COLLECTION
Explore the stories, beliefs, and extraordinary beings of this tradition.
Before earth or sky, a giant took shape out of melting rime, and the gods built the world from his body. Three Eddic poems know him, but only Snorri Sturluson, a Christian writing in 13th-century Iceland, tells the whole story, and parts of it are his alone.
Read story 10 min readA giant stole Thor's hammer and would give it back only for Freyja as his bride, so Thor went to the wedding in her veil. The poem survives in a single manuscript, and Snorri, who tells so many stories of Thor, never mentions it.
Read story 11 min readA hall roofed with shields, a boar eaten every day and whole again by evening, dead warriors who cut each other down for sport and then sit down to drink, and the women who choose who will die. Most of the picture comes from Snorri Sturluson, writing in Christian Iceland around 1220. The older poems do not always agree with him.
Read story 13 min readAn eagle in the crown, a dragon at the roots and a squirrel running between them: the Eddic poems give the world ash three roots and endless wounds. They also speak of nine worlds, but no medieval text says which nine.
Read story 10 min readHe left an eye in Mímir's well, hung nine nights on a windy tree to take up the runes, and sends two ravens out over the world every day. The poem that tells of the eye never says it bought wisdom. That explanation is Snorri's.
Read story 12 min readThe wolf breaks loose, the serpent rises from the sea and Surtr's fire burns the world. Then the earth comes up green from the waves a second time. Two old poems tell it in glimpses; a Christian Icelander of the 1220s joined them into one story.
Read story 10 min readShe came to the gods from the Vanir, taught them seiðr, drives a team of cats, weeps red gold for a husband who never returns and takes half of the slain to her own hall. The tale of how she won her necklace survives in a single Icelandic manuscript from the end of the 14th century.
Read story 10 min readA giant's son and Odin's blood-brother, Loki insults every god at a feast, fathers the wolf, the world serpent and Hel, and lies bound beneath a dripping serpent until the end of the world. There is no sign that anyone ever worshipped him.
Read story 11 min readThe gods raised the wolf in their own home, then bound him with a ribbon made from a cat's footfall, a woman's beard and the roots of a rock, and Týr paid with his hand. Only Snorri Sturluson, around 1220, tells the whole story; the older poems know the hand, the fetter and the day the wolf runs free.
Read story 10 min readEverything in the world swore never to harm Baldr except a sprig of mistletoe, and everything wept for him except one giantess: that is Snorri's telling. A Danish historian of the same age tells another story entirely, of two rivals, one woman and a magic sword.
Read story 11 min read
