AncientPages.com – From Wagner to William Morris within the late nineteenth century, by way of Tolkien’s dwarves and CS Lewis’s The Last Battle, via to final 12 months’s controversial movie The Northman, Scandinavian gods and heroes have been central to the tales we inform ourselves.
Chris Hemsworth in “Thor: The Dark World.” Disney / Marvel
As professor of medieval European literature, I’ve been exploring Old Norse mythology since my undergraduate days. I’ve at all times been fascinated by the methods wherein the outdated myths stay very important and related within the current, notably now in numerous pop-cultural varieties. In my new guide, The Norse Myths That Shape The Way We Think, I discover how 10 key Norse myths and legends have been reworked over the past 200 years.
Although these tales have been influential since their discovery in Seventeenth-century Europe, in recent times Norse narratives have exploded throughout fiction, Hollywood blockbusters, rock albums, opera, video video games and TV reveals – these are only a few of the cultural spheres wherein Norse myths have been put to work. Here I introduce three of a very powerful gods, the female divine within the type of valkyries and shield-maidens, and at last, the looming menace of ragnarök – the tip of the world.
Gods and monsters
The essential gods – not a lot the goddesses sadly – provide methods to consider completely different levels of masculinity. Odin, the all-father, is the chief of the Norse pantheon, creator of humankind and god of knowledge. He will die at ragna rök, devoured by the nice wolf Fenrir.
Starting with the primary character Wotan in Das Rheingold, the primary a part of Wagner’s Ring Cycle – and likewise in Neil Gaiman’s 2001 epic American Gods, and Douglas Adams’ 1988 comedian novel The Long, Dark Teatime of the Soul – Odin is a determine who senses that energy is draining away from him. Yet he ingeniously seeks out methods of clinging to his waning authority, reducing dodgy offers and manipulating his personal flesh and blood via crafty and deceit.
The Marvel Comic Universe has already killed off the aged god, for he embodies an older patriarchal precept, one which refuses to step apart for the following era.
In Norse fable, Thor’s essential function is smiting giants together with his nice hammer Mjöllnir, patrolling the borders of the gods’ and human territory to maintain out enemies. An indomitable performer of mighty feats, he isn’t at all times taken significantly within the myths: a favorite story entails him being pressured to cross-dress as a reluctant and implausible bride.
Viking warrior element from stained-glass window at Miss Maud Swedish Hotel, Perth, Australia. John Davis, Author offered
So too, the trendy Thor is commonly depicted as a bumbling loutish thug, reaching for his hammer as an alternative of pondering issues via. Contemporary writers, comparable to Joanne Harris and Francesca Simon, make him the butt of their tales for youthful readers – the cross-dressing story makes for nice comedy.
The god’s picture has been rescued via his incarnation because the Mighty Thor. In Marvel comics and flicks, he has realized maturity, wield and to restrain his energy, and has come to look after others, each people and his personal folks, the semi-divine Asgardians. Marvel’s Thor is setting up a brand new sort of masculinity, one which understands that violence will not be at all times the reply and which has realized the worth of forethought and compromise.
Half-god, half-giant, Loki is a surprisingly ambiguous being; within the Marvel Universe he’s Thor’s adoptive brother, although not within the authentic fable. He will get the gods out of tight conditions – usually ones that he himself has triggered – however he’ll march in opposition to them with their enemies at ragna rök. For novelist AS Byatt, he’s the mental’s god, questioning and nonconformist, whereas Marvel and Disney have made Loki right into a shape-changing, gender-bending cult hero, at all times prepared with a quip as he double-crosses Thor as soon as once more.
A feminine perspective
Loki can be the daddy of monsters: his daughter Hel, goddess of demise, is the heroine of Gavin Higgins and Francesca Simon’s chamber opera from 2019, The Monstrous Child. Hel is a sparky teenager dwelling with incapacity and consigned to a grim underworld, a lady whose story takes in love, vengeance and studying the true extent of her powers.
“Brynhild” (1897) by Gaston Bussière
Warrior-maidens and fate-goddesses rolled in a single, the valkyries vary excessive above the battlefield, figuring out who shall reside and who shall die. Wagner’s Brünnhilde is probably the most outstanding of the valkyries, the true heroine of his Ring Cycle, fulfilling her father Wotan’s will and at last bringing down the gods.
Valkyries have been additionally imagined because the battle-trained girls warriors who now throng such TV reveals as Vikings and The Last Kingdom, expert fighters who battle on an equal footing with males. These girls vividly dramatise elements of up to date femininity: efficient in conventional masculine domains, wielding energy and selecting their very own lovers, but nonetheless understanding handle sexual relationships and motherhood alongside their skilled identities.
Literally “the doom of the gods”, ragna rök lies within the mythic future for gods and people: the powers of ice and fireplace will destroy the earth. Tolkien means that this inevitable ending shapes the northern spirit, kindling braveness and resignation within the face of sure doom.
Wagner noticed his Götterdämmerung (the twilight of the gods) as sweeping away the corrupt divine order, leaving a purified, empty world the place free human beings may construct anew. In HBO’s Game of Thrones, humanity’s apocalyptic conflict with the icy energy of the Night King is resolved by one younger girl’s braveness and willpower.
The Norse myths envisage a cleansed inexperienced world that rises once more from the ocean, however the local weather cataclysm in the direction of which we’re heading admits no such renewal. Perhaps we will study from the gods’ unhealthy religion and carelessness in time to avert the downfall that ragna rök foreshadows for us all.
Written by Professor and Tutorial Fellow in English, University of Oxford
Provided by The Conversation
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