Hey, friends, Andrew here, I hope you had a good Christmas and that you're having a good new start to the new year, or maybe that it's a start to the new year to be good on or something like that. Things have been crazy busy for me at the moment.
I've been working on my book. I've been getting ready for the new semester that just full of classes across three different universities, and the Lord of the Rings class that I'm leading through Patreon and Patia starts on Monday, and so there is so much going on as that
it always seems to be well. For now, I'm going to bring you the next of our Fellowship chats on the Poetic Eda, or the Elder Eda as it's sometimes called, And as a reminder, this was previously posted to the Fellowship podcast, but I'm in the process of consolidating both shows into this one, and after this conversation, we're going to be up to speed on the edit chats up to this point, likely with a new one coming next week.
And after that I'm going to be dropping in some more of the Fellowship content whenever I have gaps over here. But first, as a quick reminder, I very much welcome your over on Patreon, which gives you access to all kinds of things as well as funding my ability just keep doing the various things that I'm doing, which I
really could not do without patron support. For just five dollars a month, you get full discord access, early in ad free episodes of Mythic Mind, and open invitation to our fellowship chats, and the ability to post to our substack or podcast feed. For ten dollars a month, you also have access to all the content from the Fiction and Philosophy of CS Lewis Course, which is twenty something videos on almost all of Lewis's fiction and more, and
that's also available through the podcast feed as well. When you become a patron at Tier two. Now at the third tier that is twenty five dollars a month, you can join the live Lord of the Ring study that's beginning January fifth, and if you're listening to this late, you're still welcome to join us at any time. Each week includes two videos, one shorter that provides some kind
of philosophical, theological, literary, biographical, or low context. It's kind of the wildcard video just hits on some angle that is directly related to that reading, and then you also have one longer video later in the week that serves as a companion to the reading. We also have weekly live meetings and an ongoing Discord channel. Oh and all patrons of any level can join the Discord channel this time.
And so if you just want to follow along with us and talk in the Discord channel, then you can feel free to subscribe at a lower level. I hope to see you there, but for now, I hope that you enjoy this conversation on the poetic da Hello and welcome to the Mythic Mind Fellowship podcast. I'm your host, Andrew Snyder, and I warmly welcome you around our heart. Now, before we get started, I want to let you know
about some things. So I've decided that, at least for the moment, I don't really have very good justification for having two separate Mythic Mind podcast feeds and say earliest on the public level, and so I'm good to start to move some content from here over to the main show that is the Mythic Mind Legacy Podcast. Now, the odds are pretty high that if you sub to the Fellowship show, you already sub to the Legacy show as well,
but make sure that you do. If that's not already the case, and if you're currently listening to this on the Legacy Podcast, then just keep doing what you're doing now. I do have some ideas for the Fellowship Show down the Road, and so don't delete it from your library, but you also should not expect it to be updated for a while. So again, for the foreseeable future, you can expect everything to come through one podcast, that is
the Mythic Mind Legacy Podcast. Now for our monthly patron Chat, we're continuing to work through the poetic edit together, and I should begin by apologizing for my part in this, as I'm still coming off of a cold that hit my lungs pretty hard and so I was not at my a game during this conversation, resulting in more mispronunciations
than is typical, even of some fairly familiar terms. I just had a hard time get some words out and I cough into the mic a few times, and I do apologize for that, but without aside, let's go ahead and get to it, all right, Welcome back to our Mythic Mind patron chats as we deal with the poetic EDA continue to work through that piece by piece, I'm gonna hit the next four sections this round now as a reminder, we are all amateurs here kind of going
down the rapids with our homemade rafts, and but it's I think it's been a good run so far, and I'm really joining the conversations that are coming out of this. But before we get into the main topic, I want us to start just going around each time and filling each other in, filling the listeners in on whatever we
have going on. And so if we're making something, if we're just reading something, thinking about something, listening to something, just something that's going on in your life, just give some kind of update, Josh, what do you have for us?
Yeah, So I'm Josh. I'm a student at Memorial College right now, actually in the Masters of Arts Great Books programs. So basically in the class I'm in right now, we're reading either part of or an entire like great text
a week. Most of those are short enough where it's not too crazy to read in a week, but basically writing on those like roughly once a week and then for a final paper doing something with trying to do something with kind of like just like the Mystery of Providence as a theme in Oedipus Rex right now, So just kind of consulting some scholarship and figuring out more specifically what direction to go in that, like what part of the text I'm going to talk about with that,
and then also working on a seven Ecumenical Councils class that I'm working with my pastor on that to teach it at our church to mostly only people who don't really even know what like the Patristic era of church history is. So the challenge of being like, how you know, how specific or how general to go with that. So basically that's what I'm working on right now.
Look, it's fantastic, that's definitely much needed. I used to teach at a classical Christian high school and for I think it was tenth maybe eleventh grade, eleventh grade, it
was systematic theology. And basically the way I did that was by primarily focusing on the Ecumenical Councils to really get at sort of the way court you know, mere Christianity, essential Christian orthodoxy, how the ideas came together and you know, the heresies that were dealt with and the way that they present themselves today in ways that you know, the lay person very often is even going to recognize. And so I think that dealing with that early church period,
it's just it's so important and so ever applicable. So that's that's fantastic that you're doing that.
Absolutely excited about it.
Yeah, good, Jase. What's something you have going on?
Yeah? Right now, I'm back up in the Dallas area with my family, So I brought a bunch of books up to read. We have a guy from my church found out that I was. I was taking these classes and I was reading a lot of stuff, and he invited me to I guess him. Buddies have met for twenty years in a group called like the I guess it's the Anatheo. So all right, yeah, but it's a they go through like a book of months. So this next book is The Way of All Flash by Samuel Butler, which I had never heard of.
But we'll see.
So working through that one and then I'm going to jump into the Aliad shortly.
Yeah, you you definitely need to produce something out there, make a podcast. You've been reading a lot of really good stuff recently. Yeah, even even beyond this uff we've been doing together. So that's that's fantastic that you've been doing all that. Yeah, and then on my end, I did just get confirmation that next week I should get an official offer for a book deal, so hopefully we get my book out there in the near future. So
that's that's exciting. And then I've been making some progress on in the screenplay that I've been invited to collaborate on, which is just awesome that like, that's not something even a year ago was even on my radar. And then suddenly I get this invitation and you know, I've talked about that some in the discords. You put more information, become a patron, but otherwise definitely excited about the potential that's that's there. Just you never know where the road's
going to take you. All right, Well, I guess we can go ahead and dive into this, starting with let see him Near's poem, all right, so I will read at least some of the introduction, maybe all of it provided by Larrington here, so that way we all have a general sense of what it is that we're dealing with. And so Humanar's poem or he Miskvida is a badly preserved is badly preserved in the manuscript but we can fill in the gaps from Snorri Snorri Stroulsen, who give
us the proseetta. And so this is a difficult poem or difficult poem, yeah, text to work with. I was listening to Jack Crawford talk about this. Jack Crawford, who's an Old Norse specialist, and he has his own translation of the Atom, and he even said that this is just a notoriously difficult text to work together because it's it's likely that we have some fragments. We have sections of like the story from an old time mixed in
with some updates, and so it's not entirely consistent. It kind of seems like some of the characters were swept out or were swapped out, and so you know Thor his companion in the story, is Tear, but it kind of seems like maybe it was Loki at some point, maybe somebody else. And so this just across the border. It's difficult to figure out exactly what is that we're dealing with. But the gods decide to have a feast and they compel the giant eg gear to prepare it.
This may reflect the Scandinavian royal practices in which the king enforces his authority on its subordinates by visiting their homes and demanding to be feasted. Cunningly, Egger demands an enormous cauldron in Whish to brew beer for the feast. This can only be obtained with great danger from the giant him here Tier, who was probably not the original protagonist of the poem, and Thor set off to obtain the cauldron, and like most encounters between Thor and the giants,
the adventure turns into a trial of strength. And so that's really the gist of the story, so that they're going off to get this giant beer cauldron from this giant. So what do we think about this text?
I think you were definitely it made me feel a lot better when you kind of started this off to say that this would be a difficult thing to because I felt like I had a lot more to say about the first probably two or three texts within the poet.
They eat itself.
But it almost seems like, I guess like there's the kind of this recurring theme in Norse mythology of kind of it's like this right of the strongest, and it seems like that's probably in a sense like what's what's being shown like just like with like I guess like Thor's arc, if anything in this in this text.
I'm exactly sure.
But beyond that, maybe like hospitality, I guess in some ways you could like argue that would be a theme in some ways. But yeah, other than that, it's kind of hard to pin down exactly like any other like higher purpose in a sense.
Yeah, we do see that even the humor, even he this this giant that they came to get the cultron from, show some degree of hospitality to Thor and tear here in that Thor like basically eat all this stuff, like all of its animals, and so then they have to go fishing in order to get more food. But then even that turns into essentially contest of strength in the the game that they're hunting. I don't know, Chase, do you have anything to say about this poem?
Yeah, I will say I liked the the vocabulary for a beard the cheek forest. I think that's I I thought it was interesting where it talked about like the giant is walking across the floor like he saw that they so like they recognize who Thor is that slays the giants and a lot of battles. Yeah, it's hard
to kind of tell exactly what it is like. At the end, it almost seems like it's like a caper, almost like they just came and stole like the butt, and he's running out with it and he has to turn around and kill all the giants.
I don't know, right, despite the fact that he wanted, you know, he wanted the fair square, and so it was given to him. And there's some female giant who helps him by telling him. So, okay, to backtrack a little bit. So Hemyr and Thor are fishing together because I don't know, I guess they're buddies now, I don't know, so he mayor the giant. He catches two whales, which I mean, that's pretty impressive to go fishing and to
catch a couple of whales. And then Thor goes fishing and he catches the midguard serpent urban gunder, you know, the serpent that stretches across the entire world. So that's what Thor catches. And in the pros added there's a version of the story that has some more details in it.
When he pulls up the midguard serpent and he's about to like smash it with his hammer, and then he here he cuts the line because he gets scared about what's going on, so he cuts the line, which then causes the serpent to go back into the water and kind of go back down to the depths where he lives.
And then Thor gets really mad at him here and throws him overboard and essentially kills him in this story, in the Snory's version of the story, And of course Thor to get angry about that, because the Midguard serpent is what's going to kill Thor at Ragnarok, and so, you know, Thor, I guess thought maybe he had a chance at fighting fate at this point, but of course that's not how fate works. That's kind of an interesting factor, and that's something that I guess I appreciate about a
lot of these Norse tales. This is especially true of odin that he's always going about trying to fight fate. You know, he's trying to discover something about Ragnarok. We've seen that in several of the texts that we've been studying so far, where he wants some wisdom, some power in order to fight the fate that awaits him. His inevitable death at the Twilight of the Gods during Ragnarok.
In fact, it's kind of interesting, you know. I recently, in teaching Beowulf to my students on campus, when we got to the section with Bewolf and unforth, who are you fighting against each other? With their little debate, I brought in Harvard's song, which is low key in Odin
their debate. Brought them as a parallel, and you know, I got into a little bit more and thora a couple of times kind of chies Odin for always starring up conflicts, and that's because Odin does that in order to get great warriors to fight each other, so the way they die, that way he can bolster his ranks, you know, at Ragnarok. And so the gods, especially Odin, they're they're always trying to fight against this fate, this
inevitable doom that's awaiting them. But of course they can't do that, because one thing that's unique about the North Mythos that even the gods are subject to fate and they simply can't escape that. I just I don't find
that find that interesting. And also there's this mention that the Midguard serpent is the brother of the wolf, which according to the notes here is Fenrier, who is the wolf that's going to kill Odin, And so Fenrier and the Midguard Serpent are siblings, which I'm not quite sure how that works.
Do you know that history behind that?
Not entirely, especially since I know that Fenrier is actually Loki's child.
They actually all are like so Orman Gander, Fenry or and then Hell like the goddess of the underworld.
Like basically I think this is in the prose Ead as well.
It's certainly in other sources, but there's a story where basically Loki has an affair with the Giantess and Gribbida, and like these three children are kind of like these abominable like a cursed offspring from this this sort of relationship with the Giantess, and that like results in these three beings that are like technically his children. But then you know, of course they all have like some sort of eschatological significance as well, as you had mentioned previously,
especially with Jorman Gonder. So that's like the sourcing of all of these. It's certainly in like the in like what I've read, I'm not sure if there's any like conflicting uh, any like primary sources that have like conflicting narratives of that, but that's like the primary one I've seen.
That's it's interesting. I don't really have a much to work with this, but the first parallel that comes to my mind is in Paradise Lost, Milton has Satan basically relate himself to his own pride, and that gives birth to this chaos monstrosity that is at the gates of Hell. And I don't know, I almost I think of some kind of parallelism here of this chaos, this unnatural union. You know. Even Loki he's kind of amorphous sexually, like sometimes he even takes the role of a female and
actually gives birth to things himself. So this is all kinds of like chaos imagery wrapped up in the very person of Loki. I really don't have any point to make with any of this, but it's just uh, but I guess that's the point of chaos.
I don't know, Yeah, that's an interesting parallel.
I just have to think about that more before i'd commented on it, but I definitely, uh, it's an interesting peril with like Paradise Loss there, So I'm going to look into that one more.
Yeah, I definitely anything worked out on that.
It's just interesting that like through his affair there's like two god ending basically monsters in your role in the world Serpent taken out.
In H four, Right, I don't know what happens to lookia Rackenrock. Does he die? Okay, I know not all the gods die.
I'm trying to remember like if he's.
I believe, yeah, he like basically ends up in like hell or the underworld. But yeah, before I want to make that coy and I would definitely have to like go lookt into that. But that's I read like a lot of like these like both both Greek like Greco
Roman like Norse mythology. Ever, like the stories and like different like forms and like the books is like a teenager, but even those you're never sure like how much some like modern fantasy authors is kind of like taking like creative freedom and just like riffing off of the iris sources. So yeah, I'm like, I'm I'm trying to remember, like that was like different in different versions and like but yeah, I'm not.
Exactly sure which.
Like what like the original U or the really the canonical per se fate of like Loki would be in that. I know, like obviously like Balder is like ripborn and that's kind of like the big like almost like crystological symbol in a sense with with a lot of this. But yeah, I'm pretty sure that Loki does does like kind of like end up in the underworld basically.
Yeah, I just did a quick Google search and says, LOOKI dies in battle with heim dollar Pindal in Ragnarok, and so yeah, so he dies in battle. Although it is interesting and this comes this is reference in one of the other texts that we look at. The actually the next text that LOOKI is the one who keeps
Balder from coming back basically shortly after he dies. But I guess we can get back to that in a little bit, right And then and Chase mentioned that at the ending it's a little bit haphazard because so they do this swimming or this not swimming competition that's Beywolf. They do this fishing competition. And then you know, Thor is bragging about how great he is, and the Giant says, no, you're not. If you were that you know, great and that strong, you could break this special goblet of mind.
This chalice, which is like unbreakable. But then this giantess for some reason helps Thor out by telling him that he can't break it if he breaks it on Humer's head. So he breaks it on his head, and then he's
allowed to take the cauldron. But then apparently he's a deal with giants nonetheless, excuse me, and then his Thor's goat collapsed because of a curse from Loki, who is just now mentioned for the first time of this poem, which again kind of hints that there are some fragments of older versions of the story that are thrown in here. But it's interesting that so Odin, you know, he has these goats that you know, pull them around, which you know,
they show up very annoyingly. That in the Marvel movie the latest one to Thor hit his goats, and these are special goats and you can kill them and even eat them, and then they resurrect the next day. But apparently another version of the story, Loki say, get somebody to break the bone and eat the marrow out, which then causes the the goat to be lain when it resurrects, And so that's how we get to this cursed goat
that collapses half dead all of a sudden. I don't know, all right, anything else to say about Humor's poem.
This is a super like random off the wall like thought that probably means absolutely nothing. But in the eighth stance of the poem, it just it talks about the lad found his grandmother very ugly. She seemed to him
nine hundred had nine hundred heads she had. And so I'm almost like throwing out like just like a random number like nine hundred that's supposed to be like like less literal and more like symbolic, or is it supposed to be more of like a historical report where it's like, this is like about nine hundred, like I because you know, I think often it's like in the categories of like Jewish apocalyptic literature, like you know, the Book of Enoch,
or like obviously like Zechariah and like Revelation, where like that numbers a lot of times correlate to some to some other meaning other than some mere historic historic narrative reporting. And I don't know if anybody has any thoughts of that or if that's making any sense, but I was curious if you think there's actually a significance to like numbers like that being reported, or if there's any way of even telling that.
Yeah, I mean, given the genre of literature or dealing with, I can only assume it's symbolic. I mean, I have no idea about old Norse numerology, so I can't really comment on this specifically, but I can only assume that it's symbolic. And that's another reason why we have reason to think that Tira was probably not the original companion, and that here is said that his descendant or that
he comes from giants. You know, he's the one who said that, you know, my father, this giant has this great cauldron, which his father is not supposed to be a giant. And so there's definitely some mishmashing of stories going on here with his ugly grandmother with nine hundred heads. Great.
Yeah, like I said, it super super off the wall idea there. I'd be curious if there's any way to look into that. But yeah, I'd just be curious. I think if I almost like the number like one thousand and like you know a lot of like biblical categories and equating to like just many, I'm wondering if it's anything similar to that.
But yeah, I have no idea either.
Yeah, no idea, no idea. All right, well, I guess moving on to Loki's Quarrel, which is the next one or Lucas Sina. Now, in this one, basically the gods are having this great feast drinking party and Loki isn't invited, and so then he crashes the party and be just good one by one calling him all cowards and perverts. So but what what great insights do we have from Loki's Quarrel?
I think one thing I read that was interesting in the I mean, like this edition of the text was that it says the poem maybe early and thus the composition of a poet who believes in the divinities he brolesques a little comedy cannot hurt the divinities whose cults is secure, or it may be late in the mockery be directed by a Christian poet at Heathen he the divinities whose immortality can trasts with the stern morality of
the new religion. So obviously, without digging into the scholarship, it'd be hard to like form an opinion on.
Whether this was earlier or later.
But yeah, I always wonder, like with these kind of stories like how much like the Christian themes and even like kind of like the way Loki is treating the gods is more like anthropomorphic in a sense rather than being closer to something like transcendent or celestial, if that like if that is uh like just kind of like poking at like them being like lesser beings than like the true like Christian God, or if it's really just Loki kind of being Loki and just being the cunning
trickster and smoking fun at people in a sense. Yeah, I'm not sure on that one, but I'm curious if you guys have thoughts.
Yeah, I don't know. It's interesting to think about. Ah, I love this Loki. He just makes me think of Michael Scott saying boom roasted after every one of these, because everyone is a response to somebody, and it's just I could see if they did, like the Marvel Loki would be coming from something like this, you know, like this one where it's actually just kind of poking fun or cleverly going back against him.
Yeah, and it is I'm hard to say, especially if none of us are experts on the scholarship on this text that I I mean, one hand, assuming this was an older story actually originally written by a pagan who believed in the gods. Even still, like the pagan poets
don't usually believe that they're simply recording actual history. I mean, how would they know about the actual historical ongoings in Asgard And so, you know, they're still working within the realm of imagination, and so it would take I think quite a degree of I don't know if it's confidence, courage, arrogance whatever to write, you know, these attacks coming from the mouth of Loki against the gods, because I mean, they do get right to it, of your coward or
you're sleeping around everyone and you're a pervert, or like they really go after the immorality of the gods. Not Likewise, we could also see this coming from maybe a Christian poet who's trying to demonstrate the fact that these are not God's worth serving. And so it's I mean, I
could see it coming from either way. I think the introduction made sense on that now also that I do appreciate this kind of the rhythm that goes at this, you know, as Chase is saying that the boom roasted thing that uh, you know, he wrote to somebody and then like somebody else will speak up in their defense, and then he turns to them, I know, someone else speaks up in their defense, and they basically keeps going with this, with Loki acting as the dialogue partner to
essentially everybody's going around in a sequential manner. Here also we get another talkien lift here with Mirkwood's that's a good find.
I did see that those. I told my brother that right when I read it school.
Yeah, anything else from Loki's.
Quarrel I didn't have a thought on.
Like the eleventh stanza down there where it says it says, hail to the se Or, hails the sci Or and all the most sacred gods, except for that one god who sits further in Broggy on the benches. And I looked at the footnotes, and it kind of makes a claim that the one who sits further in is implying an or symbolic of like a place of higher honor
in a sense. And so that made me think, is there any way in which this text could be implying that, you know, Broggy, like the the god of like this, the god of like scaldic poetry, per se, Could that be making a cooim potentially that like the art and like virtue of this form of poetry is like the highest of all values in that culture in some sense, or maybe the highest of values in this context. I'm not sure, Like it's like making like a distinction there
of Broggy being in that specific place. I'm wondering if it has anything to do with that specifically.
Yeah, and so, I mean, I can't really speak to why he would be in the seat of honor to begin with, but it does seem like Loki is elevating him for the purpose of knocking him down right, that Loki is pointing to the fact that, yes, you you got of you great honor, that you know, SA you have so much honor that you don't actually do anything. He calls him a coward, that you know, he's the shyest of shooting, that he's the wariest of war, and
so he calls him a coward. He he just sits in honor, doesn't really do anything, and so you know, it provides just a way for Loki to take kind of a potshot at him. Again, I just don't know if an orse mythology to so much more about that about the God in particular, but can definitely see how Loki is making use of this perceived honor.
Oh yeah, for sure.
Yeah, all part of you like wants to believe there's some really cool, like in depth symbolism there, but yeah, it's probably just a low key being Loki is.
That's probably just like the default hs at the end of the day.
Yeah, I mean, like I do think that we can pull wisdom from a lot of these stories, but it's uh, the the so called barbarian tales. Well, there's a reason why the Romans, you know, call the barbarians. It's the very different kinds of stories I play here. It's a lot more just brutal and sort of guttural and the way that they treat each other.
Yeah, no, for sure, I can kind of see where like a lot of like just like the stereotypes of like epic fantasy and such thing like today have like derived from this. You even mentioned like the swimming contest and bo Wolf earlier, where he's kind of like, yeah, I know I did lose that swimming contest, but I was also like in a full plate of armor and like flighting sea monsters. So it's just like it always has to be like, this is a super manly justification for everything, right, I love.
The the insult. He's talking to Beyla and he ends with you don't splatter dairy maid. And then Thor comes in and he is like, the silent perverse creature, my mighty hammer you all near, shall deprive you of speech. Your shoulder rock, I shall strike off your neck, and then your life will be gone. It's like, okay, Thors coming into lot.
Yeah, he's the only one who can really shut Loki up because he just comes in full strength.
Uh.
And this is well one point that is kind of interesting when at that point, yeah, he says, so be silent, perverse creature, my mighty hammer, millionaire, will deprive you of speech. I shall throw you up on the roads to the east. Afterwards,
no one will ever see you. This seems to be a reference to another one of the stories of Thor, when Thor killed the giant Thiazzi and took his eyes and threw them up into the sky and they became stars and and so basically he's threatening to kill Loki and to make him into stars, make his corpse into into stars, just as he's done before. And there's another time when he kills Arvandil Arvondel and takes his toe and does the same thing. He throws into the sky
as a star. Now what's interesting is a sorry, I'm butchering this name on shore. Ar Vandel is also known in the wider Germanic tradition as Erendil, and so this is the Norse version of the star of Arndial, which, of course Tolkien is going to pick up as he picks up that tradition as it comes to the Anglo
Saxon and eventually makes his way to Tolkien. So I just find that interesting that the great mariner, Mariner of Arandeal, of of Arandial in tolkien story that it was the beginning of his mythology, I mean, finds his way back in Thor throwing a giant's toe into the sky.
Yeah, I think even the start of exchange two and Thor comes in, like right before Belo was saying, like all the Mount Green shakes, I think Thor must be on his way home, like they know that he's the kind of guy that handle it, the doer. It seems like for a lot of the gods, for the ones that kind of sit back or.
Right and you can only assume the reason why Thor wasn't there beginning with is because he was off killing giants or something.
I I wonder too, like how many of these like allegations like Loki or like are making. Like obviously some of them can be like qualified or like corroborated in like other sources in a sense, but some of them just like, like, I wonder if there's any like any basis for some of the claims he's making, if he's just kind of throwing some of them out there right, Like, I'm not entirely sure, but he certainly got like an accusation for everybody, sometimes more sometimes more than one.
Yeah, I imagine there's always at least some grain of truth in this, in that these are the kinds of things that gods did, Like I mean, going back to that you know, Harvard song, like Odin is very clear about his various exploits with the women folk, and so this is probably the kinds of stuff they did. But at the same time, excuse me, so overcoming a cold here. I think of in Beowulf, even when Beoof calls unferth
a kinslayer, probably he was a kinslayer. Excuse me, But At the same time, the fact that he was in Roathguar's court means that he probably had some legitimate reason for killing his kid, like to defend horoalth Guard or something like that. And so a lot of times in these Germanic insult fights, there's some grain of truth that gets like twisted and like, we just want to find some way to jab that knife into its probably already
a dicey subject. So there's probably some truth to a lot of this, all right, anything else from Loki squarrel okay. Then moving on to Thream's poem orrmskvida. So the comedy of Thream's poem depends on the characterization of Freya and Thorpe. We're compelled to act against the reputations. Freya is addicted when Loki and Thorpe suggests that she might marry a giant, though her reputation for promiscuity is such that take a giant as a sexual partner might not be regarded as
out of the question. Thor is the most masculine of the gods, who dressing up as a woman causes him acute embarrassment. Thrime, who has stolen Thoris Hammer, is a giant with considerable social pretensions. The simple structure and repetitiveness of the poem proved suitable for adaptation into the ballid form, and a number of versions of it are found among Danish and Swedish ballads. Okay, So any thoughts on this poem of Thor of retrieving his hammer.
It's probably another really out there saying that I could read way too much into. But on the second stanza, like the last line, like it says like the god like with a capital G. I'm not sure if that's like a translation slash like punctuation thing, or if there's some sort of like greater implication with that versus like the god like lowercase G. It could literally just be like because like the semicle in there. Maybe it's like
it's like a grammatical thing. But I was curious if that was somehow like an elevation of like of Thor referring to the god, the one who has been robbed of his hammer.
Yeah, that stook up to me as well, and that not really knowing, my assumption is that this is emphasizing the reality that of Thor, you know, the fact that he's had his hammer stolen. It's such a big deal that in this context he is the god who has been dishonored, like it is a way of elevating him. Is that that's my assumption? Yeah, Yeah, an interesting guest to borrow Free's feather shirt so that he can fly is my understanding. So I guess that's not something he
can do on his own. I'm gonna be honest. This is one that I actually just don't remember a lot of details on. I didn't take a lot of notes.
I kind of wonder because obviously it highlights the fact that like obviously Thorn like dresses, has to like dress up as a woman and basically impersonate Freyer. Right, so maybe he's kind of like, you know, ashamed and uncomfortable
with that. Like do you think that's like a pride and humiliation thing or do you think like there's like a like he's pretty justified and feeling that way because he's in a sense, like a symbol of this this like kind of like classical or like medieval like Norse masculinity in a sense, Like it's like, is it pretty justifiable that he's like uncomfortable with that? And like I would personally probably say yes, because even as a twenty first century man, I would be too right, So I
can't imagine how Thor would feel. Yeah, I was kind of like I was kind of thinking about that where I'm like, I could see how somebody would almost like go the direction where it's like, oh, he just needs to be comfortable with it, But I'm like, no, like he probably shouldn't be comfortable with that.
At the same time, Wait, you you wouldn't be comfortable wearing a dress and pretending to marry a giant. I can aggressive.
You can't say that. I would dig it.
Guiltiest charged. I think just coming from Loki's quarrel. It's funny because Loki's fine off and it gets like the interaction with the giants, and then here's kind of like what has to be done, and he had just like accused Ray I think of being very promiscuous and then, you know, agreed upon fixes that thorst kind of dress up as addressed to go be the bride. And I'm sure he found some you know, some enjoyment that.
Yeah, and I assume that excuse me, sorry, so we're going this cough here. I assume that he's that this is really meant to be a comedy, right, it's to be funny. You've got this masculine, you know, the most mass one of the gods, this great warrior who's always uh killing giants, and he's always just bragging about what a great warrior he is. That now he has to submit himself to playing the part of a woman. And you know, I guess it shows a saucer that the
giants aren't all that cunning. I mean, he starts to get a little thrown off, saying like there's a fire in your eyes that I'm not used to here, So he's getting a little worried, but he's still pretty much okay with it and keeps moving forward. The fact that his bride to be is like consuming vast amounts of food.
But I guess he just is so enambored with, you know, his bride or his idea of his bride, that he's willing to buy all these ridiculous excuses till finally he presents the hammer of Thor and then of course propertly dies.
It was cool, seems just kind of note something throughout all this stuff. But even where it says like let keys jingled by his side, I guess I had no idea what that was. But because you know, like the bride or the wife would have like the keys to like the pantry and all the storage stuff.
Uh, which is cool.
I like the pro's conclusion here that after this whole story about how thor you know, finally killed the giant with his hammer and got out of there, that it ends with so Odin's son got the hammer back. Good summary.
It seems almost like a little bit unnecessary. It's like, yeah, of course I got them. You really think he didn't get it back?
Like reminds you of a few times in the Bible where things like that happened, like when jail you know, uh nails the pentag through the guy's head and it says and he died, Like, yep, that'll happen.
They battered all the race of giants.
Yeah, I do wonder what this this giant, what thrime exactly? Who's intending?
It?
Says? Then Thring, the lord of Ogres, bringing the hammer to sanctify the bride, lay Mulenir on the girl's lap, consecrate us together by the hand of our I wonder what significant the hammer had for him the giant in what way? I mean? I guess it's just that it's an artifact of the gods or something. But I don't know what sanctifying role this would have for.
That's the it's only the Marvel version that he can only lift the hammer, right, that's not like anything in this.
Seems to be the case. Okay, yeah, that's the starting place that most of us are working with. But yeah, that does not seem to be the case here, Yeah, all right, anything else from this poem? All right? Then moving on to Voland? Right. The poem of poland Or appears to be a combination of two poems, the first the Tale of the Swan Maidens, and the second the Tale of Voland's imprisonment and his revenge. Voland is a strange character, neither human nor divine. At one point, he's
referred to as prince of elves. Since we know so little about elves and the Norse mythic scheme, we cannot prove or disprove this attribution, and so Voland is some kind of elf, which you know, as it just said here, we we don't we don't really know what elves are
based off the original Norse text. Here, they are these ambiguous kinds of creatures that him and maybe that's part of the nature of elves or what we would you know, later refer to as berries that they live kind of on the you know, beyond firm categories, sort of on the the barriers of knowledge. And this Voland gets kidnapped by this king, but then he manages to escape, and
that's the the big point of the story. And so I don't know, what, what do we think of this story or what are some thoughts you have.
It's interesting, like you had brought up earlier with Mirkwood Senior, which has always seemed mysterious. Kind of a lot of stuff happening, which kind of goes with the story for like too.
Yeah, because some weird stuff happens. And so you've got these three brothers and they fall for or they embrace these three strange women. I think these swan women h swan herders or something, and then they these after was it nine years, yeah, nine years, the women just leave and two of the brothers go off looking for them. Volin stays home to make rings for his lady, which is when he gets captured when he's by himself, by
this local king. And so there's just kind of there's weird stuff going onto this forest, which again kind of gives us the Tolkien Mirkwood vibe as well.
It also brings up like the Lappish kings and the pros the beginning, which I know earlier they kind of talked about I think it was in grim near sayings with like it with the torture and everything kind of or was related to the ritualistic of the lap people. So I mean they're coming from it seems like kind of a harsher more mystical people, especially if it's the king.
That's kind of how they talked about him. And then with the swan maidens being they'll say there they were valkyries, but it wasn't exactly sure kind of what that they could fly I guess because they had the swan feathers.
But interesting. Yeah, and you know later in the story, you know, the way that he escapes is not jumping into here, but the way he escapes is he we interually get his ring back that the king had been taken from him, and he seems to be able to turn into a swan or something like that. He's able
to fly around. And so so now we've got Mirkwood and now we've got magic rings, and so I assume it's because he was forging this ring for the swan maiden, that there's some connection there with like being able to be like a swan. Don't know where to go from there, but.
Like how he just skis and then goes and kills her because she bear brings it back.
Right metal right. And one thing that it's worth noticing is that even I don't even know if Volan can be called a hero. I mean, he's as much a trickster as anybody else, and that I mean, yeah, he's a victim when he gets captured by the king and he's made to basically be the king's slave smithy, you know, making stuff for him, and you know, because he is
the king's wife. The queen advises that Fulan be hamstrung so that way he can't run away, and so he's forced to be on this island and to just make things for the king. But he ends up tricking the king's sons into coming to him by promising I'm the great treasure, and he just kills them and buries them, and then he gets the king's daughter to come to him, and he seduces her and you know, impregnates her, and that's part of how he gets his ring back, which
then he's able to use to fly away. And then you know, that's kind of his parting insult to the king is that you know, now my offspring is in your court, see you later he flies away. So he's very much a trickster, which I guess connects with the idea being an elf in that you know, he's again kind of beyond the categories of order. He's not somebody that you can beat, that you can tame, he's not
something you can domesticate. That the king was operating with a force that was outside of what he could possibly control. And so maybe there's some kind of message here regarding domination, which again could be very Tolkienian in that the more that you try to dominate, well, the more that you are going to find yourself dominated by the very power that you're trying to seize for yourself. So there may be some kind of power lesson to be understood here.
Yeah, I think of him being like a stronger guy too, because like having to cut his hamstring so that he doesn't and he actually doesn't like it's not like they bound him face to face, I think to come down, but he had just like fallen asleep because he was just waiting on his bride that he thought was there.
I did see.
They talked about how later prose account and Tiedric Saga, one of his brothers comes back to save him, and then later on Bullen returns with an army and then kills the king and marries Bodvild, and then their son becomes a great Germanic hero. So interesting how it changes throughout.
I guess there was like a trickster, and there's some certainly bizarre aspects to the poem itself. I think there almost is like a level of admirability I have for like the character of Land himself, just like merely speaking in terms of it's kind of like the resilience in the face of adversity, Like he's trapped in this situation, like it seems like he's just faded to be there forever. But however that ultimately works out, like he does find a way to kind of like escape this this servile
life and actually like become liberated in a way. It's almost like in like a weird way. It's almost kind of like like the Shawshank redemption in a sense for like this guy like in like the most impossible way, like finds a way out when it seems like impossible.
Yeah, that's that's something I kind of saw through there.
There's there is like a level of admirability, like for the character himself.
I think, yeah, there is a kind of a kind of pagan virtue here. And obviously we're not going to look at a bold and say he's anything like Christian virtue, and I know that's not the point you're making, but there is something here we see that you know, even Odin has a trickster element to him, and that he's always kind of manipulating people in order to achieve his ends. And that's part of I think what Norse Wisdom was right.
It was about power. I'm able to assert myself. I'm able to make things better for me and for my kin. You know, we see this if you read the volsung saga that you know Zigmund mixed him up with cigarette sometimes because Beywolf kind of changes some of that. But you know when he's going off and he's just like rating people that that's not seen as a bad thing.
It's just something that you do to advance your station and that if your kin you know, read the the Huffam, all the proverbs and the and there's a lot of that mentality there where virtue is just kind of what it takes to get ahead the best way. I understand that at least wisdom, it's about more cunning than anything else. And I think that we do see that. And with that kind of framing, maybe Foland is a kind of hero, a kind of a person to admire.
Yeah, I mean with the.
Is it.
Sayings of the high one where he talks about, like it said multiple times, like whenever you receive a lie, like return it with deception. So it's not like even you know, you're like stupid, don't take the high road, go down and kind of went against this this lie that's been.
Brought up against you.
Yeah, I mean these Norse heroes, they're they're street fighters, right, It's just you get in there and you do what it takes to win. And that's really what it comes down to. And say, the honor and virtue they seem just mean something very different than how we're how we're
used to talking about them. But at the same time, yeah, I don't know, I think that it's useful to kind of look with these these different eyes and just see, you know, what did these people honor and why did this translate into tales that are still around and that we're still discussed today and play such an important role in the cultural world in which we live. I'm not going to say that we need to go back to this kind of virtue, because there's a lot very wrong
with this. But at the same time, you know, we need to you know, even Tolkien size this that in order to really know what's wrong with something, you have to see what's good within that thing first, and that's going to help you to better understand what is wrong with it, and it's going to give you the opportunity to, you know, to recognize the light where it is and
then bring it back into proper focus. And so I don't think there's anything wrong with looking at some of these what we would see is very flawed heroes and seeing that there's something admirable about that, recognizing that any of the thoughts, yeah, I.
Just agree and throw any other thoughts right now?
Well, see was that last one from the section? All right, Well, this is definitely not an easy run. But I feel like we've pulled something out of this. I had mentioned going in just a little while ago that maybe we could provide some recommendations. Do you guys have anything offhand that you'd like to endorse anybody's listening. I think you've been listening to reading kind of wherever you want to go with that, Josh, what do you have for us? Yeah?
I actually had an idea for that when I saw that earlier.
So I think one thing I recommend, just for like a good kind of like robust perspective on more of like a traditional reading of a lot of a lot of different literature is actually the ignacious critical editions of different books. So you kind of see an example here of like Gulliver's travels him with like pride and prejudice, like then they do a bunch of other stuff as well.
But Joseph Pierce, I.
Don't know if anybody's familiar with him, but he's the uh, he's like the main editor for a lot of those very very solid, like just traditional understands the interpretations of a lot of these works, and it provides a lot a lot of really like top notch like scholarly essays like within the actual volumes themselves. Like along with the
primary text itself. So I found those very helpful personally just for understanding these works and helping me to kind of grow out of reading them through like a very just like modernist like late twentieth early twenty first century lens like as I was certainly taught through, you know, going through the public education system as a kid and as a teenager. So I definitely like recommend those pretty highly. I would say, I think they're good additions and also.
Yeah, yeah, good, yeah, I've got a few of those, and so I definitely second that. Cool. Jase, you anything for us?
I mean, just some books I've read over the last year. Recommended even this weekend. A guy that was into philosophy and I had brought up olitheus never heard of it, so he wrote down the constellation of philosophy to read that. Another book from the last year that I've read was Definders of the West. That's a really good read on just Christian heroes of old and kind of a lot of things you wouldn't necessarily a different perspective from what you get a typical public school.
So wait, you mean Christians haven't always been the bad guys?
Interesting, they were just doing it for gold.
That's right, it's a greedy Christians. So I've got a couple of books. I think I might have recommend this on the recent podcast. I'm not sure, but I've been reading a lot for the upcoming Talkien study. I know that I still need to get out my supplemental reading list, and so i'll get that done probably tomorrow. But a couple of books that I've read recently is The Philosophy of Tolkien by Peter Crift, which if anyone, I mean probably most of the people listening to this probably do
already follow me on Twitter, you know. I tweeted out a lot of this when I went through it recently. It's really good if you want an introduction of philosophy. It's actually a pretty good text if you're already kind of familiar with Talkien and you've never still He's philosophy before he even says in his intro that it can serve that kind of purpose. But even if you do already have some philosophical background, just a great book to
get you excited about how good Tolkien is. And so definitely recommend that, and then for a deeper dive into Tolkien and philosophy. I really enjoyed the foot of my backgrounds messed this up. The Flame Imperishable by Jonathan McIntosh subtitled Tolkien, Saint Thomas and the Metaphysics of Fairy and so in this text he's mostly focusing on the delay Tolkien's opening creation story in the Cimmarillion and relating that to the theology of Thomas Aquinas and just a great
philosophical dive into the underworkings of Tolkien's world. And you just you cannot read this text and then come out with the phreposterous belief that Tolkien was not giving us a Christian story. He most certainly was, as Tolkien himself said, But unfortunately that's still an argument that has to be had on a regular basis, usually with those talkiing society folks. But one day I want to start a Tolkien society for people who actually like Tolkien. That's that's my goal
in life. But uh, that's why I guess we'll leave it from here. Do either of you have anything else that you wanted to say?
I mean, I'll second to your Peter Christ recommendation, and I'll also can you can you please clarify.
A little bit more that you you don't agree with Michael Moorcock's epic Pooh essay.
Have you ever read that?
Wait? Was that the one where wait what I might have? What was that one?
It's like, uh, I think he wrote it like the seventies or something. But he's basically just like almost like imposing just these more like modernist, like Marxist claims like on on Tolkien this sense.
And then if anybody's familiar with.
The sci fi author gene Wolf, like he writes an essay in response to it, and it's it's it's incredible. I'll send this to you guys in the chat for sure. But both of them. Habipoo sucks, it's terrible, but gene wolves essay is really great.
I always at a bachelor party with some guys this weekend and I was talking about Lord of the Rings and one of the guys I'd never met him before, and it's like, yeah, Lord of the Rings is great. He's like it other than like you know how folk and treats the goblins and the orcs.
There we go. It was just like a face drop. Yeah, there's that article that makes its ground up once in a while from the UK he's saying that Lord of the Rings in nineteen eighty four are right wing propagannit tacks or something. It's just absurd.
I'm pretty sure, like an epic Pooh like more conclict makes the klay and that basically like there's like some sort of like just like slave morality, ethic and the like forts just like treat Sam like. It's just it's it's so terrible. I have to find this and send it to you guys so you can read it for yourself.
Yeah, I feel like we need to have some standalone patron chat just about Tolkien and his legacy and all this stuff. It maybe something worth doing. I'm done cool, so we will work on that. Maybe once the smesters over here can have a bonus episode at some point, but that's for another time. For now, I'm good talk on the EDA and next time we'll cover some more stuff.
So until then, it's been thanks again for joining us, And if you'd like to support the show and have the opportunity to join these chats as well as to access some exclusive content, including the fiction and philosophy of CS Lewis course, then you can become a patron over at Patreon dot com slash Mythic Mind and you can find that link in the show notes. But that's it
for now. Until next time, God's Speaking. The Mythic Mind Fellowship presents a new study led by doctor Andrew Snyders, the Wisdom of Middle Earth, The Lord of the Rings. This will be the first study in the Wisdom of Middle Earth series, which seeks to bring an array of companions together with the common desire of growing in wisdom while enjoying the heartening tales of the great tale weaver J. R. R. Tolkien. The Lord of the Rings is a profound tale that
has literally changed lives, as it has for mine. And what is it that makes this story so powerful and so compelling. It is because Tolkien's stories are fundamentally true, and those who engage with it know exactly what I mean. They speak to the way that things are. As Peter Christ said in the Philosophy of Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings is infused with this same light that illumined the man who wrote it. And that light is true, for it reveals the reality of the world and life.
So join us on this adventure. Let us grow and wisdom together through immersion in this tale, not through cheap allegorizing, but by getting a better understanding of the ideas and the movements of the heart that bring a tale such as this to life. This twelve week study will begin with Tolkien's creation account, the Iinuindulay, and then move to
the beginning of the Fellowship of the Ring. Each week will include a signed reading from The Lord of the Rings, a short side lesson in the beginning of the week that addresses a relevant theme, background story, or secondary text, and then once you've had some time to do the reading, there will be a longer video that serves as a
guide in these forests of wisdom. Also, we will have additional recommended readings, an active discord channel, and weekly live meetings which will be recorded in case you cannot attend. Whether you are reading The Lord of the Rings the first time or the eleveny first time, I invite you
to join our company. Prices are currently as low as they ever have been, and they are as low as they ever will be, So go ahead and join today at Andrew Snyder dot Padia dot com, and I hope to see you on this road that goes ever on