Bibliography

http://www.funpop.com/clubs/norse-mythology/images/25260005/title/norns-photo

http://www.funpop.com/clubs/norse-mythology/images/20857884/title/valkyrie-photo

http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Norse_gods_and_goddesses

http://marvel-movies.wikia.com

Lindow, John. Handbook of Norse Mythology. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2001. Print.

Davidson, Hilda Roderick Ellis. Scandinavian Mythology. New York: Peter Bedrick, 1986. Print.

Davidson, Hilda Roderick Ellis. Gods and Myths of Northern Europe. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1990. Print.

Races and Places

Races in Norse Mythology



Aesir - race of the gods

Vanir - another band of gods at war with Aesir and then included with them

Valkyrie - another name for collective female spirits



Norns - collective female spirits

Giants - enemies of the gods

Dwarves - magical beings


Places of the gods:

Asgard - world of the gods
Midgard - home of the humans
Nifheim - fog world; ancient underworld
Hel - Hel's domain; world of the dead
Vallhall - Odin's hall
Jotunheimar - world of the giants
Bilrost - bridge between world of humans and gods (or heaven and earth)
Yggdrasil - World tree; center of the universe
Nivavellir - hall of gold on the plains of the underworld


Now for the girls

These poor goddesses. All the glory and good stuff is given to the gods and the goddesses have titles like "wife of" and "mother of". The following is a small list of goddesses, expecially compared to any listing of male gods in Norse Mythology. Once again there is great confusion as to who is who. Some of these girls are referenced as maybe really being another goddess...same goddess, different name. No wonder we are not sure who was married to who!



Frigg - main goddess, wife of Odin, goddess of marriage and motherhood

Freya - goddess of love, fertility and battle; may be another name for Frigg

Gefn - again, another name for Frigg, goddess of fertility

Hel - ruler of the world of the dead

Iounn - goddess of youth

Jord - Earth personified; mother of Thor; consort to Odin

Lofn - goddess of forbidden love; again, another name for Frigg

Nanna - wife of Baldr, may have been human

Nott - personification of night

Ran - personification of the sea, wife of Aegir

Sol - (or Sunna) sun personified

Var - goddess of contracts

Vor - goddess of wisdom

Loki and his offspring

Loki, also called Lopt, is Odin's blood brother. He is also said to be associated with the devil in Chrisianity. He is said to be friends with and fight along with the giants, which are the mortal enemy of the gods. How he does all that and still can meet with the other gods at the World Tree may be why he is known as the "trickster".  All I know is, he is a bad dude in the Thor and Avengers movies.

Not only is Loki a bad dude, but he also mated with an ogress named Angrboda and had three (3) monster children. The children of this ugly union are Midgard the serpent, Fenrir the wolf, and Hel. When the gods found out about this mating session, they quickly had the kids brought before Odin at the World Tree. The gods feared that the children would become very problematic for them in the future. Odin cast Midgard, the serpent into to sea. You may also know him as Jormungand and one of Thor's greatest enemies. Hel was cast down to rule over the world of the dead. She is described as half alive and half dead. Fenrir was kept by the gods and fed by Tyr, who I mentioned  in an earlier post, lost his hand to Fenrir when he bit it off.

Odin, his tree and his....wives??

Odin's main job is to be ruler of the gods and god of war. He has a special spear in which he determines the victors on the battlefield by having the spear point to the side that will win. He rules over the other gods and has them meet with him at the World Tree, also called Yggdrasil. It is here the gods meet and discuss important upcoming events and take down gods not acting right. The World Tree is huge and the center of the universe. It's leaves and branches grow up into the cosmos, while it's roots dig down deep into Hel. It is here that Odin hung himself for nine days, pierced his side with a sword and achieved some sort of vision quest not unlike those sought in other religions. He is said to obtained all knowledge during his time on the World Tree.

Odin is listed as the god of war, poetry, wisdom, knowledge, hosts, dead, and whatever else you want to include in there. Odin is the ruler of all the gods so I guess he can be all of these things if he wants to. The problem is not what he is god of, the problem is who is he married to? That's the trouble with not writing stuff down, your facts get twisted as stories are passed from word of mouth. Either that or it is normal for males during this time period to be married to whoever they want.

He is associated with Frigg (goddess of love) and Jord or Earth (mother to Thor). He is even said to get freaky with Jarnsaxa, a giantess. Giants are enemies of the Aesir, or the main group of gods. There are even stories of him disguising himself and seducing princesses and common human women. This makes it very difficult to determine who belongs to who. It's like watching housewives of Norse country...

Influence of Norse Mythology on present day



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In my quest for knowledge, I found a couple of interesting facts that you may want to use at your next party or get together and sound semi intelligent.



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The first is, do you ever wonder where the days of the week come from? Well, it just so happens that Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday are all named after Norse gods and wow, yes, a Norse goddess. The days are named after Tyr, Odin, Thor and Frigg, respectively. In old English they are known as Tiw, Wodaen, Thunor and Friija, which to me look more like the days of the week we know today. Not too much is said about Tyr, except that he is famous for losing his hand to a wolf (more on that in a later post). He is a god of war and may be Odin's son. Odin is the main god and his son Thor, the god of thunder. Frigg is the wife of Odin and the goddess of love who apparently gets around in the old stories. She is given the day of Venus, which is Friday.

The second is telling someone to go hell. Yes, we've all said it in a fit of madness. This saying also came from Norse Mythology. Hel is the daughter of Loki and cast down to the world of the dead by Odin. She is the ruler of the underworld and apparently the first one sees when they kick the bucket. So, when the old vikings told someone to go to Hel, it meant pretty much the same thing as it does today.



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Why Norse?

Why would I chose to do a blog about Norse mythology? I wanted to learn more about it, but I'm warning you, try to find a book in the library! We know a lot about Roman and Greek Mythology, but not much about Norse Mythology. That is because not much was written down. Stories were passed down by word of mouth from over 1000 years ago.

First let's look at what part of the world we are talking about. Norse, or Scandinavian Mythology is from the northern part of Europe and evidence of this worship dates back to 1600-450 B.C. I say worship because this was this people's religion up until the 10th or 11th century when Christianity made it's way up north. These were not only stories to the Norse people, but their gods. Scandinavia includes Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Iceland, Finland and Germany. When we think of this area, we think of the Vikings, however evidence of artifacts from the Bronze Age show that these gods were being worshiped well before Viking times. This was a very dominant male time period with love for battle and little fear of death. Not only did I want to find out about the gods of this time, but more about the goddesses. I figure the girls had to be pretty tough too.

Back in November, I was watching a movie with my sons, who are 8 and 10. We were watching The Avengers. There was Thor and Loki fighting on the screen. Thor and Loki being of course, Norse gods. I explained to my sons where the characters came from and of course scored some cool points. It was then that I decided to do my project on Norse gods and goddesses.

Thor and Loki from the movie, The Avengers.
 The Avengers (2012). [DVD] Hollywood: Fox Studios