Zack Olander - Reflections on some Norse Mythology

 I've been incredibly interested in mythology for a long time and taking a phenomenological viewpoint when reading mythological tales has been very helpful. For the early material for the class, like Tolkien's Fairy Story essay or Lewis's Myth Became Fact, it reminded me of a lot of poems from the Norse Poetic and Prose Eddas that I've been reading since I was young. The idea that mythology can teach or be about truth is something that applies.

For example, the Poetic Edda has a particular story about Loki showing up to a feast at Aegir's hall where most of the gods are guests. He proceeds to directly insult almost every single one of them in front of their giant host until Thor himself threatens to kill Loki. It's hard to not go into the details, but one thing that we can take away from the poem is that it's a horrible idea to try to hurt the reputation of your companions especially in front of someone who is not. The gods eventually chase Loki away from the party and tie him up with his son's entrails, where it is said he will remain until Ragnarok, the end of the world.

And speaking of Ragnarok, the myth about it is another one that can tell us some truth about life. Ragnarok is the event in which the entire world is enveloped in a massive battle and the sun and moon are swallowed by giant wolves and a majority of the Norse gods die. The imagery is very depressing and intense and there doesn't seem to be much hope. However, it's not actually the end, because afterwards the gods that survive the battle go back to Asgard and repopulate it, and two humans Lif (Life) and Lifthrasir (Life-seeking) that hid within the World Tree during a battle emerge and repopulate Midgard with humans. At this time, a new world is born in which everyone is free from war and blissful. This implies a few things. One is that time, at least as it was conceived by ancient Norse people, is cyclical and not linear. Another is that even though things can get extremely hard and bleak in life, even if life itself withers away, it will find a way to bloom again. This says a lot about how the Norse viewed the world and what they ultimately valued, even though their world was so brutal and warlike.

C.S. Lewis' and Tolkien's points about myths and what they can teach us, even if they are not literally true, helped me to better articulate things that I've believed about mythological stories for a long time.

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