A problem of Norse myth is that much of the detail about it has to
be reconstructed from the fragments that survive. Just try making sense of the prose Edda: even in translation, and with
supporting notes. It’s harder than trying to work out who’s saying what in The Waste Land. Further, it has been filtered for us by the
likes of Snorri Sturluson, who was a Christian.
Odin hanging on the World Ash Tree, or the resurrection of Baldur: how
far are these original, and how far do they reflect the influence of the new
religion?
We see this sort of
mixture – and further confused with classical influences and a yet-more-ancient
paganism – in our days of the week, especially if we compare them with their
French equivalents. Thus mardi (Mars’
day) = Tuesday (Tyr’s day) = War day in both cases; mercredi (Mercury’s day) = Wednesday (Woden’s day) =
what: Thought day?; jeudi = game day = Thursday (Thor’s day) =
mismatch, unless we consider Thor’s sense of humour; vendredi
(Selling day) = Friday (Frith’s or Frigg’s day) = search me.
And then samedi/Saturday =
Saturn’s day in both cases; dimanche (God’s day) = Sunday (which speaks for
itself); and lundi (Moon day) = our Monday, which is the same concept in both
languages. Try unscrambling all that. Such
issues are matters for experts, and I write merely as a general reader.
Anyone, though, who considers Genesis primitive would be well advised to read a version of the Norse creation narrative. The primeval cow Audumbla (formed from the elemental drops, but where did they come from?) feeds the giant Ymir. The gods kill Ymir, and make the heavens from his skull, the trees from his eyebrows, the hills from his bones, and the ocean from his blood. Note that the world, as in Greek mythology, is formed from pre-existing matter. It makes the Judaic concept of ex nihilo creation all the more unusual.
Note also, the ancient
concept of time. The old Greek Cronos
eating his children may seem barbaric to us.
But if we think of ‘chronology’, then time devouring his children is a
statement of the obvious. A line in a Christian
hymn – “Time like an ever-rolling stream bears all its sons away” – expresses
the same sentiment. The only difference
is that these children are gods: but, like humanity, trapped in mortality. The same applies to the Norse pantheon: without a diet of the golden apples of Idun,
the gods grow old. A God who is beyond
time is unusual indeed.
Observing the dew, the Nordic ancients thought it was the world, weeping
for the death of Baldur. They wondered,
also, why the sea was salty, and why there was a rainbow. Their explanations were wrong, but at least
they had enquiring minds to bequeath to their descendants: who would one day have
access to the correct answer. And in one
respect, at least, their science was spot on.
With the day of Ragnarök, the sun would grow cold and the world would
perish in fire and water. They had hit
on the Second Law of Thermodynamics, although they did not know it.
In other respects, too, their concepts –
unlike the gods themselves – have stood the ravages of time. The runes on Odin’s tongue suggest the divine
origins of language: a concept still viable as an alternative to postmodernism. The runes on his spear confirmed the
importance of contracts. Oaths had
divine importance. Without trust, and the
keeping of solemnly-sworn promises, society could not function. The two ravens –Thought and Memory – on
Odin’s shoulders, explored the world during the day and reported back to him in
the evening. As an explanation of how
the brain processes information during sleep, this can still hardly be
bettered.
Odin, the god of wisdom,
had one eye; Tyr, the war god, had one hand.
Thor, the protector, defended with a hammer too short in the
handle. Loki, the Fire that gave warmth,
would also betray. The ancient thinkers
had perceived, without understanding, the Christians implications of a fallen
world.
Most remarkable of all
was the determination to be on the side of right against might: even when that right
was faced with ultimate defeat. Rather than surrender to the power of the Frost
Giants, the heroes would go down at the side of the All-father.
The Icelandic skalds – bards/theologians – who developed the concept
of the Day of Doom – may have sensed a threat to their beliefs from a strange
new religion creeping upwards from the South.
The Vikings fought against it with all their strength. They killed its monks, and raped its women,
and destroyed its sacred buildings; but in the end it conquered them. A vote in the Althing, the Icelandic
parliament, decided by the narrowest of votes, in favour of Christianity.
It may seem strange to us
that such a warlike people should have succumbed to the message of the Prince
of Peace. One explanation was the
bleakness of their own beliefs. As one
of them put it, life is like the flight of a sparrow through the hall of a
king. We come from darkness into a brief
world of warmth and light, and then we vanish into a deeper darkness about
which we know nothing. To that which can
give us hope, we will listen.
And then of course, the Viking martial
ardour could key into Ephesians,
and find itself with the familiar. “For
we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers,
against the rulers of the darkness of this world… Wherefore take unto you the
whole armour of God.”
Some of the Vikings took
that literally; and sailing to Byzantium they gave their services to the
Emperor: where, as the Varangian Guard, they won undying fame in the last Siege
of Constantinople.
But others realised that they
could take Paul’s message metaphorically.
Their old religion had told them that life was an unending struggle against
the forces of darkness and evil and chaos, that would end with the destruction
of everything they knew and loved.
And their new religion
told them that life was an unending struggle against the forces of darkness and
evil and chaos. But that this was a war to be fought with new weapons. And with a different final outcome.
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