Norse Mythology

By Charles Kovacs

A retelling of the stories of Norse mythology as recommended for the Steiner-Waldorf curriculum Class 4 (age 9-10). Includes myths on Creation, Odin and Mimir, Thor and Thialfi, Idun, Sif and Loki.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Floris Books
• Release date: Apr 30, 2020
• ISBN: 9781782507017

Charles Kovacs

Charles Kovacs (1907-2001) was born in Austria and, after spending time in East Africa, settled in Britain. In 1956 he became a class teacher at the Rudolf Steiner School in Edinburgh, where he remained until his retirement in 1976. His lesson notes have been a useful and inspirational resource for many teachers.

Book preview

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The Stories of the Gods

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1. The Creation

There is a special name for a story about gods: it is not just called a story, it is called a myth. What you are going to hear are the Myths of the Norsemen. I cannot tell the stories in the way those bards, the wise men, told them. They made their stories into poems, and a very peculiar kind of poem they were. When we learn poems they often rhyme:

Little gnome

Has his home

In the mound

Underground.

The poems of the Norsemen were quite different. The most important thing was that as many words as possible began with the same letter:

Now listen and learn and lose not a letter

Of the story of strife and of storms and strange deeds.

The first story I am going to tell you is a very strange one. It is a myth about the beginning of the world. It is quite different from the Bible’s story of creation, but that does not matter. The beginning of the world is something so complicated that the Bible story is one part of it, and the Norsemen’s story is another. The Norsemen’s story is this.

In the beginning there was just a vast gap, a yawning abyss, an enormous hole with nothing in it, dark and empty. But there was something to the north of that gap. North is the direction from which our cold weather comes, and north of that vast abyss there was a world of ice mountains, shrouded in dense fog. This world of ice and mist was called Nifelheim, which means home of fog.

There was also something south of the abyss, something that 7 was the very opposite of ice: a world of raging, roaring fire, a world of flame and heat. That world of fire was called Muspelheim, the home of fire.

So we have three things at the beginning of the world: the vast abyss, north of it the world of ice and fog called Nifelheim, and south of it the world of raging fire and flame called Muspelheim.

From the icy mountains of Nifelheim there flowed a great river, which rolled great blocks of ice into the great gap. And it so happened that sparks of the fire in Muspelheim flew down into the abyss and fell on the ice. Because of these fiery sparks the ice began to get soft, and it began to melt. Now comes the very strange part of the story. The ice, as it became soft and rounded, took shape. In fact it became two shapes. It became two beings that were made of ice, but were alive. One was a giant, the biggest­ giant that ever was, and the other was a giant cow. The giant was called Ymir and the big cow was called Audhumbla. The giant Ymir fed himself with the milk from the udder of the cow, Audhumbla. The cow fed herself by licking the salty crust of the ice.

So those were the first beings in the world. Sometimes the giant Ymir fell asleep and when he slept he was so warm that he sweated, and every drop of sweat became another giant – not quite as big as Ymir, but a giant nevertheless. If nothing else had happened, the world would have been nothing but giants – uncouth, wild creatures, big and stupid. But something else did happen. Whilst the giant Ymir was asleep, the cow licked the ice. She licked and she licked. Through her licking the ice was softened­ and took shape, and from it came three beings. They were not crude and clumsy like the giants. They were well shaped, they were beautiful, they were strong and they were wise. These three had divine powers. They were gods and their names were Odin, Vili and Ve.

When Ymir and the giants that had grown from him saw the beautiful forms of the three gods, they hated them, for now they saw how ugly they were themselves. They stormed against Odin, Vili and Ve to try and destroy them. The three gods fought back, and after a terrible battle they killed Ymir and the other giants took flight. But they remained forever 8 the enemies of the gods and they waited for a time when they would take revenge.

The three gods, Odin, Vili and Ve, had killed Ymir and driven away his giant offspring. But there was still not a world; the world in which we live now was not yet here. There was only the vast abyss with fire on one side and ice on the other.

The three gods said, Let us make a world. We shall make the world from the body of Ymir and we shall put this world in the great gap so that the emptiness shall be filled.

That is what the three gods did. They took the flesh of Ymir and they spoke words of magic power, and the flesh of Ymir became the soft earth on which we tread. They took the bones of Ymir and by their magic words the bones became rocks and mountains and stones. They took the blood of Ymir, which was not like human blood but cold and colourless­, and the blood of Ymir became the oceans and seas and the rivers and streams of the world. They took the hair that grew on Ymir and the hair became grass and flowers and trees – all the plants that grow on earth. Then they took the skull of Ymir (it was an enormous skull) and by the magic power of the gods the skull was lifted high over the earth and it became the blue vault of the sky. Inside the skull of Ymir, however, there was the giant’s brain. The gods used the brain too. It became the clouds that float in the sky. This is how the world was made out of the body of Ymir: the earth from his flesh, the rocks and mountains from his bones, all the water from his blood, the plants from his hair, the sky from his skull and the clouds from his brain.

Then the three gods, Odin, Vili and Ve, took fire from Muspelheim, and from that fire they made the sun and the moon and put them in the sky. They took the sparks that came flying and the sparks became the stars in the sky.

Now whilst the gods were busy making the world, some of the flesh of Ymir that had not been used up (there was such a lot of it) had gone bad and all kinds of little worms were crawling about in it.

The gods, Odin, Vili and Ve, said, We shall make use of 9 these little things too, and they made them into dwarfs. To these dwarfs the gods gave great cunning, but they had to live underground, in the depths of the earth. There the dwarfs collected­ gold and silver and precious stones, which they hoarded and tried to keep hidden.

In the rotting flesh of Ymir there had also been beetles, little­ creatures with wings, and from these the gods made the fairies and elves. They live above the earth; they flit in the light of the sun and the moon. Wherever a plant grows, the dwarfs below look after the roots that grow in the earth, but the beautiful fairies­ and elves look after the leaves and blossoms­ and fruit.

So the gods, Odin, Vili and Ve, had made the world, which was to fill the great gap. But the new world that the gods had made must not fall down into the depths of that terrible abyss. How could it be held up? The three gods let a tree grow, the biggest­ tree in the world, a tree so big that its roots reached down into the uttermost depths of the abyss. High up in its branches the tree carried the whole world – the earth and all things in it and even the sky above. It was an ash tree. Do you know what an ash looks like? It is not thick like an oak. The leaves are long with little teeth and the bark is ash grey. The wood from the branches of the ash tree was the best for making bows. This great ash tree that carried the earth and sky was called Yggdrasil, which means, I carry divine powers.

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2. Yggdrasil

The three gods, Odin, Vili and Ve, had made the world from the body of the giant Ymir. They had made the dwarfs that lived under the earth (they were called dark elves), they had made the fairies (who were called light elves), and they had made the mighty ash tree Yggdrasil that carried the world in its branches so that it would not fall down into the depths of the abyss.

Now I must tell you more about Yggdrasil. There were drops of dew on the leaves of Yggdrasil, which fell down upon the earth and gave life to all beings that lived there – plants, animals and men. Every living being owed his life to the dew that fell down from Yggdrasil. High up on the top of Yggdrasil, above the sky, sat an eagle, which saw all that went on in the world. Down in the depths, the tree had three roots. At one root there was a dragon, which gnawed the root and tried to destroy the tree. There was also a little squirrel that ran up and down the tree, from the roots to the top. It told the eagle what the dragon did and told the dragon what the eagle said, and so made them hate each other more and more. The squirrel was a gossip who enjoyed making trouble for others.

You could ask, Why did the gods allow the dragon to live at the root of Yggdrasil and to gnaw it? The gods knew that the world they had made would not last for all eternity. At one time, far in the future, their world would pass away and make room for another world, a new world, an even better world. When the world passed away, Yggdrasil would fall. And so the dragon was allowed to gnaw and nibble at the root, slowly working towards that day in the future when Yggdrasil would fall.

But there were three roots on the ash Yggdrasil. At the second­ root there were three beings who gave the tree life so that the dragon could not destroy it before the right time had come. These three beings were called the Norns and they were very, very wise women; they were not earthly women, but god-like women, and they ruled time. The oldest Norn ruled the past, 11 and she was called Urd. The middle Norn ruled the present, and she was called Verdande. The youngest Norn ruled the future, and she was called Skuld. The three Norns – Urd, Verdande and Skuld – fetched water from the great river that flowed from the ice mountains of Nifelheim down into the abyss, and they poured it upon their root to strengthen the ash tree Yggdrasil.

There was still a third root, and the being that sat by the third root was stranger than either the dragon or the three Norns. It was a giant, who was put there by the gods. The giant’s name was Mimir. He sat by the third root to guard a spring of water that rose from nearby. The fountain of Mimir had very special water, for he that drank the water would know all – everything that ever was, that is, or that will be. That is more than the three gods, Odin, Vili and Ve, knew. They knew a lot, but not all there was, is, or will be. They thought they knew enough and they did not want, at first, to have more knowledge, so they put the giant Mimir by this fountain to guard it. It would not be good for anybody­ to drink this water and know all things. Mimir himself could drink the water, but he stayed down by the root of Yggdrasil where his knowledge could do neither harm nor good.

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3. Human Beings Are Made

The three gods, Odin, Vili and Ve, had made the world from the body of the giant Ymir. The world was held up from the abyss by the branches of the mighty ash tree Yggdrasil, the tree at whose roots were the dragon, the Norns and the wise Mimir.

One day the three gods walked on the earth they had made. They looked at the mountains and valleys and at the rivers and streams, at the trees and flowers that grew from the earth. It was a beautiful world, but it was not yet complete. The three gods knew that there was still something they had to do.

They came to the seashore and by the sea there stood two trees. One was an ash tree (like Yggdrasil but, of course, much smaller). Beside the ash tree there stood an elm. Odin gave the wood of the trees breath and with the breath, soul came into the wood, so that the trees could feel joy and sorrow. Vili changed the sap of the two trees so that it became warm blood, and with the blood the ash and the elm changed their form. The ash became a man and the elm became a woman. They were no longer wood, but two living, feeling, human beings. Then the last of the gods, Ve, gave both the man and the woman a mind to think and to learn and to know. So now there were the first two human beings in the world: a man who came from the ash tree and a woman who came from the elm tree. From these first two human beings came, in time, all others; the human beings filled the world and only then was the world complete.

The three gods, Odin, Vili and Ve, said, The human beings have their home on the earth we have made. Now we shall have to make a home for ourselves, high above the earth. The gods made their home above the highest branches of Yggdrasil, above the stars. In the Old Norse language, the word for god is Asa (plural Æsir) and the place where the gods lived was called As-gard, meaning the garden of the Æsir. The earth was called Mid-gard, meaning middle garden, because it was in the middle­ between Asgard and the depths where the roots of 13Yggdrasil were. The gods wanted a bridge between their world and the world of man so that they could travel easily from Asgard to Midgard. They made this bridge: the rainbow.

The Æsir, Odin, Vili and Ve, also had to make sure that the sun and moon travelled across the sky and rose and set at the right time. So they made two chariots, a golden one for the sun and a silver one for the moon, and they harnessed two swift horses before each chariot. But who was going to drive the chariots? Amongst the giants who had fled from the gods, there was one who had a beautiful son and a beautiful daughter. That was something very rare amongst the ugly, clumsy giants. The giant who had these beautiful children was so proud of them that he called the daughter Sol, which means the sun and the boy Mani, which means the moon. The three Æsir, Odin, Vili and Ve, knew of this and they said, These two giant children are just what we need to drive the sun and moon chariots. They went to the giant father and told him they wanted his children. The giant was not pleased, but he was afraid of the power of the Æsir, and so he let his children go. The girl drove the chariot of the sun and the boy the chariot of the moon.

When the other giants heard about it they were terribly angry and they sent two great wolves to chase the sun chariot and the moon chariot and to destroy both sun and moon. The horses that draw the chariots were always too fast for the wolves to catch up. But sometimes when the wolves came very near, on earth in bright daylight it looked as if the sun had a dark shadow, or the full moon was darkened by a shadow. This is called an eclipse of the sun or moon.

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4. Odin and Mimir

Odin, Vili and Ve made the world called Midgard, and their own world, Asgard. The world where the giants lived was called Ut-gard – the outside garden. Then there came a change, amongst the gods themselves. Vili and Ve rose up to a world that was even higher than Asgard, and they no longer had anything to do with Midgard or with the giants. They had done what they had to do – helping Odin to make the world.

Only one of these three gods remained, Odin, but he now had a new generation of gods to keep him company and to help him. Odin was the king and ruler of the new gods. There were many of them and you will hear stories about each of them. There was one god called Thor, the god of lightning and thunder.­ There was one god called Tyr, the god of battle and fighting. There were also goddesses; one was called Frigga. She became the wife of Odin and was the queen of the gods. Odin and Frigga had several sons. The most beautiful, the most kind and gentle, was called Baldur. There was also one god whom no one could trust – Loki. He was full of cunning. Sometimes he helped the gods and sometimes their enemies, the giants.

Odin, being king of the gods, had a throne high up in Asgard. From this throne he could look far and wide into the world. There were also two black ravens that flew about everywhere and reported back when they had heard something he should know. They flew back to him and perched on his shoulders and whispered their secrets into his ear. Odin did not always sit on his throne; he went down to our world, Midgard. There he wore a long, wide, dark blue cloak with grey flecks on it, like the sky and clouds. Sometimes Odin went riding on a grey horse called Sleipnir, which was like no other horse in the world. It had eight legs and it flew in the air as fast as the wind. In his hand Odin carried a spear, called Gungnir. It was a wonderful weapon, for when this spear was thrown it never missed its mark. Also, any promise taken on this spear could never be broken.15

Now you can imagine that Odin, being one of the gods who made the world, was a very wise god, and seeing from his throne all that went on in the world and hearing from the ravens what secrets they had seen made him even wiser. Yet there were still things that even the wise Odin did