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- [00:01]
Matt Lewis
Hello, I'm Matt Lewis.
- [00:03]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
And I'm Dr. Eleanor Jaenega and we're.
- [00:05]
Matt Lewis
Just popping up here to tell you some insider info.
- [00:08]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
If you would like to listen to Gone Medieval ad free and get early access and bonus episodes, sign up to.
- [00:14]
Matt Lewis
History Hit with the History Hit subscription, you can also watch hundreds of hours of original documentaries such as my new.
- [00:21]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
Series on everyone's favorite conquerors, the Normans.
- [00:25]
Matt Lewis
Or my recent exploration of the castles that made Britain.
- [00:29]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
There's a new release to enjoy every week.
- [00:32]
Matt Lewis
Sign up now by visiting historyhit.com subscribe or find the link in the show.
- [00:40]
Notes for this episode.
- [00:49]
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- [02:06]
Matt Lewis
Hello, I'm Matt Lewis.
- [02:08]
Welcome to Gone Medieval From History Hit, the podcast that delves into the greatest.
- [02:12]
Millennium in human history.
- [02:15]
We've got the most intriguing mysteries, the gobsmacking details, and latest groundbreaking research. From the Vikings to the printing press, from kings to Popes to the Crusades, we cross centuries and continents to delve into rebellions, plots, and to find the stories, big and small that tell us how we got here. Find out who we really were with.
- [02:38]
Gone Medieval.
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King Gylfi
I am King Gylfi and I have spoken with the gods. I have been to Asgard and sought answers to the questions all men are compelled to ask. I know how the world was made, the stories of how the gods came to rule the Nine Realms from their tall, shining hall. This knowledge I will share with you, if you are willing to listen.
- [03:28]
Matt Lewis
Welcome to Gone Medieval. I'm Matt Lewis. We're taking a deep dive into Norse mythology. Over the next five episodes, King Gylfie will be our guide. He appears in the Prose Edda, one of the key texts for the stories we'll be exploring, compiled by Snorri Sturluson in the early 13th century. Snorri was a politician, a poet, a historian, and he came from Iceland, where volcanoes, long nights and his Viking ancestry inspired him to write down the legends of his forefathers. In this episode, we're taking a look at the Norse creation myth as Snorri has recorded it. The next installment will explore the story of Odin, the All Father, and the other gods who populate Asgard. Then we'll meet Thor and Loki, two of the most significant Norse gods made legend by Marvel. Our fourth episode will consider the effect of Norse mythology on those who lived with it as part of their culture, as we ask how a Viking would get into the golden halls of Valhalla. Finally, we'll round off the series with the Norse version of Armageddon, Ragnarok, and see how the Vikings believed the world would end. For now, though, I think I'll return you to the capable hands of King Gylfie.
- [05:07]
King Gylfi
There is something you should know about me before we begin our journey together. Because I am a mighty king, I have discovered the way to travel to the realm of the gods. Asgard is their fortress and their playground. The place from which they watch, rule and direct the lives of all of us. I went in disguise so they would not know I did not belong and sought to discover the stories of gods and mortals. This is not a journey anyone can make. Even for a great king like me. It was not an easy feat. But I have returned to share with you all what I have learned in the Great hall of Asgard. I once met a man who was juggling. He told me his name was Gangleeri. When I asked to see the one who ruled such a grand place, he took me before the king. There were three thrones, each higher than the last. And he introduced me to the man who sat in each one. In the first chair sat high, next was just as high and the last was named third. You may think that I have drunk too much mead when you hear what I heard. For I asked these three kings how the World was created, and they told me this story. It was at the beginning of time, when nothing was sand was not, nor sea, nor cool waves. Earth did not exist, nor heaven on high. The mighty gap was but no growth. Before there was anything else, the realm of Musbel existed in the south. This was a land of heat and fire that no visitor could survive. Its borders were guarded by one named Surtr, who wields a sword of fire and will one day destroy all the gods and all the world. In the north lay Niflheim, a land of ice and cold from which rivers began to flow. Between these places was Ginnungagap, the mighty gap where there was nothing until the fire below and the ice above caused water to enter the void. The drops gave birth to Ymir, the first Frost Giant, though he is not, the kings told me, to be considered a God. From his sweat more Frost giants grew, and he is the father to all that race. Next there came into being a great cow called Aud Humla and four rivers of milk flowed from her others to feed Ymir. The cow licked the salty rocks to sustain itself. And on the first day her licking revealed a man's hair. On the second, his head was uncovered and on the third he was set free of the stone. This first man was tall, handsome and strong and was named Buri. He fathered a son called Bor, who married Bestla, the daughter of a giant. Buri and Bestla had three sons named Odin, Vili and verse. The kings recognized Odin and his brothers as the rulers of all heaven and earth. I asked how the world came to be amongst the emergence of so many great creatures. The kings replied that eventually Odin and his brothers slayed the giant Ymir. So much blood ran from his body that it drowned all the Frost Giants but one, the tallest, whom they called Bergelmir, and his wife. From them descend all the Frost Giants, now alive. Odin and his brothers then took the body of Ymir into Ginnungaga, the great void. And from his corpse they formed the earth. His blood made the seas and the lakes his flesh and became the earth and his bones, the mountains. Stones were made from his teeth and the bones that had been broken when they killed him. Maggots grew in the rotting flesh of Ymir and Odin and his brothers gave them human shape and understanding. And these are the race of dwarves. Ymir Skul, Odin and his brothers took and placed over the earth to create the skies. Four dwarves were appointed to hold it up and they were named North, south, east and West. Next, Odin and his brothers collected the molten sparks that erupted from the fiery realm of Musbel. And these they fixed in the sky to give light to the world. Each was given a place and some a course over which to move. And these we now call the sun, the the moon and the stars. The world was a circle surrounded by sea. Along the shores of this sea, Odin and his brothers gave land to the races of giants. To protect themselves, they built a great fortification in the center named Midgard. Using Ymir's eyelashes, the brains of Ymir they threw up into the air to fill the sky with clouds. Where then did the race of men spring from, you may be wondering. This is what I learned. As Odin and his brothers Vili and Ve walked along a beach, they saw two logs. From these pieces of wood they carved a man and a woman. Odin gave them life and breath. Vili gifted them consciousness and man movement. And from Ve they obtained a face, voices, hearing and sight. The man was called Ask and the woman's name was Embla. From them are all the people of the world descended. Odin and his brothers gave Midgard to the humans and built a new home for themselves, which they call Asgard and which is sometimes called Troy. Odin married, and with his wife Frigg created the blessed race of the Aesir who live in Asgard. So it is that Odin is called the Allfather, for he is father to all gods and all men, and all was created by his power. Night, the daughter of a giant married three times, the third to one of the Aesir. Their son was named Day, because he was bright and handsome. Odin took Night and day and set them in the sky, giving each a chariot pulled by a horse. They ride around the Earth forever, one every 24 hours. Night goes ahead. Her horse is bit, dripping with the effort, so that the fields are covered with dew each morning. Day follows, and light is shed across land and sea by the shining mane of his horse. Two other children were taken from another who displeased the gods. The brother and sister were called man and Sol, Moon and Sun. They were also set in the sky to draw the chariots of the sun and the moon, which had been formed from the fiery chunks rising out of moose bell. How is it that sun moves so quickly across the skies? This, the kings told me, was because she is chased by a savage wolf, as is the her brother Moon. Both are afraid to be caught and devoured. And how is it that a man like me can travel from earth to heaven? This is the secret I shall share with you. The Gods created a bridge which they call the Bifrost. You have seen it, but you have called it a rainbow. Few know that it is really the pathway to Asgard and the realm of the gods. There is one more thing you should know. There is a place that is holy even to the gods where they hold court each day. It is a giant ash tree called Yggdrasil. Its roots support the world, and under one is the well that grants wisdom from which oath and drank, though he had to leave one of his eyes there for the knowledge he gained. Beneath another root is the holiest well. Wyrd's well. And here the gods gather each day, crossing the Bifrost to hold their court more. I could tell you of my time in the halls of these Three Kings, but much have you already heard about the creation of the Nine Realms, of the Gods and of men. Even I, King Gylfi, found my mind filled with as many questions as answers. And so I found a wise one to help me better understand what I had learned. It seems even a great king like me still has some things to learn of gods and mortals. Gods, how the world was made, and the great mysteries that are lost in the mists of time. Next time we speak, I would know more of the gods. Odin is the All Father, but what power does he hold over the Nine Realms? Who else fills the halls of Asgard to direct the affairs of all of us here on Earth? We will find this out together.
- [16:31]
Matt Lewis
Elena, A very warm welcome back to Gone Medieval.
- [16:35]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
Thank you so much. It is lovely to be here again.
- [16:38]
Matt Lewis
Well, when we thought we were taking a dive into the world of Norse mythology, we thought, who better to kick us off than the fantastic Elena to tell us these stories?
- [16:46]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
Thank you.
- [16:47]
Matt Lewis
So, listeners will have just heard a version of the Norse creation myth kind of taken from the prose Edda. We've chopped it up and pared it down a little bit, but listeners will hopefully have an idea of what the Norse creation myth, as it's contained in the prose Edda, tells us happened. And it's a little bit balmy, so I'm looking forward to getting into some of it with you. But I wondered if we could start by just having a little think about what our sources are for this. Where do we get our ideas of Norse mythology from? And how trustworthy, I guess, are some of those sources?
- [17:20]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
Yeah, so the Prozed is a really good place to start because it's one of our two major textual sources. They both come from the 13th century, and they both come from Iceland. And so it's important to say straight away that we're talking about a period where the country's been Christian officially since around sort of 1,000. And so we've got that lag and that's really, really important. But I'm sure we'll talk more about that. So the Prose Edda, and this is confusing because we're going to talk of the Prose Edda and the Poetic Edda, two totally different, pretty much unrelated things. But the Prose Edda is by a poet, a politician, a saga writer called Snorri Sturglisson, who lived in 13th century Iceland. And Snorri, I mean, his life is incredible. He ends up getting on the wrong side of the Norwegian king during this very bloody civil war and he is eventually murdered in his own basement on the orders of the Norwegian king. We even know if we are to believe the sagas, his final words, which are eky hgvr, which means don't strike. And unfortunately the response comes hygvar strike. So that's Snorri. Snorri is writing the Prose Edda more as a poet, and the Prose Edda for him is a handbook of pagan or sort of pre Christian mythology designed for poets. Because Old Norse poetry is full of references, allusions to the Norse gods and other sort of supernatural creatures of the pantheon. And without knowledge of those, you can't really write Norse poetry. Or so Snorri says. Now, some of what Snorri uses, it's sort of. It's encapsulated in our other major Source, also from 13th century Iceland. As I say, it's a bit confusing. This is called the Poetic Edda. Now that word Edda has no reference. People don't even know what it really means. It might mean something like great grandmother or maybe, if that is what it is, that sort of makes sense. It's an allusion to something that has been passed down from sort of the deep past, down the generation.
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Matt Lewis
These are the stories that your great grandmother might have told you around the fire at home.
- [19:35]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
Exactly, exactly that, yeah. Possibly. It doesn't mean that it's more. There are various possibilities and academics have sort of had little fights over that over the years. But the Poetic edda is also 13th century, it's also from Iceland, but it's a collection of anonymous poems and specifically eddic poems. Eddic poems are poems that are written in a particular form in old Norse, and maybe we'll hear a few of them, little bits of them later on, but they are, yeah, they're anonymous. We don't know who wrote them. They usually involve either gods, stories of the gods, stories of heroes and legends and dragons and all sorts of things. But when we're talking about the start of the world, the creation of the world, it. There's. There's one in particular that we really have to think about, which is Voluspa. And Voluspao is the very first in this compilation. The compilation's from. Oh, I think it's 1275. We have a few bits and pieces of some of these poems elsewhere, but it's one manuscript that is our major source. It's from the Codex Regis, which means essentially the King's book. And without that, we would know so much less about Old Norse mythology in any form. So Voluspa is where we really hear about the beginning of the world. And Snorri, for his prose Edda, knew about Volusbau. In addition to those sources, we've got other material. We've got some archaeological material, and sometimes there are depictions of Norse mythological characters and stories, but for the most part we don't, to my knowledge. I'm trying to think if we do have any, but I don't think we do. There's not really an awful lot to go on in terms of archaeological material specifically referencing that creation story that we've just heard a version of.
- [21:32]
Matt Lewis
So I guess in terms of our sources, we need to. There's kind of a few alarm bells that ring, isn't there, that. That we've got very few sources that they come from a couple of hundred years at least, after the Viking world. We think of the Viking world having stopped, although obviously we can argue about that. And also we're talking about Christians who are writing about pagans. So that's a quite a heady mix of stuff that should make us a little bit wary about this source material.
- [21:55]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
Yeah. And I mean, I should say we always talk about the limitations of the source material, but we are so lucky to have it. So there would have been similar stuff in other parts of the northern Germanic world, but of course that converts to Christianity, for the most part, a lot earlier than the Nordic world. And so for the most part we don't really have anything there. So we're very lucky to have what we have. Having said that, yes, you are exactly right. It's tricky. And in particular there's this sense that when Snorri is writing this material in his prose, Edda, he's shaping it or he's giving it a framework that he understands. And it is. It's perfectly reasonable, you know, he's giving it a sense of narrative cohesion that might not necessarily be apparent in our poetic sources or our archaeological sources sometimes, but then we have, you know, for example, it's this idea of Odin as the All Father. The question is there whether he's introducing that sort of almost top of the trinity idea that we get in Christianity. Loki as well becomes the bringer of all misfortune. Now, Loki is not an uncomplicated character in the other source material we've got, but there's the question of whether Snorri is making him, should we say, more devilish than he would be otherwise if we didn't have that Christian layer on the material.
- [23:18]
Matt Lewis
Yeah, fascinating. So if. If we dive into the creation myth, then, as I said before and. And as listeners will probably have picked up from the introduction, it's a bit wacky. There's some unusual stuff going on. We've. We've got a gaping abyss full of nothing. We've got lands of fire and ice. We've got a cosmic cow who's giving birth to gods. We've got the world being built around the corpse of a dead body giant. And that's just the things that spring to mind straight away. So I wondered if you could help us just have a quick recap of what the myth is. How did the Norse stories tell us that the world came into being? And then is there any way that you can help us make a bit more sense of what's going on?
- [23:56]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
I mean, I can't promise the second bit. I can try a little bit, but, I mean, it is wacky. Right, okay, let's start. You mentioned that yawning void, right? That's ginnungagap. So let's start there. This is mostly coming from Volusbau, the version I'm going to tell this prophecy of the Seeress poem. And you know, as I say, there are some differences with Snorri's material. Not huge ones, but the broad outline ginnungagap, or as it says in Volusbau, gap var ginnunga. So the ginnunga gap is either. You would translate it as the yawning gap, the mighty void. Possibly both. You know, possibly it's meant to have a slight double meaning. The third verse of Voluspar. I can give it to you, a little bit of it in Old Norse it says, aur varalda var er emir bigdi varasandar nisayer ni svala unnir yurth fansk ivi ne uphinnin gapvar ginnunga and Gras Gvgi. So it was early in that time that Ymir made his settlement. There was neither sand nor sea nor cooling waves. There was nowhere earth. And nor was the sky above. It was a void of yawning chaos with no grass. So you can hear that Ginnungagap in there. This idea, as you say, of that great void. Now, Snorri particularly tells us that on one side of Ginnungagap is Niflheimr, which we might translate as sort of the world of fog, something like that, but it's a cold, wet, clammy, icy world. And then on the other side we have Muspellheimr, which is the land, land of fire. And we're told that from Niflheimer water flowed into Ginnungagap and it froze. But where that frozen water met the fire of Musbel Haymr, you end up with this sort of melting Ur essence that creates Ymir, who's the first living being. And we're told that Ymir is a Hrymthurs, which is a frost giant. Now, I should say that because giants are probably going to feature quite heavily here, giant doesn't necessarily mean our, I don't know, fairy tale sense of giant is like a big person. So that's why sometimes they're just called Jotuns or Thurs, you know. So it's that idea of a different sort of being to humans and to the gods that we know. So that's Ymir. He's the ancestor of all beings. How exactly he becomes the ancestor we can get onto. That is particularly wacky, even by the standards of Norse mythology. But there's another being, right? There's Eiddhumla, and Eiddhumla is the celestial cow. I mean, it sounds more ridiculous the more I say it out loud. The dafter it sounds. So Ymir survives by drinking her milk. She also licks the ice because it's all nice and salty. And she uncovers the head of Buri, another living being who is said to be the ancestor of the Aesir gods, you know, but these are specifically the gods that, you know, we. We know well, we think of odin, Thor, Frigg, etc. Now his child is Bur Buries Bestla. They're all giants. She's the daughter of Bolthr. And their children are Odin and Vili and Ve. Okay, so Ymir, the frost giant. I think that makes him the great grandfather of Odin, Vili and Vi, and that will become important. Okay, so it gets weirder because Then, according to another poem. This is another one of the eddic poems, Ymir sweats the first frost giants out of his armpits.
- [27:53]
Matt Lewis
Of course, I know.
- [27:54]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
Of course, right? Is that not how we all came into being? And then from his legs. I mean, don't ask me what's going on down there, but, you know, other beings come out from between his legs. So cut to the point where it all goes horribly wrong, though, because eventually Ymir is murdered by Odin and his brothers, and they then make the world from his body. And this is where, I can't believe I'm saying this, it starts to make slightly more sense. But so, but so Ymir's flesh becomes the earth, and his skull is the sky, and his brains are the clouds. His blood is the roaring oceans, and his bones are the mountains. His teeth, I think they're the rocks. And then his eyelashes become a sort of fence around what they call Midgard, which Tolkien fans might know, because Midgard is Midgard. Middle Earth is where the humans live. And then again, don't ask. We've also got dwarves in the mix. The dwarves are said to be maggots who were crawling in Ymir's flesh. And we have four of these in particular. Nudri, Vestri, Sudri, and Aestri. And that might sound quite familiar. It's north, west, south, and east. And they are said to hold up the sky, a bit like Atlas holds up the sky in. In other mythologies. So that's a sort of mishmash of that myth in all its exciting and colorful complexities, mostly taken from the Prose Edda and poems of the Poetic Edda.
- [29:33]
Matt Lewis
And I guess, can we see influences of other traditions in there, or is this something fairly uniquely Norse? I mean, we talked earlier about the fact that we're. We're reading this from writers who are living in a Christian age. There doesn't seem to be too much of an effort to align it with the Christian creation myth. To me.
- [29:50]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
Yeah, it's a really funny one, partly because we know that Snorri, you know, I mentioned he's a poet, he's a politician, but he's also a saga writer. And he writes this big compilation of king sagas called Heimskringla, which means the circle of the world. The first of those is ingling, a saga. And there he brings up a lot of the gods there. This is a very catchy word I remember learning as an undergraduate. It's never left me because it's where. Where do you get the chance to use the word euhemerism in a regular conversation. But he basically euhemerizes the Norse gods. So he turns them into humans and he gives them origin myths down in sort of Troy. And he says, you know, these were kings and queens who came to the north and people believed them to be be gods. And so we know very much that 13th century Iceland is full of manuscripts that are coming over from continental Europe, that there's a lot of Christian information there. We have the same author who writes the Prose Edda also euhemerizing the gods in another one of his works. And so, yeah, it's, in a way, yeah, I find it, I mean, strange maybe is a bit strong, but yet it is curious that it's not that he is able to be so sort of pagan about a lot of this material. Having said that, there are certainly motifs and ideas that look like they're speaking to sort of broader mythological, sort of not Norse, but broader mythological and religious ideas. So, I mean, I mentioned the four dwarves holding up the world, you know, and certainly there are parallels there, but there's also. I don't know, this seems like after Ymir, according to one of the poems, after Ymir's death, there's this big flood of all his blood and there's. I think the giant's called Bergelmir. And it's said that he's put in something called a Luther, which means it's a vessel, basically, it's a floaty thing, and therefore he survives the flood. And obviously there are shades of. Of Noah and the ark, but also maybe shades of baby Moses in the basket. So there are elements, and there are elements of other Norse myths, again, beyond the creation myths, that also sort of are, at least you'd suspect, aware of or operating maybe not quite in tandem with, but sort of with an awareness of Christian material. But it is one of the remarkable things about the Norse sources that survive that they're able to say, yeah, let's. Let's talk about this stuff. And it's why I enjoy it so much, because it's not all, oh, this is all devilish. You know, you can actually as moralistic.
- [32:39]
Matt Lewis
As a lot of the Christian writings that you're getting around this kind of time, it doesn't feel like it needs to deliver a particular moral message and correct everybody's behavior. It's just a really good story.
- [32:50]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
Yeah, exactly. And it's also this very strong sense. Look, this is part of our heritage and this is part of our poetic tradition. This is part of what our grandparents and great Grandparents going all the way back believed, you know, this is who we are. So I think there's a pride and a sense that this is still part of identity. Whether it's part of belief is more up for debate, but certainly it's like, yeah, this is us. Aren't we cool?
- [33:16]
Matt Lewis
Yeah, but. And it sort of suggests that perhaps we ought to give it a bit more credence than we otherwise might. Because Snorri, you know, where he's choosing to throw in little bits that we might identify as close to Christianity. It's the tiny little details, it's not the overarching parts of the story, it's not the message behind it, which almost suggests that he's feeling comfortable enough to just tell you what the Norse people believed before they were Christian.
- [33:41]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
Yes, exactly. Exactly. And there are other bits later on, so like Odin sacrificing himself on the tree for nine days. And again, it's like Christian alarm bells very much ringing there, Jesus on the cross. But with all of this material, I think. I think there is exactly. There's a sense, I think particularly it's like, if you don't know this stuff, you can't write poetry. And I think that's a big part of it. And you do get Norse poetry post conversion that uses sort of poetic devices that draw on Christian material. But, you know, Odin's the God of poetry. He, you know, it's like. It's like, yeah. If you are going to create within this cultural context, you've got to be aware of this material and able to use it.
- [34:39]
Matt Lewis
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- [35:50]
Dan Snow
History has made this world of ours. I'd like to tell you about my show, Dan Snow's History Hit that really explains everything that's ever happened. The origin stories of the cities we inhabit or of what's in our kitchen cupboards. Why we've always been drawn to dictatorship, the greatest discoveries, inventions and mistakes ever made. For curious stories, check out Dan Snow's History Hit wherever you get your podcasts.
- [36:36]
Matt Lewis
And it sounds a little bit like Snorri's almost saying, we can't forget this stuff. We can't be allowed to forget this stuff. We might be Christian now, but there is this whole cultural heritage behind us that we still need to remember.
- [36:48]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
Yeah, hundred percent that very much, yeah. And he says that fairly explicitly in his work. He's like, you need to know this. This is good stuff.
- [36:56]
Matt Lewis
And so the story gives us. We meet giants, we meet the gods, we meet humans eventually. We've, we've mentioned dwarves. We also get elves in there. Should we take all of these things? I mean, we've just talked about how much credence we probably ought to allow Snorri in the stories that he's telling. Should we take all of those things literally in that Norse people believed in dwarves and elves, or are they there to represent something?
- [37:21]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
Yeah, that's a really good question. I mean, short answer is we can't know for sure. But also, we've got to think that the Norse diaspora is huge. You know, we've got mainland Scandinavia, we've got Norway, Denmark, Sweden, we've got, you know, they end up in the British Isles, they're on the continent, they get all the way to the Eurasian steppes and waterways, they cross the North Atlantic, they settle in Greenland until the 15, well, sort of until the 1400s. They end up on the edge of the North American continent. This is also a very big chronological time period. We're talking with a lot of earlier roots that we can guess at, or sometimes there are little hints of, but we can't know the full extent of that. So with that in mind, it's difficult. You can't say all people living in the Norse cultural sphere from, you know, the sort of migration age up to the later medieval period or up to the conversion believed X, Y and Z, or they all worshipped this God or they all did this religious practice. It just we can't say that. It's more like it's a body of associated myths and stories and legends and poems, and perhaps we might say a body of associated rituals, associated beliefs. You know, we have some external sources that describe the sort of things they might have done. But I think if we reduce it to. I don't know if we. It's almost like if we make it just an encyclopedia of different gods and goddesses and what everyone believed, we're doing the material disservice. And with that in mind, we have to remember that our two main textual sources come from a specific century, the 13th century, and come from a specific country, Iceland. And so to what extent that represents, for example, what people who buried the two women, the magical women in the Oseberg ship burial in Norway in the early 9th century, what they believed and what the women who were buried there believed. Well, you know, we. We don't sort of want to completely split it apart, but we've just got to allow for some flexibility in. In what we know or what we might allow ourselves not to know.
- [39:44]
Matt Lewis
So I think it's quite easy from, you know, reading around to do a bit of research for all of this. It's quite easy in some of those sagas in the Eddas to think about things like, you know, the giants represent chaos and the gods represent order, and the gods are there to bring order from the chaos. And that's why there is often rivalry, particularly Thor hates giants, you know, or you have to negotiate with giants sometimes. But is that maybe just reading too much into it? Is that looking for meaning that might not be there, or is that just impossible to say?
- [40:14]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
I think impossible to say might might be sort of our refrain. Yeah, I think it's tricky. I don't want to say no, because I don't know. No, you know, and it's possible that there is an element of that. But I think there is also a problem if we reduce things to, I don't know, sort of like black and white symbolism. I think, again, we're doing the material a disservice. And the gods are hugely chaotic. I mean, sure, you know, Odin and his brothers kill Ymir in order to kind of create the world, but they are just. They're permanently getting up to some, like, ridiculous stuff. These are the sorts, you know, it's a bit like with the Roman and the Greek stuff. Gods are human on a larger scale, but prone to the same foibles and ridiculousness, you know. So I think if we. Yes, we could say, okay, in that act, Odin and his brothers make the world and therefore create order. But I would question how ordered that world actually is. And I think the giants, to take their side, could quite reasonably say, wait a minute, we were all just getting on with everything very nicely, and then you decide to sort of kill the first being to have existed. Well, who's creating chaos out of that? You know, So I don't know. I personally, I have a lot of time for the giants and I feel they're much maligned. And I think the gods, they do.
- [41:44]
Matt Lewis
Seem to do an awful lot of minding their own business and then getting beaten up, particularly by Thor, for no apparent reason.
- [41:49]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Yeah. It always reminds me of sort of. This is related, but very tangentially. There's a translation into Old English of, oh, is it one of Gregory's texts? I can't remember, but it's the nun and the lettuce leaf. And the nun goes into the nice kitchen garden and is hungry and picks the lettuce and bites into it and is instantly possessed by demon starts rolling around on the floor. And they call the demon up. They're like, mate, what did you do that for? And the demon says, what did I do? I was sitting on a lettuce leaf, minding my own business. And then she just came up and she bit me. What was I supposed to. And I sort of feel sometimes that the giants are a bit like that. You know, I think they get a bad rap when. When the gods are every bit as sort of chaotic.
- [42:37]
Matt Lewis
Yeah. And I guess, you know, I'm probably there walking into a bit of a. Not necessarily 21st century, but a kind of monotheistic trap of seeing the world is good and evil. Whereas, you know, the Romans and the Greeks and the Norse mythology seems to fall into the same category of everything is way more complex than that. It's almost impossible to say that anybody is all good or all bad. They're all on a scale somewhere, and sometimes they're good and sometimes they're bad.
- [43:02]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
Which for me makes it much more interesting. I think that's part of the reason I was so drawn to this material. You know, we mentioned how Snorri possibly is sort of creating that Christian framework by making Loki the originator of all evil. But again, Loki, if you actually look at the mythology, he's incredibly complex. Sometimes he's a goodie, sometimes he's a baddie. You know, he's very. He's very sort of intentionally mixed. And sometimes the gods would be absolutely screwed without him. But Then of course, he also is very much part of bringing about the end of the world. So, yeah, I think it's more complex, which for me makes it more. More interesting.
- [43:42]
Matt Lewis
Yeah, yeah. It does seem that from the very beginning, from the creation, there is kind of a degree of conflict baked into the story of, of Norse mythology. We particularly get. It all begins with fire versus ice, and then we get gods versus giants. Does this kind of. Do you think this reflects the broader Viking view of the world? That it's kind of us versus them, that violence and conflict is built into the world?
- [44:07]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
See, it's a really good question that I would maybe start by thinking, okay, how many creation myths from other cultures historically are also violent? Because there's quite a lot of, you know, I'm thinking, I don't know, I don't know enough about it to be anything other than sort of horribly inaccurate with whatever I say. But, you know, I think of like ancient Egypt, for example, and you know, it often starts with murder and sacrifice and, you know, that's very much part of it.
- [44:38]
Matt Lewis
So including the Christian story of Cain and Abel, you know, it's literally killing a brother at the beginning of human existence.
- [44:46]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
Yeah, very much that. So I think maybe because when we think of Viking, we think quite reasonably of, you know, that, that stereotype. And as we know, that's what the word Viking means. It means raider or pirates. It's like, fair enough. But I suppose the question is whether that Viking stereotype reflects most of day to day Norse life for most people. And that's not me saying they're all like cuddly and cute at all. It's like. But for the most part they're farming, they're hunting, they're fishing, you know, they're mending boats. They're not always out on raids. And then I suppose the next question is, is the violence for the most part any more violent than a lot of other parts of early to mid medieval Europe? And therefore, do you know what I mean? It's like, is there something special about Norse mythology and Norse violence in that mythology and Norse activities? Now? Obviously, yeah, they're attacking, you know, monasteries, Christian monasteries. That's part of why it's so shocking. They convert very late to Christianity, relatively speaking. Again, very shocking. But yeah, you have to sort. I don't want to be an apologist for what they. The things they do, because some of them are awful. But, you know, there is that thing. It's like there are a lot of nasty, very violent parts of the sort of mid medieval European world where, you know, so it's like, okay, are they more prone to warfare than other cultures? Now, having said that, and maybe this isn't a conversation for now, but there has certainly been the suggestion that myths about the end of the world, sort of Norse myths about the end of the world might reflect something of a sort of existential angst that sort of is reflected in some of their sort of lessons. Salubrious behaviour.
- [46:39]
Matt Lewis
Yeah, yeah. You and I will be back to talk about the end of the world in another episode. So we're going to get into that a little bit later on. And I guess at the risk of saying that I'm just walking from one trap into another one, viewing the Viking world as one of continual conflict is kind of falling into that trap of, you know, Viking is the way that everyone else referred to them. Violent is the way that everybody else particularly experienced the coming of the Vikings, and it's not necessarily reflective of how they saw themselves. As you said, the vast majority of the would have been farming and just living a normal, everyday life. So trying to read that worldview into their mythology is kind of imposing it from the outside in, rather than thinking about what they might have thought about themselves.
- [47:20]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
Yes, I think that's right. But then to play devil's advocate and say, maybe you're not walking into a trap. It is also true that there are other elements of Norse mythology in the stories that are incredibly violent and, you know, really not very pleasant. And certainly if we look at a lot of our surviving material for, okay, what did they value as a society? What did they value in themselves? A lot of it is, you know, you've got to be pretty handy with the weapon and, you know, this person was a great hero and also, you know, very good at fighting. And there is a lot of violence, generally speaking, throughout the nation. Norse mythological world, I would say. So I don't think in any way. No, I don't think that is a trap you're walking into there. I think there is the reflection of, you know, a warlike mentality that not necessarily in any way everyone is practicing every day, but certainly when you're sitting around the fire, you know, enjoying your sagas and your poems over the sort of long, dark winters. A lot of those are very violent. And, you know, a lot of the good sagas are full of bloody feuds and, you know, it's kind of, yeah, the equivalent of a soap opera or something, but with extra gore. So, yeah, it's there.
- [48:40]
Matt Lewis
I guess the good fireside stories are predominantly coming from the people who've been out there doing the raiding and come back with all of these stories of glory and gold and foreign lands that are exciting.
- [48:56]
King Gylfi
Foreign.
- [49:07]
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King Gylfi
As the same day.
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- [49:21]
Dan Snow
Independence People, History has made this world of ours. I'd like to tell you about my show, Dan Snow's History Hit. That really explains, well, everything that's ever happened. The origin stories of the cities we inhabit or of what's in our kitchen cupboards, why we've always been drawn to dictators, the greatest discoveries, inventions and mistakes ever made. For curious stories, check out Dan Snow's History Hit wherever you get your podcasts.
- [50:08]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
Yeah, exactly. Or if it's not them, then it's their grandfather. And so they're like, I'm going to tell you what an American amazing lineage I come from. And so, yeah, you're gonna, you're gonna pick that up. You're not gonna be like, yeah, my grandpa was the one who sat in the boat sort of like keeping the engine running while everyone else ran inside and grabbed some portable wealth off the monks. You know, it's like, nah, he was in there. He was badass.
- [50:28]
Matt Lewis
Yeah. Yeah. One part of the Norse creation story that we haven't touched upon at all yet is, is Yggdrasil, the World Tree. I wonder if you could talk to us a little bit about how we're told Yggdrasil comes into being and what it is, what function it performs, because we hear lots about what's underneath it and what's hanging from its branches and all of those kinds of things.
- [50:50]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
Yeah. So, Voluspaal, once again, this prophecy of the Seeress poem is a really good source for Yggdrasil. Igdrasil is great, I think. You know, it's described in Volusbau as a great ash tree sprinkled with white loam or white soil running, which I just think is the most amazing image to start with. Now, it's possible that Volus, so I should say Voluspa, is spoken in the voice of this vlva, this seeress, this prophetess. And so a lot of it is I remember when. I remember when this happened, which is why she's able to tell from the start of the world all the way to the end of the world. You know, as far as she conceptualizes, seems that she introduces Yggdrasil in the second stanza of the poem, but she doesn't name it at that point. So she says, ek man yutna ar um borna thou arfath mek faida hefti niu evidyur mjd mayren firm. So I remember. This is her speaking. Giants born early in time. Those nurtured me long ago. I remember nine worlds. I remember nine giant women. The mighty tree of Thunder, fate below the earth. So that mighty tree of fate, and that fate is an important part of it, is Yggdrasil. And we're told. And this is partly Voluspal, this is partly Snorri. Again, we're told that Yggdrasil has three roots. One in the world of Hel, the underworld. One in Jotunheimr, the world of the Jotun, or the giants, and then one again, this is where the source is. Sort of. I think they diverge a bit. Sort of. It's either in Midgard, the land of humans, or it's in Asgard, the world of the gods. And then there's. Down in its roots are other things. And so, for example, the one going to hell is gnawed at by the dragon Nidhoggar. And there are all these little baby snakes in there, like, gnawing away on its roots. So it's a rather. Yes, it's a really visually dramatic, evocative image that Voluspao and Snorri paint of Yggdrasil.
- [53:03]
Matt Lewis
And how important is Yggdrasil in Norse mythology? It seems to be kind of at the centre of everything.
- [53:11]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
Yeah, and this is. This is where it's tricky, because it's our source material and what that actually represents versus, in a way, almost like the afterlives of these myths as they're passed down. Now, again, this is maybe something we'll. We'll come back to later on in another episode, but when Ragnarok approaches the end of the world, Yggdrasil trembles and it shakes. And so there's very much the sense that the end of the world, or the worlds, depending on how many we think there are, is also the end of Yggdrasil. So it's like this central vein that runs through everything, but there's also. I mean, it's also slightly cartoonish. And so my favorite character is this little squirrel called Ratatoskr. And she runs up and down the branches, but she's like totally messy. She's carrying. She's basically spilling the tea to everyone else who's living in Yggdrasil. So the eagle at the top and you've got the deer in the lower branches, and she's just basically pissing everyone off. And. Oh, did you hear what so and so said about you? So there is this sense of. I mean, even her name's quite cool. So Toskr is like tusk. It's like fang or tusk. And Rata. Actually, it's quite onomatopoeic. It's like drilling or boring. So it's like her little fangs are like into the tree. So I think that while, yes, it is sort of cosmologically speaking, it is at the center of all things. I think it's also a location that the, you know, the storytellers could have had quite a lot of fun with, because it's almost like, I wonder if Enid Blyton knew about it. You know, the magical. Was it the faraway tree? There's definite shades of that in there, too.
- [54:56]
Matt Lewis
Yeah. Fascinating. And do we get any idea of a connection with Norse peoples and, you know, wooded groves and things like that? Do trees mean something special to them? Does Yggdrasil represent the natural world in a way that is quite often in other places, absent from the Norse creation mythology? We hear about how rocks are created in the sea and everything else, and much less about where nature comes from. And Yggdrasil kind of represents all of that. So is this about the Viking connection to the natural world?
- [55:25]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
Yes, that sense of the interconnectedness of all things. I think we could definitely push that idea. There's also. Yeah, this idea of. There's a strong tradition of what are called land of a tir, which means sort of land spirits. These. Yeah. Supernatural beings that inhab the physical terrain. You sacrifices them to them. You have to keep them on side. There's still a lot of belief in Iceland a day surrounding those sorts of beings. You don't want to piss them off, just in case. But I think in terms of the sacred grove idea, that's something that's very much in northern Germanic cultural belief systems going all the way back. So really good example of that is actually the Battle of Teutoburg back in, I want to say, 9 CE, where three legions of the Roman armies wiped out in the sort of the Germanic badlands. And Tacitus says that there are human sacrifices made afterwards in the groves to the gods there. So I think there is. Yeah, I think there is a strong sense of that. And maybe Yggdrasil is sort of the ultimate manifestation of that. Having said that, bearing in mind that our two main sources, textually speaking, are from Iceland. Now, Iceland is not known for its tree cover. And certainly when the Icelanders. Well, the sort of. The incomers who became the ICELANDERS FIRST ARRIVED Second half of the 9th century, they don't completely chop down all the tree matter there, which is often what's said, but certainly they, shall we say, reduce it considerably. Like considerably. So I always think it's interesting that, you know, we. Our main source material is Icelandic, and yet of all the countries that are part of that medieval north diaspora, it is by far and away the least tree. Ish. Because of their own actions.
- [57:19]
Matt Lewis
Yeah. And is it right that the kind of the world's Midgarden, all of those different nine realms kind of hang from Yggdrasil? Is it as important as that kind of the world hangs on this tree?
- [57:32]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
Yes. This is tricky because basically everything thing is a bit different depending on which, you know. So certainly, I mean, we already had that stanza from Voluspa where she says, I remember nine worlds and I remember giant women and the Tree of Fate. So there's that connection there. It's not explicit, but it's certainly nine and nine and all the rest of it. Snorri also refers to that. But one of the slightly tricky things is it's not. It's really hard to imagine Norse kind of cosmography in a way, in that mythological sense. So we have some parts of the material tell us that Midgard is in the center and Ymir's eyelashes around the edge. And then there's the outer ocean. Then as we've got Utgardr and Midgard, this idea of that the outer world's inhabited by the giants mostly, but then at the same time we've got these nine trees, exactly as you say, that are connected to Yggdrasil. And then it's never entirely clear which nine worlds there are, you know, so there are different versions of what that 9 might be. So in a way that brings us back to what we were talking about earlier, that there's not one canonical version of these ideas. You know, we are lucky to have what we have, but it doesn't necessarily reflect that full breadth of belief, but even the sort of storytelling potential of this world.
- [59:00]
Matt Lewis
Yeah. Which brings us nicely to kind of the question I wanted to ask next, which was around how these stories were told and how they were related to, because presumably the fact that we don't get them Written down till the 13th century means that before that they are almost exclusively oral tradition. So this is stories that you tell the family around the fire. This is meant to be performed, it's meant to be heard, and it needs to be engaging and it needs to keep people awake. So is that where you get some of these slightly balmy twists and turns? It's got to be a really gripping story that will keep people awake while they're drinking around the fire.
- [59:36]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
I think that's it. You know, storytelling is so prized in the medieval Norse world in the Viking age, but also the centuries surrounding it. You know, a good storyteller is a big deal. So if you're good, you're really good. It's a tricky one, isn't it, because it's sort of chicken and egg. You have runes and there are runic inscriptions, both pre conversion, post conversion, that describe gods. Give us names of gods, for example, or other mythological beings. Definitely, definitely one on a piece of human skull, which is quite strange and no one quite knows what's going on there. But runes aside, and runes are a form of literacy, but they're not, you know, the sort of medieval Christian literacy that produces manuscripts. And so the technology that we, that, that brings that sort of literacy to Iceland and other parts of the Norse world only comes with the conversion to Christianity. And so almost by default, to have that long form storytelling written down, it's got to be after the event, they have to be looking backwards, because otherwise. Yeah, exactly. As you say, they're not going to be in that format. And that's why Snorri is writing it down. He's saying, you know, you can't forget this stuff. You've got to be able to use it. It's got to be live. But this is the interesting thing, because even at the point when Snorri is writing this down, he is writing it to support a living oral storytelling poetic tradition. Because although we have poetry written down very much so, a lot of it by Snorri, it's being circulated. It is an oral form of storytelling that often includes the mythology. And so we, looking back from several, many centuries, we only have those, I think of it sometimes it's almost like, you know, when you get a butterfly pinned to a piece of parchment or something, it's like what that represents in its pinned form is important, but it doesn't, you know, you have to think of it in its living form and it's moving form that's. That's much more important for understanding the context in which these Stories are told and passed down the generations, but also molded by new mouths, and the details are changed. And so at that point, we have that snapshot of what's written down. But it's a bit like, you know. You know, like if you take a photo and someone's sort of caught sideways or someone's got one eye closed or all the rest of it. The reason that that is so is because it. You are trying to capture something that is living and moving. And so I wonder whether some of those inconsistencies come about because of that. It's like you're trying to capture something that is fluid. I love that. I love the inconsistencies because I think what they might be telling us is every bit as important, if not more important, than the bits that feel like, oh, yeah, okay, I've got that. That feels logical as far as it's ever going to be logical.
- [62:42]
Matt Lewis
Yeah, yeah. It's not neat, is it? And I was going to say, you know, should we think that the version that we have, we've been trying to get to the bottom of exactly what's going on with all of this, but that almost becomes, I won't say pointless, because I don't want this to be a pointless episode, but what we're looking at is one version of something that existed. And we quite often think this about stuff like Beowulf. You know, we have one version of Beowulf, but it must have been told in variations, you know, in hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of variations. And I guess we ought to think about the same sort of thing with Norse mythology, that what we see is Snorri's snapshot, him trying to pull together all of these different stories. And that's why it doesn't always necessarily make sense. One thing doesn't always necessarily seem to follow on from another. Or there's something that contradicts an earlier version in the story, because Snorri is pulling all of these things together and maybe picking the best versions from all of the traditions that he's heard. But there would never have been one Norse creation myth.
- [63:40]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
Yeah, I love that. I think that's really important. So before we sort of go down an existential route, that, as you say, means that you basically have to cancel this whole podcast series. I think there is a body of Norse mythology and there is a body of storytelling, and there are other ways we can glimpse the truth of that. So, I mean, not to go off on a tangent, but place names, so you have different parts of that Norse world where you see Again, kind of concentration of place names associated with a particular deity. So Thor in Iceland, for example. But you don't get. Oh, golly, you don't get any. Odin's in Iceland. And so there are ways of bringing the material, the textual material we have from 13th century Iceland into dialogue with different sorts of source material. That, again, yeah, it's never going to give us a complete picture, but. Because I think even at the time, it's almost like that doesn't make sense as a thing to try and do, because it's living, it's moving, it has different meanings in different places or times for different people, but at the same time, you know, I don't know what's a terrible simile. Maybe we should think of it a bit like the choir, you know, with lots and lots of different voice parts. If we're listening to one, we get a sense of the whole. But it only makes sense when you put all those voices together. And they're not all meant to sound the same, but they're all going towards the same point. They're all moving, you know, the same tempo, the same key. So maybe that's the way of doing it. And we're very lucky that we've got. I'm going to tortuously extend this. This now, sort of. We're very lucky that we have that. The singing part for, you know, 13th century medieval Iceland. We can hear Snorri singing, we can hear the anonymous, wherever those poems come from that end up in the Codex Regis, we've got that part. And that's more. It's a bit like, thank God we've got one manuscript for Beowulf and the fire didn't finish it off. But at the same time, it's a recognition that it is a polyphonic. There you go, look, I've managed to get to a posh word. Therefore, the simile definitely works. It's a polyphonic entity that we have to be aware of, that we're missing so much of.
- [65:57]
Matt Lewis
Perfect, Perfect. And just to end on, I mean, you're going to come back at the end of this series to tell us all about the end of the world. And in between those two things, people are going to hear about Odin and the gods and Thor and Loki, and they're going to hear about the relationship that Norse people had with some of this mythology and what they believed about things like Valhalla. But I wondered if we could end this kind of opening on. Do you have a favorite? Norse myth doesn't necessarily have to be around creation. Do you have a favorite that you could share with us.
- [66:27]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
Oh, that's true. That's like, you know, picking a favorite child. You can't make me do that.
- [66:31]
Matt Lewis
Well, when you've told us your favorite Norse myth, you can tell us who your favorite child is as well, if you like.
- [66:38]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
Okay. All right. So. Well, okay, I'm gonna. So I've literally. I've got. Above where I'm working here, I have got two Norse, you know, big pieces of artwork. And one of them is. It's literally vulva reading of runes. I can show you afterwards. You know, it's. It's her sort of creating. I mean, literally above my head where I'm talking to right now, she is speaking voluspa into. Into being. And then on the other side of the room, I've got Yggdrasil. I've got that tree. And I have to say for me, I. I love. I mean, it's lucky you've got me on for these two, because it's absolutely true. I love the beginning and the end. I think there was something so epic and dramatic and weird. And I think the weirdness of the Norse myths of creation and destruction speak to the weirdness of humans trying to make sense of something that we are not. Our brains are not big enough to make sense of it. We're never going to understand it, you know, okay, we know about things like the Big Bang now, but in terms of trying to conceptualize something that works beyond a human scale, I think the Norse and any other, you know, mythologies that look at creation and destruction and rebirth, I think they touch on something that is so human in its inhumanity. So in a way, you know, I love that it's. Yeah, it's a frost giant's body that makes the world, because that's as good an attempt to get to the truth of it as anything. I also love the fact that it is this seeress vulva speaking. I just think. I just think. I love that that's what, you know, the Poetic Edda opens with this sort of woman possibly called back from the dead. Odin does that. You know, basically speaking the world into being. Yeah, I like a bit of drama. So, yeah, you've got me for the right episodes. Definitely.
- [68:38]
Matt Lewis
Fantastic. I'm looking forward to the End of the World episode now as much as I've enjoyed the beginning of the world. So. Favourite child. No, can't tempt you.
- [68:47]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
Take. What's it. I take the fifth. Whatever one I have to take. I take it also. How dare you.
- [68:53]
Matt Lewis
Absolutely. Very good. Answer. Wonderful. Thank you so much for joining us, Eleanor, and sharing some stories from the creation myth and helping us to try to make sense of it as much as it's possible to do so. And I very much look forward to seeing you again for Ragnarok.
- [69:05]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
Thank you.
- [69:08]
Matt Lewis
I hope you enjoyed the opening episode of this series on Norse mythology. Elena will pick up the story in the next episode with Caroline Larrington to discuss Odin and the gods. Then we'll get to know Thor and Loki a little bit better. And in the fourth episode, Elena will consider the effects of this mythology on everyday life and try to find out how to get to Valhalla before Elena returns to hold our hands through Ragnarok and the End of Days. There are new installments of God Medieval every Tuesday and Friday, so please come back to join Elena and I for more from the greatest millennium in human history. Don't forget to also subscribe or follow us on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts and tell all of your friends and family that you've gone medieval. You can sign up to History Hit to access hundreds of hours of original documentaries with a new release every week and all of History Hit's podcasts ad free. Head over to historyhit.com subscribe right now. Anyway, I better let you go. I've been Matt Lewis and we've just gone medieval with History.
- [70:36]
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