norse myths are rife with doom – doom on a grand scale, no less, even when the stories don't obviously demand any sense of cosmological connection.

But we shouldn't dive in at the deep end. Let's work up to the big stuff and start off with the much more mundane.

3) Transgender

I'm going to be deliberately very liberal in this category and lump in other gender and political issues as well. Let's start with straightforward feminism. While Buxton only considers the stories told by the ancient Greeks, Larrington expands to the broader, dual-meaning of "myth", looking at popular but erroneous conceptions of Norse history as well as mythology.

In myth, though, female characters abound, especially female figures of death. The notorious Valkyries aren't always the busty young maidens of opera but can also be cruelly indifferent deities. One poem describes them weaving the fates of men out of the guts of fallen heroes; their loom is made of spears and human heads hang from the grisly cords. Similarly the Norns are three sisters who, less grimly, sit by a well of knowledge cutting wooden strips that determine the lives of men, or possibly braiding threads to weave the future. And Death in Norse culture was consistently female beyond the Valkyries, including a demon that crushed men in their sleep, female ancestor spirits who are blamed for rash decisions, and the woman-corpse goddess Hel. 

If there was a strong role for women in myth, then there was likely one in real history as well. Even the notorious Ragnar Lothbrok, who we met last time, was in one account female. Notably, women are absent from Valhalla, yet non-mythological stories of warrior shield-maidens abound. The hard evidence is thin, but at least one grave seems to have all the hallmarks of a typical Viking warrior burial but with the skeleton being female. 

Now here I have to bring in one of Larrington's rare but really stupid comments, that this could have been a transgender person (and so not "really" a woman at all). I find this a bizarre claim and I wonder if it was actually just intended to provoke, because surely biological gender would be in this case be much more interesting : the common bias is that biological women didn't fight because of their biology, not because they didn't think themselves "manly" enough. Similarly, I didn't think her claims that it made sense for a male-dominated warrior culture to have so many female depictions of death as a connection with birth, because plenty of other such cultures didn't have this.

Not that transgenderism in Norse culture isn't very interesting, mind you. On the one hand we have Thor, who in one popular story dresses up as a woman to pose as a bride for some typical sort of trickery, and yes he's otherwise as butch as Chris Hemsworth. This is clearly just a bit of silly, innocent  humour, because it's funny when great big bearded men dress up as stereotypically feminine women – people have laughed at this since literally forever. Which makes it a bit strange for Larrington to then note that modern retellings of Thor don't have him enjoying his feminine side, because nothing she discusses gives any reason to expect that he would.

Much better examined is Loki, who is transgender through-and-through, and sexually adventurous to the point of bestiality. Not only can he change gender but he can also give birth as a female. In the "master builder" story, Loki turns into a female horse who becomes impregnated by the builder's stallion, giving birth to Sleipnir the eight-legged horse. Any sexual ambiguity one might read in the modern stories featuring Loki pale in comparison with his original shenanigans. Nor is Loki vilified for this; his later actions are treasonous, but there's nothing wrong in his gender fluidity. And it's worth remembering that this was deemed important enough to be included in these mythological tales, with Loki's role being of ultimately negative but nevertheless pivotal importance : he wasn't some minor character, but one of the big guns of Norse mythology.

Which makes it all the sillier that the modern far-right have adopted their own particular view of Viking culture, a tradition stretching back to well before the Nazis. Granted, it doesn't come from nothing, but it's incredibly selective in ignoring both the legendary shield-maidens and the overtly mythical feminine figures of Death and other warrior goddesses. Describing the QAnon shaman, Larrington summarises :

Sentenced to forty-one months in prison for his activities in the Capitol, Angeli exemplifies through his theatrical self-presentation how the Vinland myth has come to represent an imaginary place in America's past - one in which violent masculinity and honour were supreme values, where whiteness and 'purity of blood' were a given, and where women were obedient and submissive. This 'Viking' imagery has been weaponised in American far-right politics to generate an aesthetic that acts as a dogwhistle for white men who hold racist, misogynist and paranoid views.

Quite what it is about American culture that fosters such raving insecurities I will not venture to guess.  

4) Transcendent

Finally we come to the great cosmic stories. At least in Buxton's selection, for the Greeks this wasn't so important : what mattered more was how the characters acted. Metaphor was a key part of it of course, but there didn't seem to be much direct relation to the nature of reality. For the Norse, this was inescapable.

One of the most beautiful conceptions is Yggdrasil, the World Tree. Its origins are unclear, seemingly something beyond the gods. It grows through the worlds, its branches in the heavens and with three great roots : one to Hel, one to the frost giants, and one to mankind. Deer, eagles and squirrels inhabit iis branches, forming a network which is not merely a direct, physical connection, but also a literal information network – the ultimate Wood Wide Web. At its base is a sacred well of knowledge, a concept used in many other cultures. As is the tree itself and its symbolism : in some Norse myths humans are first made out of driftwood, while in reality the early Norse made their idols out of wood, with many farms even having "guardian trees". 

But all is not well with Yggdrasil. While the sort of fluffy animals found in Disney movies inhabit most of it, dragons and snakes continuously molest its branches and roots. 

Even this central pillar of the imagined universe is subject to the effects of time and the attacks of predators : entropy is understood to be at work in the cosmos.

Yet Yggdrasil continuously regenerates, and while it is certainly affected by the apocalypse of Ragnarok, it's unclear if it survives. This theme of being immortal but not invulnerable, of being in a state of permanent renewal, is found elsewhere in Norse myth too. The gods themselves are sustained by magical apples without which they age and die, while in Valhalla warriors regenerate daily after their perpetual battles. On a rather less epic scale, Thor sustains himself on his travels by means of two regenerating goats.

Given all this, it's perhaps less surprising that the Norse converted to Christianity : with its wooden crosses and regenerative god, it might not have seemed like such a revolution as it might at first appear. And as with the dragon stories, Christianity itself is firmly rooted in a pagan past, however much it might profess to be monotheistic.

Whether Yggdrasil can be truly damaged or destroyed is as unclear as its origins, which Larrington never mentions. The same cannot be said of the gods, who share the Greek trait of being essentially just very, very powerful humans. They are immortal only in the sense of having an indefinite lifespan provided all their needs are met, including the life-sustaining apples. And they have definite origins, again like the Greeks being not the first creatures in existence. Odin, for example, was fathered by a giant, who himself was "the son of a male being who was licked out of the melting ice by Audhumla, the cow whose milk nourished the first of all beings, the giant Ymir." In some stories Ymir is killed to make the cosmos while in others the Earth rises up from the sea.

This kind of symbolism, in which one has to presume that the early Scandanavians didn't take things literally, is everywhere in pagan myths. In typical somewhat-comic fashion, Thor's efforts to undertake a series of challenges involve submerging a horn, which becomes an explanatory metaphor for the origin of tides. More dramatically, Loki is the sire of the wolf Fenrir, who "is made to signify time itself, which will come to its end after he gets loose", the serpent Jörmungandr which "lurks in the outer ocean, with his tail in his mouth, signifying the furthest limits of space", and Hel, "half attractive woman, half decaying corpse... She symbolises death, which is imagined as feminine and desiring."

Trying to see this as in any way coherent it likely impossible : the only option would seem to be idealism and even this feels like a struggle. Loki might be literally the father of time but it's the Norns who weave individual strands of lives. And if death is "feminine and desiring", then it seems odd that women are excluded from Valhalla; similarly, that Valhalla is only for the elite but some warriors are apparently there for others to taunt them also feels paradoxical. It is, in short, a mess.

Hanging over all of it is Ragnarok, the Twilight of the Gods. In some stories the sundering of the gods and men is almost a non-event, with nothing more than Odin's spear shattering, yet he himself does not die. In complete contrast to this gentle fading is Ragnarok, in which Loki is bound by the innards of his children, a serpent drips venom over him which causes earthquakes; three savage winters break down human society; and finally war rages : the dead escape from Hel, Fenrir, Jörmungandr and Sutr the fire giant are unleashed. Gods and giants and monsters destroy one another. Wolves devour the Sun and the Moon, until finally "the heavens catch fire and the earth sinks back into the sea. It is over."

Yet the gods always know that this is their inescapable destiny. The heroes too often act knowing that they must in the end die, that they cannot cheat fate. For Tolkien this was profoundly meaningful, that the gods know themselves to be on the right and "think that defeat no refutation" : surely resonant with his own stories of persevering in the face of hopelessness. 

What Ragnarok symbolises appears to be anyone's guess. For some it represents simply the final end, the ultimate nihilism, that everything just dies. For others it "merely" means the end of free will, but for others, such as Wagner, it symbolises the beginning of free will, with mankind at last free of the tyranny of the gods. Some have viewed the Norse gods as having become irredeemably corrupt and deserving of death, others that their fate is a tragic grandeur but not inevitable, or that the whole thing is a metaphor for the triumph of Christianity.

There is clearly no "right" answer to this. A final point of confusion concerns what comes next. In some tales the Earth rises again and a new generation of gods reside in a new golden hall, with a new Sun in the sky and new humans in the fields. Yggdrasil survives and the conditions are eden-like, a rich, bountiful nature. Yet overhead a dragon files with corpses in its wings... is this the final cleansing of the debris of Ragnarok, or an indication that corruption is never fully erased, that it's all a cycle : all this has happened before, all this will happen again ?

Perhaps its neither. Perhaps it's both. I think it speaks to a paradox of good storytelling, that to give anything meaning it must end, but we yearn for the good stories to continue. And perhaps of human nature too, that we long for a cleansing, a reset, but feel ourselves trapped in an unbreakable cycle. To give a single definitive answer would be quite impossible.

Conclusions

All this uncertainty is part of the appeal. Whether by the Church or its practitioners (more likely the former), Christianity has come to portray itself far more as offering clear, certain answers. This has an obvious appeal, but of course it can't and doesn't answer the Big Questions, being rife with contradictions and neo-pagan aspects in spades : angels and demons, monsters and devils, messiahs and spirits. At least the earlier pagan stories never claimed to have such answers.

The flexibility of the pagan myths gives them an often comic surrealism : the Sigurd tale begins with killing Fáfnir's bother who happens at that moment to be... an otter. During the early phases of Ragnarok Loki turns into a salmon to hide from the gods. Anyone thinking that Thor : Love and Thunder is too silly might be in for a rude awakening if they consult the original stories.

Like the Greek myths this flexibility is a great strength, but do they truly "shape the way we think" ? Quite probably. Like a mirror, what we see in them can be a direct reflection of our own values, but also gives us a way to examine ourselves and change what we don't like. But this flexibility comes with a weakness : the ability of the myths to be abused. Stories of the early voyages to Vinland have been co-opted to promote the idea of an America that was "always white" even in pre-Colombian times, while the idea of berserkers (who Larrington says were real but not always held in high regard, but see Lindybeige for the idea that they didn't exist at all) and the male-only Valhalla has come to be (in)appropriated by fascists and thugs.

This isn't inevitable, and the messages of the far-right certainly aren't intrinsic to the old tales : nor would we have to take those lessons even if they were. Larrington concludes :

Those of us who study the myths must counter this by reminding those coming to them afresh that the myths are historically contingent. They mean largely what they are made to mean at different times, and we can never know how they signified in the distant era when they took shape. They are supple, strange, radically different, and yet they engage, as we have seen, with far larger questions than the limited and self-serving obsessions of far-right politics, nationalism and the ravings of conspiracy theorists.

The Norse myths enable us to think critically about the climate crisis and humanity's place in the green world, about death and its place in life, about the inevitable end of the old order and the emergence of the new... These stories allow us to explore the paradoxes of hybridity and the limits of time, space and mortality. Revisting the tales of Vikings and their culture's greatest heroes has illuminated some of the changing ways we think about masculinity, its positives and its drawbacks, and the ways in which women inflect and reconfigure the familiar social roles. And... we have returned to the spectre of planet-wide destruction... and the ways in which we must work to imagine a brand-new world if one is to arise, green and hopeful, out of the old.