68 - The Poetic Edda, Part 2

Hey, you welcome to Mythic Mind, where we pursue wisdom in the past between primary and secondary worlds. I'm your host, Andrew Snyder, and I always welcome you to join me on these trails. I don't have any brand new content for you at this moment, as I've been making myself take some time off to rest and to just be

Yeah, Chase, I'm in Texas and just found out about Andrews classes and I did the Lewis class, and I just finished up the bo Atheist and Beowolf class and just can't get enough of it. So really enjoyed just giving myself a classical education in some.

Ways fantastic And you know, you definitely have the beard for this conversation. I feel a little envious as we're talking about, you know, vikings and the Norse mythos. Well, just like last time, I'm gonna start off with each

Yes, that was what I first thought of when when the little pro section before was explaining that, I'm like, it's Riddles of the Dark exactly.

And then even I mean, you know it's spoiler. I guess you know at the end, you know, when Odin asked a question that only he could know. I mean, that's that's Bilbo, right, Uh, what's my pocket? It's like no one else can know that, And so I have

I felt like a lot of the questions, though, didn't seem like riddles to me. They just seemed more like trivia questions like can you answer this fact about the cosmos or about history or about the future. I'm like, is that really a riddle?

It more like a question. Yeah. It definitely did seem more like a Jeopardy Mythology edition. Uh. Yeah, And so I agree that that's why I I feel like it has more resonance, you know, with specifically in that hideous strength that Ranks and Merlin lore battle when they are just you know, spotting off different aspects of lore. But I do think that ending is very riddles in the dark to me. I don't know, what do you think going into the chase?

Yeah, I mean interesting kind of have like the threat of like you know, if you're not wise, like you're not leaving the hall, and just kind of like battling a little bit with I couldn't tell if he was like offering hospitality a bit of like kind with me, and then he's like, I'm not going to be tricked by something like that. I'm gonna stay where I'm at right now. I'm okay with that.

But yeah, the hospitality definitely seems to be an invitation to a challenge, not genuine hospitality per se. Right, And I do find it interesting that Bothrond you that the Giant is he tends to be mostly focused on asking questions about just you know, general about the world as it is, whereas Odin has a much more chronological interest and that he has questions like from Origins going all the way up to Ragnarok. And this I think is to a theme that we see with Odin again and again.

I just thought it was interesting how kind of like visualizing the scene and how Odin had shown himself as basically a man, so I'm assuming he's small compared to this giant. Then he's also giants up sitting and he's talking about like you're from the floor, So I can just imagine like how imposing that would be, you know, like talking back and forth right you're he's seeing Odin so small that he's like, you're there from the hall floor, not front up by me.

Yeah. I think that's part of Odin's tendency to mask his identity, and the fact that he is masking his identity or he's using a pseudonym here, it's not The Giant doesn't figure this out until the very end, and Odin does this all the time. Whenever Odin makes an appearance, he's almost always using a false name. He's in disguise, he's veiled in some way, shape or form, And I can only assume that's because you know, Odin's associated with wisdom, and so you know, speaks to the fact that wisdom

I've noticed that Merlin in the Arthur material does this a lot too, where he'll veil himself in some other form.

You know, yeah, yeah, you know, I'm mostly familiar with Mallory for the Arthur Mythos does it for like no reason a lot of times, and I can tell, yeah, that's very chastly, veiling himself and appearing in different guises for again no clear reasons sometimes, which you know, it kind of makes sense that Gandolf is kind of inspired by Odin as well as surely you know Merlin is wrapped up in that and so interesting that there are

Odin.

Yeah, and I know that that Gandolf also includes like I read somewhere that he includes a little bit of Odin as well, especially as like just this wanderer, like a higher being disguised as an old beggar, just wandering around and seeking wisdom.

You know, yeah, yeah, if you I mean, if you look at some of the depictions of Odin, I mean very much get the Great Pilgrim imagery.

I had wondered too. I don't know enough like historically, so I know, like Romans had made it to Britain much earlier than this and had at least brought some Christianity. I don't know how much like had stayed there throughout once they had left, or if they had kind of like completely gone back to take it roots. For the most part, just trying to see like okay, you know, like this was like composed like around a thousand, right AD, or was this earlier or they just don't know.

I mean, I don't I'm not really sure. I know the pros ata is like somewhere around a thousand or so with uh, you know Snorri Storlsen, which you know that comes a little bit later than the poetic at a I'm actually can't recall offhand when when this was put together, but I assume more or less the same time.

And I know that that the British Isles essentially had to be almost re evangelized at one point, where you know, Augustine of Canterbury is literally sent by the pope to say, okay, like you know, the Roman authority has collapsed, people are lapsing back into pagan beliefs. There's the Viking invasions of the British Isles, Like okay, go take some monks, go to Britain and re evangelize the place.

Yeah, because I wondered just just from like saying of like the sayings of what was it, the sayings of the High One? I was right before it, and then even like them this like how much of it was Like Okay, maybe there were some proverbs left over or something like they had heard a little bit of that

Yeah, yeah, it is interesting, just kind of wondering exactly what Odin is doing here. Is he simply trying to best the giant or is he trying to get some wisdom from the giant that you know he doesn't know. And I mean, I guess it kind of seems like he's trying to get some more knowledge of ragnarotcause my understanding of it, which.

I think that's what they were saying too, where like he kind of shuts it down pretty quickly after finding out.

Here, right, he got what he what he wanted to know, And you know, I I'm always kind of I'm kind of spitballing it here when I talk about like what different things mean, because you know, I'm not an expert on the Northern mythology or philosophy, but I know that, you know, the giants are more primordial than even the gods, and so you know, it kind of seems like giants

I was struck by the creation of the world from Emir's body because that confused me because I'm like, wait a minute, I thought the world is the world tree in Norse mythology. So I'm wondering, like how these how they reconciled those, like if they were originally two kind of threads of cosmology that somehow got reconciled, or maybe like Emir's body is only mid Guard and that doesn't have to do with the rest of the realms on

I think that's fair, especially when we're dealing with the poetic ida, which is you know, earlier it's more discordant. I mean, not all the misagree with each other. We're dealing with a number of different traditions sort of thrown together. It's not like they have a universal canon to work with. Yeah,

It's very different not only from the Biblical account, but from Tolkien's Creation myth, where you know, the universe is brought into being through song, you know, and and Lewis as well with the creation of Narnia, you know. So it's even though they they they both you know, loved and respected these these myths, they truly they clearly jettisoned stuff that did not you know, harmonize well with their Christian worldview, right.

They you know, I think we said last time, they gave us the Northern Story as it should have been, right, Yeah, exactly, like you can get off his Sorrowmond as he should have been.

It even seemed like in the introduction, like Caroline kind of like Chasta's snory a little bit, because, like I guess, story was a Christian guy who was slowly trying to reconcile a little bit, you know, kind of like Beola or something else was. And so she was like, well, I you know, he was trying to like reconcile this stuff and write it coherently, and he seemed like he let too much of his Christianity weave itself in and you're like, okay.

I mean it is interesting that when you read the prose that, you know, read the introduction that Snory gives us, and he says, like the gods came from Troy, like he makes it. He demathologizes some of it as a way of making it a little bit more palatable. He turns the gods into this race that came from I mean, the human civilization essentially, rather than these are the gods of Asgard who you know, who made everything?

Oh, Geoffrey of Monmouth does that too, with some of the Arthur stuff he made. He essentially makes everybody he likes in history like secretly British somehow. It's like Constantine is British, the Trojans are British, Like everybody he likes just ends up as.

A British person.

That's funny. Hm, when you do our American telling of the mythos, Oh no, let's let's not do that. Any any other thoughts about this reading. I mean, obviously there's all kinds of lower stuff, but I'm not qualified to get into some of the weeds on that.

I noticed, like a name drop that I recognized from Tolkien. Actually, I noticed several horse names that were that are that Tolkien either tweaked a little bit or just put wholesale into Lord of the Rings. In this involve Vathrunder saying there was a horse called frost Maine, and I immediately thought of Snowmane Thedan's horse, and then later I forget which one it is, but there's a horse called Lightfoot, which was Snowmane's sire, like the horse has sired him.

Yeah, yeah, he definitely does lift a number of names, and sometimes he makes little tweaks, but yeah, you know, it's not as startling as the dwarf names that you lifted, but but yeah, so yeah, definitely that and there's something else he was one of the other ones that will come to me where he does that.

You know, I thought that's interesting. You know that they talk about how giants basically came from poison drops, uh, and so that's why they're terrifying it. That's why evil. But then from a giant, even though it's like from straight poison comes to gods, I guess that grow underneath the frost giants arms, right, and so it's like good ends up coming true, I guess good in terms of not as bad kind of stuff.

But yeah, there's there's not a clear good and evil in those dark like moral ontological terms. Now, the gods are definitely good relative to the monsters, but it's more of like they're fighting for the right side, but there's not a super clear, like eternal standard of goodness.

Right, It's like they're less bad. It's like you want to be on the gods side because, like you know, they're not going to destroy the universe.

So it's a good enough reason, right, I mean yeah, I mean they're they're the valiant ones, are the ones trying to bring about something like order, and so it's not so much that they are ontologically good, but they're good in the sense that they're fighting in the right direction. Then I mean, what what can you hope for?

I guess in the setting, I like to what Carolan, it's too about how in her introduction about the giants like like like you're saying, memorial, they have a past, they were ancient, they know a lot of things, but their future is like in terms of attorney or whatever, it is short lived. And then while men and the gods are you know, started later they have the futures, it's kind of like not told completely what's going to happen with them, like long.

Term right into the I mean, obviously most humans are going to die and most gods are going to die, but it seems like all the giants are going to die. But there is there is a remnant that's going to live past Ragnarok of both gods and men. Right, You've got the Leaf and Leaf throughout there, who are going to be like the new Adam and Eve following Ragnarok to re establish humanity. And you know, before I started reading that is I didn't even really recognize that there

I was also I'm also struck by what a clean slate Tolkien kind of had for his elves, because elves get mentioned a few times, but they're never described in any kind of detail at all. They usually get name dropped between gods and men and it'll say, you know, gods, elves and men, but they're that that we're never told anything about them. So like Tolkien just had like free reign to you know, create his own version.

Yeah, they are whatever they are in these stories. It's very ambiguous, so we're not really giving physical descriptions. We're not giving any details regarding what they are. I mean even the context in which they appear. Like it's just not really clear what it is that we're talking about. It's sort of just this class of like other things, maybe even something like fairies of sorts, which I mean there is overlapping idea between you know, the fairies and the.

Elves, right, Yeah, And like in the Arthur stuff, elves and fairies are just whatever the particular writer of that story needs them to be for for that story.

Right, And I was it's interesting though. I was recently reading Peter Craff's The Philosophy of Tolkien, which goes to my background it's which it's it's a wonderful read. I mean, I tweeted a lot of it, so you may have seen some of that. But you know, he makes the point that, you know, Tolkien's elves are like the platonic ideal of elves, where we read them and we just kind of know, yeah, this is what elves are.

Like.

Yeah, it's very strange, you know.

Right, But yeah, and so he definitely had free reign with that.

I've struggled with that as as a writer myself. When you try to do elves that aren't like his, like Tolkien's, you get this. At least for me, I get this cognitive dissonance where I'm like, no, that's not right, that's not what they should be like because they're not like the ethereal kind of platonic Tolkienian idea of elves.

Yeah, I feel like, if I ever get in the business running fantasy, I'm just going to not talk about elves. I don't know how to get around that to create something that's believable but not derivative.

I can't get around it because I ended up making them integral to the plot.

So yeah, but yeah, it's tricky.

It's just it's just interesting how much of you know, the Norse material was a fountain head for Tolkien and Lewis and their contemporaries, but then Tolkien and Lewis have become this fountain head for everything after you.

Know, oh yeah, no, absolutely. I mean it's it's crazy that, you know, they're still relatively modern authors, and then just the influence that they've had to the point of I mean they've set the stage. I mean, especially of Gardillick fantasy. I mean, you can't do that without having talking somewhere in your mind. And he basically created the modern genre of the fantasy novel.

Right, And I think because it's modern, that's why it was in the age of communication, you know, you know, radio had been a thing for decades by the time Lord of the Rings was that. You know, once you have mass communication and the mass distribution of literature, you know, it's it's going to become like the the a meme. Essentially, it's going to sweep across across cultures and across continents and just become you know, stuck in our imagination.

We also, I mean, it's interesting. I was reading the introduction to this and it was talking about how you know, all the Norse thought like thought and stories and poems and stuff. I guess in Germany kind of like mainly in Europe were out of fashion. Let's talk about post World War two because of like the ties to you know,

Yeah, there, I haven't read I've heard tell of some kind of of some book that focuses specifically on talkien wrestling with the the myth as it's been adopted from, you know, with the Nazis. And I mean obviously he had wrote some letters about that about you know that ruddy ignoramus Adolf Hitler, and you know he said that at his age as like a you know, older middle aged guy. He says he'd be a better fighter than when he was in his prime, because he just really

The monsters. Yeah, I think it became more entrenched in Nazi ideology towards the end, Like I mean, where they started calling you know, like the complete collapse of Germany

Yeah, of course, the Nazis were interested in all kinds of cultic things and trying to reclaim religious artifacts and yeah, like that's a real thing.

People think that's just Indiana Jones, but no, that's actual, you know, loosely, incredibly loosely, but based on real history.

Yeah yeah, yeah, I mean, you know there are stories about you know, Hitler trying to find the you know, lanstep Pierce Christ or you know, contact aliens, like all sorts of stuff.

Yeah, Himmler, Himmler thought, well, yeah, in the master Plan they talk about how Himmler wanted to find Thor's hammer. He thought Thor's hammer was an actual was an actual device that ancient people had used, some sort of electric weapon or something, and he's like, we'll win the war and all that stuff.

So which it's it's unsettling, insane, but I mean it's interesting.

And it's made for good stories ever since. If one good thing came out of it.

You know, you're telling me, Jane Thor was really just a descendant of Ler. Look, you know, found the hammer that was finally there.

But oh man, yeah, it's a good thing they lost for many reasons.

Anything dealing with that today, right, just I was just going to say, like, you know that that danger of the appropriation of culture to be used for like state propaganda is the Nazis didn't invent it, and it certainly didn't die with.

Them, oh for sure. And I mean it's probably it's me particularly a problem that can be presented within democracy where you know, so much of politics religous comes down to marketing, right that you know, especially in you know, a day and age where most of the electorate doesn't really know what's going on, right, and so you know, you watch the presidential debates over the last several years, and they're not really asking questions like, you know, what

I mean, uneducated democracy too, right, you know, like marketing it. If you don't, like Thomas was saying, if you're not understanding and knowing some of the background, you can't even tell that they miss misaligned it, or like reconfigured whatever it was. You know, whatever the message was, whatever the myth was, for their own purposes. If you don't know the myth, you're just like, okay, well let me throw it out, right, So because it's even related.

So yeah, I mean, you know, it's even saying aside the political angle, and not to mention some of the propaganda marvels pushing through these days.

That's something even our modern myths become essentially, you know, consumed by the marketing aspect. You know that that's something that the writers of this material did not have to deal with, you know the fact that you know, they're writing myths, but they didn't have to sell them to anybody.

So right, and there's this idea that the myth is valuable for its own sake, right, I mean, and that's why you know this book is recorded, it's why you know, Snory put together the prosett It's this idea that there are things that are worth preserving. It's not so much what can I do to launch things forward with this, but it's more of how do we conserve the wisdom that we already have? And this is a very different mindset versus how can I market this? How can I

How can I sell figures?

Exactly? And that gets to the difference between and this is even like explicitly you know, political, but just general philosophical, the difference between conservatism and progressivism that one is set on preserving the wisdom that we have, the other is set on what can I do with this? Well, anything else anyone wants to mention about buffwunder sayings. If not that,

They have two different fates. Like you said, I just thought this something just popped into my mind. That reminds me of the twins from the Horse and his Boy, Right, one becomes a prince and the other is like a slave. So that's a common trope, right where brothers or or twins have these extremely divergent outcomes.

Yeah, and it's a good indication of how you know, your own life very well could have gone in a different direction, but that we all are subject to fate, which obviously fate plays a very significant role in these Northern stories. And so it's this idea that okay, they're they're different past, we could find ourselves put on what are what are some things some thoughts that you had?

Again, I like that he's called the masked one, like we were saying before about you know, like Merlin and Gandalf and just this this idea of illusion, you know, the wizard being a and you know even even the term wizard wise one, you know, being a creature of illusion. And they say he has a blue cloak, which immediately reminded me, you know of one of Tolkien, you know, the blue wizards.

Right, Yeah, and we get that same idea that we were talking about about how Oudin is always he's almost always vailed. So later on in this story, you know, he recounts all these different names that he's had. It's like a million different pseudonyms that he's adopted here and there, again showing the fact that he's almost always veiled in his dealings with mortals.

Gandalf does that once where he tells Parimir all the very sarious names that he's had in different lands.

Yeah, it seems like Odin and Freig have got to a lull in the relationship where they just need to kind of you know, pick some people, just just make some make a fight happen, you know, right, it works.

Oh, at one point I wrote this down, Odin calls himself Wanderer, so like Mithrandi or the gray Pilgrim, the gray Wanderer. So more more Gandalf associates.

It's all in Tolkien, bless me. Yeah, you know, I kind of thought, especially by the time we get to the end of this story. You know, I thought of Hebrews about you know, entertaining strangers, because you know you might be entertaining angels unaware, you know, especially the role of hospitality plays as the king's son, you know, also

And then what is it? The king gets impaled on his own sword, which wasn't because at first I was like, oh, like Turin, except Turin was suicide and this it was just a silly accent, almost a slapstick kind of accident.

Yeah, And you know, I assume that that's a you know, the fate that wrought somebody who was consumed with pride that you know, he would stumble and fall very unheroically onto his own sword, you know, in this kind of slapstick way. And I think he's showing me that he was kind of a buffoon because he was so consumed by pride, like you know, this is how he treats his gut.

Trying to roast them alive.

Yeah, it's right. It reminds me of that that Testerton quote about how you know, thinking in isolation and in pride makes you into an idiot. I think they see something like that playing out here.

Who are the powers? Again? I was trying to what's the context, Like, uh, is this line six where since there is a third home where the cheerful powers roots the rooms with silver, is the powers just like pre god god's kind of thing?

Or I think the powers are essentially just the gods. And you know in the Civil Rellion in particular, you know sometimes talking to refer to the powers, by which he means the valaar.

Yeah, that's right, gotcha, Okay, and that makes sense because line force until the powers for the center.

Okay, yeah, right.

I noticed a couple of name drops too that aren't actually not related to Tolkien, but are related to Star Wars.

They mention.

They mentioned Skull and Hati, who are the two wolves who devour the Sun and Moon or constantly chase them around. And in some of the more contemporary Star Wars there's two characters who are named after those figures. There are a couple of well they don't think of themselves as Jedi, but they're kind of like rogue Jedi, called Baleen Skull and Shin Hati, and they basically confirmed that. Yeah, their names Skull and Hati are taken from the North Smith

I'm curious. I'm not up to date on like the new Star Wars media, but I mean, is there any connection between their characters and their mythological kind of parts the naming.

Well, we haven't seen the end of their character yet, so I'm not I'm not sure.

Okay, I didn't.

There was nothing that jumped out at me immediately, but I I know that the kind of Lucasfilm's kind of creative head honcho deve Filoni, is a big fan of the Norse stuff, so I'm just not surprised that he would he would litter some of the new material with Norse references.

It's kind of interesting, just says he goes through the different realms of Asgar, the different homes of the gods, you get some insights into kind of did the different i mean different aesthetic associated with some of the different gods.

You know.

I look to you know, Bullberge, because he's one of the gods I'm more familiar with because he played such an important role in the story, as well as I think his potential connection to Christ regarding the fact that you know, he's the god who dies and he resurrects

Yeah, there's there's more about Emir again in the Creation of the World. So the dwelling place of men mid guard Is is made from the eyelashes of Emir. That's that's rather humorous. His brains are the clouds. Oh okay, great.

You wonder like why was it taken like eyelashes any significance there, but.

Yeah, which this reminds me of another fantasy author who was heavily inspired by this material was a gene Wolf, because I'm currently reading his Wizard Night duology, and in that there's like there's the many worlds, but I don't think there's nine. I think there's seven in that, and the the sort of world above, the one where humans live, is populated by this race of gods that are very much like the the the Acier. I even think the the main one is even called all Father, like Odin

They send thoughts through the brain. Yeah, yeah, yeah, interesting. And then we see a little bit more about Egersel as well. We're told that it's like filled with different creatures, especially different serpents in that need hog. You know that essentially hell is you know, chewing on its roots, and we're told that its side is decaying, and so it's

Just the name of that creature and its whole like that whole aspect of like of what what its function is just screamed Lovecraft to me for some reason.

I said, I just remember it from age mythology, where I just usually against my enies and it was the best.

Yeah, that's one of the important foundations for understanding the angel mythos.

Yeah, I like seeing the like inescapable fate, Like, I know, I saw that a lot in the Bulls can say it was basically like you know, Brin Hill like basically says what's going to happen, you know, but the story still has to play out to get to that, and they can't really go around it. Like here at the end where he's you know, Oden says, I know your life is over and the guy just not realizing, like doesn't know the sword's gonna land hilt down at that time.

Yeah. Yeah, and that's something that we do see very often in these myths, thissence on fate, the fact that we're told ahead of time what's going to happen. You know, it's like when're reading Beowulf, when basically as soon as he encounters the dragon, we're told the dragon is going to kill him, and it gets a point where even he knows he's about to die before even engaging with the dragon. And so you know, the story is not about what's going to happen. Really, the story is about

Right, It's less of like what you said, Andrew, that progressive kind of how can I change the world, And it's more, you know, how can I accept the faith that I've been given essentially and with honor and integrity.

Yeah, it wouldn't be a bad thing to, you know, read something like Marcus Relis his meditation, So alongside the poetic, geta or some of this Norse literature, because there definitely is a stoic tone to the kind of heroism that's prescribed to us. Well, is there anything else that anyone wants to mention about, Grimner sayings, we spent a while on the first one, so I'm okay if you want to move on, if there's nothing else, all right, all right?

I like that they said that it could have been originally composed to be played out like a like a dramatic presentation. I definitely got that vibe from it.

It is interesting, And so she brings up that in Snory's telling of this, we give this idea that Prayer is setting herself up for a kind of punishment because of his pride in taking up the spot of odin essentially trying to usurper role that doesn't belong to him naturally. And you know, she says that in the original ho and we don't really see that kind of judgment at

Right, Yeah, we see that sort of brought to life in this little story.

Right, and then of course we also see the idea of the curse that words can be binding, you know, as Gird this giantess, you know, initially refuses despite the fact that you know, Scannery has promised her all these things, including Odin's ring which he got from the dwarves, her his ring that produces more gold rings. And so he basically promises or offers her this great wealth, which I mean, I don't really know if this was Scariner's even offer.

Oh yeah, definitely, like with with the Oath Breakers or fane Or's Dreadful Oath, you know, and where they're just compelled to see it through to the end no matter what, right, Yeah, it just becomes like a litany of like threats and insults, like it just evolves towards the end, and and then you know, her and Frere get together. I'm like, okay, right, she.

Kind of reluctantly agrees because well, I mean that sounds better than all these courses, so all right, fair enough?

And then like, oh, the the symbolism of nine keeps cropping up in these and what is it like Frere has to wait nine days before you can have a tryst with her or something like that?

Right? I had a contractor that I worked with one time. It was the first time we had ever worked, and he wanted to tell me about the magic number. Time. I went into like an hour long videos about it. So maybe there's something there.

With yeah, maybe, But yeah, I don't really have a whole lot to say about this one. It wasn't really a very fun to read for me. No, Yeah, so I's nothing else. I'm fine just jumping to the next one.

The next one was funnier. It was funny the set up and just like one since the reader is in the know, Well, I'll.

Let you explain it.

What's going on here?

Yeah, And I don't even read it. But basically thor comes upon Odin in disguise, and Odin is disguised as a ferry man and into uh, Thor wants Odin to, you know, give him passage across this body of water, but instead they end up just getting into an insult match, which is just so brutal and sometimes vulgar and profane. It's like a couple just like just like frat guys just going at each other. Is Yeah, that was great.

What does that even be?

Yeah, that was great.

There's some other funny stuff here was uh, yeah, he says, like the Thora's no guts. He says, at one point, just like it becomes like schoolyard insults, like Thora calls harbard is Odin's disguise. He calls him a pervert several times for seemingly no reason.

Well, because because it starts off with you know, early on, Odin says that, you know, looks like your mom is dead. And then later on and he says, like you should probably go home because someone's sleeping with your wife. Oh yeah, that's one of the times where he calls him a pervert. He says, yeah, someone was see fright, now you better go home.

I thought this was interesting because at one point Odin says, Odin owns the nobles who fall in battle, and Thor owns the race of Thralls. And in the explanatory no, at the beginning, they say, maybe that's the author like making commentary on the cults of the two gods, where you know, Thor was more of the the the everyman's god basically of like farmers and herdsman and ordinary people, whereas Odin was for like the nightly class and the noble warriors and stuff like that, and nobility.

Right, and so it's a way of putting Thor in his place as being under him. It's interesting that, you know, they go back and forth bragging about the different conquest of source that they've all engaged with, which very much makes you think of and and in the intro it brings it up. Even the exchange in Bewolf between Bewolf and Unforth where Beowolf shows up at Hero and you know, Unforth says, well, aren't you the bewolf who lost that

It was like, sure I lost the swimming contest, but it was only so I could go kill a bunch of semons. It's like humble bragging, you.

Know, right, unlike you who you know, killed your own kin.

Yeah.

Odin talks about burial mounds. At one point that which they use a euphemism which they explain in the notes, the men who have their home in the woods means like cairns and burial mounds and stuff.

It's interesting that basically all of Thor's conquests that he brags about are like little conquests like combat fighting, and so he's defeated all these different people and these she wolves, like all these different things. But then basically all of Odin's bragging is about his conquest of women. And I was, like,

Right, It's like Odin, I guess is what we would today would say, he's crafty.

Right, He's crafty.

Let's try to find it in the state of the Volsums. But they also a portion had the like insult contest basically going back and forth. I was like, it just must have been comment of like man say like, oh, you're this and no, no, you're actually this.

Right, this mix of bragging and insults.

Especially that's from like ship to like land or shift across.

You know, it's like over a large distance, right, yelling these things.

To each other so the other guy can't just like punch you in the head or stab you or something.

We need to get a Odin and Thor on Twitter, it.

Would be better than ninety percent of the stuff that's there now.

I like that.

Eventually he just gives floor directions. He refuses in passage, and and Thor's like, well, fine, can you give me directions then? And he just does and then.

It ends at what point Odin says, you know, I'll compensate you with an arm ring. And I don't know if you read the note no, because you know, he whatever this is, it brings some great offense to Thor, because Thor responds to that by saying, where did you find such despicable words? If it never heard words more despicable? And Larrington suggests that, okay, maybe this is because you know,

That's the thing when you read this this older material and even scripture, sometimes we're missing a lot of cultural context, right, you know, like people read older books or mythology or the or the books of the Bible and say, well that's weird, and it's like, well, yeah, but we're we're you know, we didn't grow up in these centuries. You know, we're missing a lot of context here.

Yeah, we're gonna be weird at some point.

That's true. But yeah, I mean I don't know how anything of like penetrating wisdom to break. It's funny exchange.

I feel like this was more like entertainment, like this particular passage, and it was meant to like be anything profound or something like that.

I just love how brutal it is. And again the fact that just kicks off with you looks like your mom died.

I wonder if Thor's mom was actually dead by this point, because I think she was a giantess or something.

Yeah, I'm not sure, but it's.

Just and they, you know, they They've brought this up in other adaptations of this material, like in the in the recent God of War games about just how poorly Odin treats Thor. You know, he's his son, and yet he treats him. He's clearly not the favorite son, and he's treated like just you know, like scum on his boot, you know, like right most reason.

Oh, Odin's actually smart because he gets into an insult match with someone that he knows, but he's disguised himself. Yeah, it's like he's got the insight track on everything that's happened with got.

Thora is just like, what's wrong with this reign of very Man?

Why are you being so me?

I was just like the whole time, I was thinking, he wants to get across this bay or whatever it is, And I'm like, you're a god. Can't you fly or like, you know, do some other thing that will transport you across this area? Why do you need this very man? Maybe thinking too much about it.

Yeah, it's like sometimes they seem very limited and other times they don't, which I assume just gets to some of the different traditions and stories thrown together that sometimes they seem more like mortals than other times.

They definitely certainly act like mortals most of the time. There's petty, jealous, vulgar.

Not a great conclusion here, Yeah, I mean, is there anything else that anyone wants to bring up? It's okay if not, but I don't want to cut you off. If there is, all right, fair enough, Well, I think that's at least a fun way to end. I feel like it's a good conversation. And despite the fact that we're all amateurs here and obviously there's a lot that, you know, we're not picking up, I feel like it's a good bit that we are picking up, and I

Yeah, these are fun. I've enjoyed reading these because I've never really you know, my only experience with the Norse myths has mostly been through adaptations or summaries, you know, like secondary material. It's it's neat to go back to the original source and and finally learn about this stuff.

Yeah, it's definitely fun to dig into some things that we've only kind of experienced on the periphery. Also, it's just fun, you know, as somebody who you know, I make my living talking about things that I always claim to know. It's fun, you know, engaging with something like this where you know, none of us really know what's going on, which it's fun to explore it and to talk about it together. All right, well, I guess we'll go ahead and wrap it there, and so thanks again, thank you, thank you.