Norse Mythology

Norse Mythology
Jackson Crawford, PhD
University of Colorado, Boulder
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Jackson Crawford offers an interesting and in-depth discussion of Norse mythology in this twenty-four lecture course. He discusses the sources we have and explains how, although they were written down after Scandinavia became Christian, the stories are pagan in their origin. He primarily draws from two sources: the Prose Edda and the Poetic Edda. Both were originally written in the 1200s.

Crawford discusses the two main families of gods, which he refers to as the gods and the anti-gods. The latter group is often translated as giants, but Crawford states that is somewhat misleading as they were for the most part equal, it simply being that one group was “good” and another “bad.” Even that is not clear cut, as amongst the gods many of them had one parent who was an anti-god.

He discusses Odin vs. Thor and explains that even though Odin was the head of the gods, Thor was by far more popular. This is because Thor was representative of the common person while Odin represented the aristocracy. Crawford is careful to point out how popular culture has embellished and altered the original myths. For example, sources such as the Marvel Universe have shaped Loki into a devious trickster. While Loki did in fact cause a good deal of chaos and disruption, he wasn’t especially devious. It was just that in the “dream logic” of myth, as Crawford calls it, people just go off and do things without thinking them through.

In addition to discussing the gods, Crawford spends a lot of time describing the legends of human heroes, some of which were very detailed and complicated, with lots of murder and betrayal. Of course, the gods involve themselves with the humans. Odin was said to have given up one eye in order to obtain wisdom, so when an old man with one eye shows up in a story we know who that is.

Crawford clarifies just who the Valkyries were, Richard Wagner having greatly distorted the original story. They were human women who were given supernatural powers, including the ability to fly. Their sole role was to carry fallen warriors to Valhalla for Odin. If one got married or otherwise gave up her role, she lost her powers. Though the Valkyries were human, their leader was the goddess Freyja. Crawford notes women played a much more active role in Norse mythology than they did in other medieval literature, such as the Arthurian cycle. There are even legends of shieldmaidens, human women who became warriors. We have no evidence for such women in Viking history, but they show up in legend.

There is a strong sense in Norse mythology that both gods and humans are subject to fate. Early in the cycle a seer tells Odin how the world will end, in a battle called Ragnarok, essentially meaning “the fates of the gods.” In fact, Valhalla was not some glorious paradise, but where fallen warriors prepared for that last, hopeless, preordained battle. This is why characters in these stories routinely walked into futile situations. They knew it was fate and they had no ability to avoid it.

As grim as much of it is, there is some fascinating stuff here and Jackson Crawford maintains a high standard of scholarship in presenting this material.