TIIVISTELMA - Viking and Norse Myth & Legend

By Anon E. Mouse and Compiled By John Halsted & Paul McDaid

This book contains 33 Viking and Norse stories, sagas, poems, lays and prayers compiled from a variety of sources. It was always intended to be a compact volume of Viking and Norse Myths, Legends, Tales, Sagas and Poetry for the modern day Skald (storyteller) to use.
The Table of Contents contains:

• The All-Father’s Foreboding
• Asgårdsreien
• Baldur’s Dream
• The Building Of The Wall
• Darradarljod
• The Dwarves
• Fate
• Fenrir
• How Freya Gained Her Necklace
• Hail Day – A Prayer
• The Halls Of Odin
• The Last Goths
• The Lay Of Guthorm’s Army At Ethandun
• The Lay Of Rogann
• A Prayer
• Ragnar Lodrok’s Death-Song
• Sif’s Golden Hair
• Sigidrifa’s Prayer
• Svadi The Giant
• The Sword Of The Tomb
• The Tale Of Cat Bayun
• Thor’s Hammer – Lost And Found
• Thrym’s Lay
• Vellekla
• The Vision
• The Waking Of Angantyr
• Twas The Night Before Christmas
• How It All Fits Together
• The Nine Worlds
•  Supernatural Beings

As such, I invite Storytellers to take their listeners on a journey back to a time when the boundaries between myth, legend and reality were as fluid and as permanent as waves washing on a sandy shore.
Listeners and readers, to really benefit, you are encouraged to engross yourself in the stories and let your imagination run wild. Close your eyes, think of Odin, Thor and Tolkien and let your mind walk through the Hallowed Halls of Valhalla. Let yourself be amazed and overawed at the magnificence
and splendour of a time long passed.
10% of the profit from this book is donated to charities.
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KEYWORDS/TAGS: Tiivistelma, compendium, collection, ebook, Viking, Norse, Scandinavian, stories, sagas, poems, lays, prayers, All-Father, Odin, Foreboding, Asgårdsreien , Asgardsreien, wild hunt, Baldur, Dream, Building Of The Wall, Darradarljod, Song of Darradar, Njal’s Saga, Dwarves, dwarfs, Fate, Fenrir, wolf, Freya’s Necklace , Hail Day, Prayer, Halls Of Odin, Last Goths, Lay Of Guthorm’s Army, Ethandun, Lay Of Rogann, Ragnar Lodrok, Death-Song, Sif, Golden Hair, Sigidrifa, Svadi, The Giant, Sword Of The Tomb, Tale Of Cat Bayun, Thor’s Hammer, Lost And Found, Slepinir, Aesir, Mjollinir, Jotunheim, Thrym’s Lay, Vellekla, The Vision, Waking, Angantyr, Twas The Night Before Christmas, Nine Worlds, Supernatural Beings, loki, Freyja, Brising, Bragi, Gullinbursti, Herthadal, Viken land, Hakon, Gangleri, Bifrost, Hallinskidi, Heidrun, Fjolnir,  drinking horn, One Eye, Grim, Raven, Hervor, Angantyr, Dvalin, Munarvag, Arngrim, Tyrfing, Ásgarðr, Asgard, Æsir, Vanaheimr, Vanir, Miðgarðr, Midgard, humans, Muspellheim, fire, Niflheimr, Niflheim, ice, Svartálfaheim, Svartalfaheim, Svartálfar, black elves, Álfheimr, Alfheim, Álfar, Alfar, elf, elves, Hel, underground world, dead, Jötunheimr, jötnar, Jotnar,

• Language: English
• Publisher: Abela Publishing
• Release date: May 28, 2020
• ISBN: 9788835836919

Book preview

Dedication

This book is dedicated to the Skalds and the Storytellers,

who keep the Viking dream alive

through the telling and re-telling of these tales

Acknowledgements

To all those who freely furnished stories

for Tiivistelmä in the knowledge that the

recording of these stories and myths in this form

will ensure they will be passed on for generations to come.

*******

10% of the profit from the sale of this book

will be donated to charities

Table of Contents

Introduction

In the Beginning…….

The All-Father’s Foreboding

Asgårdsreien

Baldur’s Dream

The Building of the Wall

Darradarljod

The Dwarves

Fate

Fenrir

How Freya Gained Her Necklace

Hail Day – a prayer

The Halls of Odin

The Last Goths

The Lay of Guthorm’s Army at Ethandun

The Lay of Rogann

A Prayer

Ragnar Lodrok’s Death-Song

Sif’s Golden Hair

Sigidrifa’s Prayer

Svadi the Giant

The Sword of the Tomb

The Tale of Cat Bayun

Thor’s Hammer – Lost and Found

Thrym’s Lay

To the Gods

Vellekla

The Vision

The Waking of Angantyr

Twas the Night Before Christmas

How it All Fits Together

- The Nine Worlds

- Supernatural Beings

Introduction

When searching for a suitable title that would best describe a compendium of Viking myths and legends compiled especially for storytellers, it was no easy task choosing a single word that would encompass the rich and diverse anthology that is Viking folklore and myth.

Dissapointingly (for me) the Swedish, Danish and Norwegian translations of the word compendium were returned as kompendium. With only one option remaining, the Finnish translation was returned as Tiivistelmä, and so Tiivistelmä it has become.

Like so many projects, the birth of this book came from of a completely separate, yet similar, project and it soon took on a life of its own.

I invite the Storytellers to take their listeners on a journey back to a time when the boundaries between myth, legend and reality were as fluid and as permanent as waves washing on a sandy beach.

Listeners and readers, to really benefit, you are encouraged to engross yourself in the stories and let your imagination run wild. Close your eyes, think of Odin, Thor and Tolkien and let your mind walk through the Hallowed Halls of Valhalla. Let yourself be amazed and overawed at the magnificence and splendour of a time long passed.

John Halsted

Abela Publishing

In The Beginning

According to Norse myth, the beginning of life was fire and ice, with the existence of only two worlds: Muspelheim and Niflheim. When the warm air of Muspelheim hit the cold ice of Niflheim, the jötunn Ymir and the icy cow Audhumla were created. Ymir's foot bred a son and a man and a woman emerged from his armpits, making Ymir the progenitor of the Jötnar. Whilst Ymir slept, the intense heat from Muspelheim made him sweat, and he sweated out Surtr, a jötunn of fire. Later Ymir woke and drank Audhumbla's milk. Whilst he drank, the cow Audhumbla licked on a salt stone. On the first day after this a man's hair appeared on the stone, on the second day a head and on the third day an entire man emerged from the stone. His name was Búri and with an unknown jötunn female he fathered Bor, the father of the three gods Odin, Vili and Ve.

When the gods felt strong enough they killed Ymir. His blood flooded the world and drowned all of the jötunn, except two. But jötnar grew again in numbers and soon there were as many as before Ymir's death. Then the gods created seven more worlds using Ymir's flesh for dirt, his blood for the Oceans, rivers and lakes, his bones for stone, his brain as the clouds, his skull for the heaven. Sparks from Muspelheim flew up and became stars.

One day when the gods were walking they found two tree trunks. They transformed them into the shape of humans. Odin gave them life, Vili gave them mind and Ve gave them the ability to hear, see, and speak. The gods named them Ask and Embla and built the kingdom of Middle-earth for them; and, to keep out the jötnar, the gods placed a gigantic fence made of Ymir's eyelashes around Middle-earth.

The völva goes on to describe Yggdrasil and three norns, Urðr (Wyrd), Verðandi and Skuld. She then describes the war between the Æsir and Vanir and the murder of Baldr, Odin's handsome son whom everyone, but Loki, loved.

The story is that everything in existence promised not to hurt him except mistletoe. Taking advantage of this weakness, Loki made a projectile of mistletoe and tricked Höðr, Odin's blind son and Baldr's brother, into using it to kill Baldr. Hel said she would revive him if everyone in the nine worlds wept. A female jötunn - Thokk, who may have been Loki in shape-shifted form - did not weep. After that she turns her attention to the future.

Ragnarök

Ragnarök refers to a series of major events, including a great battle foretold to ultimately result in the death of a number of major figures (including the gods Odin, Thor, Freya, Heimdall, and the Jötunn Loki), the occurrence of various natural disasters, and the subsequent submersion of the world in water. Afterwards, the world resurfaces anew and fertile, the surviving gods meet, and the world is repopulated by two human survivors.

The

All-Father's Forebodings

˜˜˜

How He Leaves Asgard

TWO ravens had Odin All-Father; Hugin and Munin were their names; they flew through all the worlds every day, and coming back to Asgard they would light on Odin's shoulders and tell him of all the things they had seen and heard. And once a day passed without the ravens coming back. Then Odin, standing on the Watch-Tower Hlidskjalf, said to himself: I fear me for Hugin, lest he come not back. But I watch more for Muni.

A day passed and the ravens flew back. They sat, one on each of his shoulders. Then did the All-Father go into the Council Hall that was beside Glasir, the wood that had leaves of gold, and harken to what Hugin and Munin had to tell him.

They told him only of shadows and forebodings. Odin All-Father did not speak to the Dwellers in Asgard of the things they told him. But Frigga, his Queen, saw in his eyes the shadows and forebodings of things to come. And when he spoke to her about these things she said, Do not strive against what must take place. Let us go to the holy Norns who sit by Urda's Well and see if the shadows and the forebodings will remain when you have looked into their eyes.

And so it came that Odin and the Gods left Asgard and came to Urda's Well, where, under the great root of Ygdrassil, the three Norns sat, with the two fair swans below them. Odin went, and Tyr, the great swordsman, and Baldur, the most beautiful and the Best-Beloved of the Gods, and Thor, with his Hammer.

A Rainbow Bridge went from Asgard, the City of the Gods, to Midgard, the World of Men. But another Rainbow Bridge, more beautiful and more tremulous still,