The Penguin Book of Norse Myths: Gods of the Vikings

489 Pages·1993·2.34 MB·English

by  Kevin Crossley-Holland

PENGUIN BOOKS
THE PENGUIN BOOK OF NORSE MYTHS
Kevin Crossley-Holland was educated at Bryanston School and St
Edmund Hall, Oxford. He was Gregory Fellow in Poetry at the University
of Leeds from 1969 to 1971, editorial director of Victor Gollancz (1972–
7) and Lecturer in Anglo-Saxon Literature and Culture for the Tufts
University London program, from its inception in 1967 until 1978. He
has recently returned from Minnesota, where he was Fulbright Visiting
Scholar at St Olaf College (1990) and Endowed Chair in the Humanities
and Fine Arts at the University of St Thomas (1991–5).
His translations of Old English poetry are brought together in The Anglo-
Saxon World (1982), and he has also translated The Exeter Book Riddles
for Penguin Classics (revised edition, 1993). His publications include six
volumes of poetry, the most recent being The Language of Yes (1996),
and two anthologies: The Oxford Book of Travel Verse (1986) and Folk
Tales of the British Isles (1986). His books for children include Beowulf
(1982), British Folk Tales (1987) and Storm, which was awarded the
Carnegie Medal for 1985. Crossley-Holland has collaborated with a
number of composers, including Sir Arthur Bliss, William Mathias and
Nicola LeFanu, with whom he has written two operas, The Green Children
and The Wildman.
Kevin Crossley-Holland has two adult sons and two young daughters,
and he lives in Norfolk.
The Penguin Book of
Norse Myths
Gods of the Vikings
Introduced and retold by Kevin Crossley-Holland
PENGUIN BOOKS
PENGUIN BOOKS
Published by the Penguin Group
Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
Penguin Putnam Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA
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India
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Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank 2196, South Africa
Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
www.penguin.com
First published by André Deutsch Ltd 1980
Published in Penguin Books as The Norse Myths 1982
Reprinted under the present title 1993
18
Copyright © Kevin Crossley-Holland, 1980
All rights reserved
Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not,
by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the
publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published
and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent
purchaser
ISBN: 978-0-14-193741-0
for my mother
Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction
The Norse World
Cosmology
The Pantheon
Sources
The Literary Structure of the Myths
Approach
THE MYTHS
1 The Creation
2 The War of the Aesir and Vanir
3 The Building of Asgard’s Wall
4 Lord of the Gallows
5 The Song of Rig
6 The Mead of Poetry
7 Loki’s Children and the Binding of Fenrir
8 The Theft of Idun’s Apples
9 The Marriage of Njord and Skadi
10 The Treasures of the Gods
11 Skirnir’s Journey
12 The Lay of Grimnir
13 The Necklace of the Brisings
14 The Lay of Thrym
15 The Lay of Vafthrudnir
16 Thor’s Journey to Utgard
17 The Lay of Hymir
18 Hyndla’s Poem
19 Thor’s Duel with Hrungnir
20 Odin and Billing’s Daughter
21 Gylfi and Gefion
22 The Lay of Harbard
23 The Ballad of Svipdag
24 Thor and Geirrod
25 The Lay of Loddfafnir
26 Otter’s Ransom
27 The Lay of Alvis
28 Balder’s Dreams
29 The Death of Balder
30 Loki’s Flyting
31 The Binding of Loki
32 Ragnarok
Notes
Glossary
Bibliography
Index
Fearlessness is better than a faint-heart for any man who puts his nose
out of doors. The length of my life and the day of my death were fated
long ago.
Anonymous lines from For Scirnis
They say miracles are past, and we have our philosophical persons, to
make modern and familiar, things supernatural and causeless. Hence is
it, that we make trifles of terrors, ensconcing ourselves into seeming
knowledge, when we should submit ourselves to an unknown fear.
William Shakespeare,
All’s Well That Ends Well, II, iii, 1–6
I think Scandinavian Paganism, to us here, is more interesting than any
other. It is, for one thing, the latest; it continued in these regions of
Europe till the eleventh century; 800 years ago the Norwegians were still
worshippers of Odin. It is interesting also as the creed of our fathers; the
men whose blood still runs in our veins, whom doubtless we still
resemble in so many ways.
Thomas Carlyle