Hello, and welcome to Mythic Mind. We pursue wisdom of the past between primary secondary worlds. Madre Snyder and I'm glad that you're here. Today we have our final patron chat on the Poetic ed Up. But first I want to make you aware some things. First of all, our free book club on Augustin's Confessions will be beginning on April twenty eighth, and then we're going to meet every other Monday at nine pm Eastern for eight sessions. To enroll, all you have to do is become a patron, whether
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from other Fellowship creators. So there's there's a lot of value packed into this, So go ahead and do that. But for now, let's go ahead and jump into our final conversation on the poetic Eda. All right, welcome back to our final at a chat joined here with Thomas and Chase to go through the last several texts here, starting with the wedding of Gudrun, and so as a review of where we've been recently, at least we've covered
a lot of ground obviously going through the Edda. But you know, Gudrun is the widow of Ziggurd, who is really the probably the the central figure of the vul Song story. He's the one who killed the dragon Faffnir and liberated the gold, which you know, as a dragon horde it tends to do it carries a doom about it.
And so no matter what Ziggerd does, you know, in his acts of valor, his bravery's heroism, there's always just sort of this shadow over his life, very much giving his connections with turn turnbar special helmet everything, so very strong connections there. Well, Ziggard, after liberating this treasure from the dragon, he gets betrothed to his valkyrie lover Brinheld,
but he's bewitched along the way forgets about her. Mauryes Gudrun Brinhield doesn't forget about it, and so eventually she conspires with Gudrun's brothers to have them kill off Ziggard, and so then Gudrun goes off to the court of Atli, where she marries Atli, who either is or leases inspired by Attila the hun. But then she after killing her children with Ally and then killing Ali, now she finds herself in another court, married to another kid. So she
is now in her third court. Here. You think that people would get the message here and maybe stop taking her in, but here we are. And so while she's here, she does have with her her daughter of Ziggurd, and so her daughter is really the last direct tie to the Volsung clan. But she gets married off to this
king see which she married Yorman Reck the Powerful. But this guy Beki comes to his court and tells Randver, the son of the king, that basically there's something going on between zvon Hild and Randford the Prince, and so then the king responds by having Randverord hanged and swan Hild tramped by horses. So naturally good and doesn't take too kindly to this. And so now she's gonna tell her children of with with King Yonaker to basically go off and get vengeance. And so that's kind of where
we are in the story moving into this poem. All right, So what are your thoughts? Were some things that stood out to you about the wedding of Gudrun.
One thing that set out to me in the beginning was how reluctant the two sons were to go on this vengeance mission. And they basically are like, Mom, you know that you're asking us to essentially go on a suicide mission and get killed. Right, you won't have any kids left when we're done.
With this, right. And before that, they really dig in that if you didn't kill off your last kids, and maybe they can even help you with this, like we'd have some more support here, but you've a tendency to pretty cheap with the lives of your sons. Yeah, so they definitely have this sense of doom about them. Dear, one of these sons says that, let me treat this. Then, said Hamdar, the strong minded one, so comes home to
visit his mother. The spear Lord brought low in the land of the Goths, so that you may drink the funeral ale for us, all for span Hild, and for your sons. So she's saying, like, look, you're going to lose all of your children if we do this yet to go anyways, And it just kind of gets at this theme of recognizing one's fate but moving forward anyways. And that's something we've seen pretty repeatedly.
So interesting because you know, she, yeah, she loves cigarette so much, and so losing him, it's kind of like after that, all the kids are forfeit, Like she she cared about swan Hild, but like everything else, like the other four boys, it's like, mah, I don't really care. You're just like tools from my revenge, you know.
Yeah, yeah, exactly. I mean with the kids that she had with Atlee, I mean she literally killed them and then fed them to Atlee. And now with these kids that she has with this third third husband, you know, now she just has no problem treating them as fodder to throw at her vengeance, no real concern for them. She only cares about her connection to Ziggard. In fact, she sounds a lot like Brin Hill toward the end
of her life. When she starts going crazy at the end when she says, Nobles, build the build high the oak Wood pire, Let it be the highest among the princes. They fire, burn up the breast, so full of wrongs, may sorrows melt about my heart. And so just as Brent Hill, do you have her at the end, just falling into despair, I mean, just ready to die, ready to go up in flames metaphorically as well as literally.
It's very denithor you know, build my pire, you know, like we shall burn like the Heathen Kings and all that stuff.
You know, Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly right. And of course has gained off response to that that they only did so because they were under the sway of the Shadow essentially, that they were you know, inspired by Satan essentially.
I feel like, uh, bicky uh in this like setup, it's very like low key, like you know, like kind of just like meddling and kind of like telling them to like, oh, you're you're actually destined for each other, and he's like, oops, I'm actually gonna get killed.
Yeah. We don't have a lot of his backstories as far as what we're given. He definitely seems like just this trickster type. He just wants to see things burn.
Yeah, a good pairing for Google, I would think, right right.
This also seems to be like a common, at least in these stories, way to execute somebody is to have them be trampled to death. That's come up a few times now.
Hmm.
Yeah, it's just just like the kind of savage imagery or just that was the cruelest of all my injuries. When the white blonde hair of span Hill they trampled in mud under her horse's hoofs. It's like, oh man, yeah, I believe Swan Hill like basically like had come to that island on her own, I think, or something, right. I can't remember what Snory had said about it. It's been too long since I've read that. It may have differed slightly.
Yeah, I don't remember Snory's version, I do know, I mean for Gudrian, after the affair with Atli, after that went down in flames, then she tried to cast herself into the ocean, into the sea to kill herself, but she was providentially prevented from doing so, and so then she gets carried off to this island. I don't remember. Yeah, I don't remember what story says, but and I mentioned this last time, it very much reminds me of of
an elo wing. You know, she's got the summer casting herself into the sea, and then you know the Dallar protect her, and you know she actually turns into a bird and flies away, and you know there's a Swan connection. Even with van Hilt, even like the name, there's that Swan connection there. And so I feel like it's not a one to one, but there's definitely some inspiration at
play here for talking. Yeah, it's just I feel like this is such a I mean, it's such a Norse tale when we've been with the False Songs for so long, we've been at this point with Gudrun for so long, and it just ends in utter despair. Like there's no EU catastrophe here, there's no hope, it's just despair, which kind of again, it gives me the same feeling you get at reading Children of Purin once you get to the end.
Yeah, I have the same sort of feeling when I read the Volsung saga on his own, and I was just like, I don't think I like this. Someone really depressing. I don't think I was. I was in the mood for it a couple of years ago. When I read it, I was just like, oh, I didn't like any of the characters. I'm like, they're just all miserable and getting revenge on one another. I'm like, hmm, maybe George R. R. Martin took some inspiration. Everybody's miserable and killing one another.
Yeah, they're all just these pawns getting moved around essentially. I mean, you know, in the Volsung saga, it really kicks off with Odin. You're delivering the sword, and then at the end it's Odin who leads to the death of the folk songs. Uh So, which is what Odin does. We've talked about this before, how he builds up these great warriors so that he can kill them off in
battle and then recruit them into his army. Uh And that's really what bookends the main part of the Volsung saga, that they're just under the whims of the fate, that are under the whims of Odin, who's just sort of managing the whole situation. And it's there there is just a great deal of despair about that. That is no ultimate hope that's reaching out to them. Tolkien that most definitely took the northern spirit and baptized it, giving us that threat of hope.
Yeah. I think it's it's interesting with all three the works, the pros at A, the Bolsing Sega, because you kind of each one you kind of need to read the other ones, but then you have to start somewhere, and so it's kind of like, okay, well you start with one and then you can just circle back and read it. You've read everything else because this is like all the notes are like, yeah, just check out Bolst.
It's like okay, right, yeah, So I think now like the only one I I have left to read a story then because I've I've read volsung Saga now this, and so like that'll like complete the triptych.
Yeah. I definitely feel like returning to the other text now more of it would stick with me. Uh. When you read any of these for the first time, there's just so much going on, so many names, so many things happening that things that kind of echo other things that have happened. It's hard to keep it. Kind of reading this so early in right, Yeah, hard time through. It's just you just have to push through and then you have to go through it again. And more of it will settle down.
I was talking to my brother, He's gonna start reading some early and I'm like, all right, man, the first two chapters you just gotta push through. I was like, it's gonna make sense at the end. You can always flip back. But when they're just listening out names and here people are, You're like, okay, that that doesn't mean anything until.
It's like I tell people, if you've read the Lord of the Rings and then you read the silm Merillion, what you do is that you go back and read Lord of the Rings again, because then all of those references to the Silmarillion that are scattered throughout Lord of the Rings, you'll have context for all of that, and you'll be like, oh my gosh, that's referring to And then it kind of makes reading Lord of the Rings again so much of a richer experience.
Yeah, I can testified to that. It really is like reading it almost for the first time again, that you get so much more context out of that reading absolutely well. It's not a big change in content here, but looking over at the lay of Humdir, it starts off the same way as the other poem, and basically the only major difference is now it's going to continue on and give us the the vengeance story of the Suns going off to this king. Yes, it's basically the context here.
Anything in particular stand to you about this one.
Oh, this is the one where they kill their their step brother or something by accident or maybe not by accident. It wasn't that clear to me whether they knew who he was or not.
Yeah, I think this is another one where Larrington, the translator basically says some of it's kind of confusing, kind of broken, sometimes probably missing. Uh, but yeah, because this this guy, let's see who is it?
Ip?
I think that their half brother what a name?
Uh?
Think across that their half brother irp on the road, who gives them some enigmatic wisdom, and they respond by killing them for some reason, not entirely sure why, but later they recognized that he was giving them the wisdom that they needed to have in order to action secure vengeance against the king. There's like, boops, I guess we
shouldn't have killed him. And I suppose there's a lesson built in here about not being rash about stopping to listen before acting so differently, some some kind of proverbial wisdom built into this. But but yeah, not really clear why they killed her.
That ties back to Hockney and uh, I already forgot the names guthm uh No, it's uh Gunner and Hockey, right. Yeah. They don't listen to their wives, who are like telling them they each have bad dreams and I'm like describing what the dream is meaning for you, and you're like, I don't know. I think I'm gonna go ahead, and it's just like, what are you doing?
Right? They basically say women say a lot of things, just go.
You have quite an imagination there, honey, I'm gonna go get slaughtered.
So yeah, I mean it kind of makes sense that there are a lot of lessons in here about not being impulsive, because a lot of people are just very impulsive. They just do stuff right, like I've been dishonored, so I'm going to go secure vengeance. It's like they don't stop and think through what they're doing or even how exactly to secure vengeance in the best way, like to actually do what they want.
That.
They're very impulsive, and so there's definitely a lesson regarding that built into this that they actually you know, burst into this king's home and they cut off his feet in his hands, but he's still able to use his speech because they have some kind of magic about them where they can only being stoned.
Yeah, the notes talk about this they had, I guess, I don't know if it was from Sigurd. They had a basically like magic mythril chain bl basically, and so they couldn't be stabbed or heard or anything with those with those on, but they could be stoned. I think attention here because it kind of just gives like a blip of like their interaction with the brother r I think,
And I think it's fulsome sega. It's a little more like as like drawn out, I guess, and it shows that he's like they think he's being arrogant or something, and so they're just like, oh, we're gonna we don't need you.
Oh yeah, he says here and stands at thirteen, you know, he Herp's talking to them, and then it just says they said that bastard was very bold, so they just miss him as a bastard. Go away, stop talking to us, you know.
Proverb in that same stanza, it's no good showing the way to a cowardly man.
Hmmm, sounds like a very Norse proverb.
It does like a very Norse proverb.
Yes, Like it seems like their downfall was they you know, like you said, they still left the king the ability to speak, and I guess he cries out what their weakness is, and so they get stoned to death.
Right, Whereas apparently if they picked up on whatever Earp was telling them, they would have known to cut off his head so he couldn't talk.
Yeah, they say, evil, you brought about brother when you opened up that bag. For often from the bag comes bad advice, from which they mean, you shouldn't have killed that guy, because yeah, important information.
Right.
So they're like blaming each other as soon as things go wrong.
And this is one of the oldest they said to one of the oldest poems. So it's it's missing a lot just from age, I think.
And they blame fate again, they they say. Then they say that the dcer, who are like female ancestor spirits of some kind, drove them to kill Arp is what they said.
Yeah, And a little bit later, facing their death, they say, no man outlast the evening after the norns had given their verdict. So again we get this idea that we're being driven by fate, that they didn't really have a lot of choice in the matter. And so even their their rash decision to kill off RP, as well as just everything that leads to their demise here, it's all ultimately led by fate. They don't have a whole lot of agency in the matter.
I guess in a society where like this kind of retributive violence was very endemic, it must have just been kind of a way to make yourself feel better. Well, like, none of this is my fault, I can just chalk it up to or anybody's fault. I could just chalk it up to fate. You know that we're all sort of, you know, puppets of the of Oden the puppet Master.
Yeah, And so it definitely promotes a very stoic kind of wisdom, a stoic understanding of wisdom that my chief obligation is not necessarily to do this or that, but it's simply accept fate to situate myself in relation to fortune. So I am confident in who I am and where I'm standing, no matter what's happening around me. And so I mean, there is a kind of noble confidence in there, but also obviously there's some limitations of the soul, So like what this means you're definitely trapped in a kind
of despair? Well, any other thoughts before we leave the Volk songs? All right? All right, moving on to Balder's dreams. So we're moving back to the gods now, getting back to more or less where things begin. So Balder has been having some bad dreams. So Odin goes to Hell to check it out again, not to be confused with
the Christian Hell. He's just going to the place of the dead here who he summons up this seer to get some information, and this is when he finds out that Balder is going to die and that this is going to be basically the first sign of Ragnarok. And so we're back to Odin figuring out things about Ragnarok. What's stuck to you from this one?
This is just the way that Odin prefers to talk or conversation. He's just he likes to ask questions, leading questions to get them to say something that ultimately he'll never know exactly what he wants to know.
Yeah, that kind of riddling talk again that Odin seems to be very fond of I.
Mean, I guess he's kind of like the Socrates of the air. He's the god of wisdom. He's always asking questions.
Mm hmm.
Yeah. So he finds out that Balder is going to die. He asked who's going to kill Balder. He finds out it's going to be the god hold which and I don't remember if this is explicitly described in the poetic Adam maybe was earlier. I know it is in the Prosta the Death of Balder when it's a Freaka or
Fred mixing up my god my gods. Now, basically there there's a protection, you know, built on Balder where you know, everything was made to give an oath that it couldn't hurt Balder or something of that nature, except for one thing, which is mistletoe, for whatever reason, didn't give its oath that it was going to, you know, refrain from killing Balder.
And so Balder was basically invincible. And so the gods developed this game where they were just like throw stuff at Balder because nothing could hurt them, until finally Loki sneaked in some mistletoe here to Hoad, who is a blind god, and so he unwittingly, you know, threw the one thing that could hurt Balder at him and ended
up killing him. And so then Odin finds out that the one who's going to get vengeance is going to be one of his children that he needs to go and have so that will then have vengeance on Balder, and so I know, it's we start to get kind of soap opera here. Sounds very Greco Roman at this point.
Sephen crazy too, because like the like basically Volley won't do anything until he like his son that's going to be born, isn't really to do anything until he kills hod like what his whole purpose was.
I am fascinated by the connections that have been made between Balder and Christ when we're told that Balder is going to die as like the beginning of essentially the judgment on the gods, right at the beginning of the Final Movement, and that following Ragnarok, he's actually going to be resurrected and he's going to be one of the gods that survives and lives into or it really kind
of ushers in the renewal of the cosmic order. And in fact, even in verse nine here it says it will dispatch the high glory tree, by which they means Balder, and so Balder here is called the high Glory tree. And so there are all these connections that can pretty readily be made here symbolically speaking, between Balder and christ. Not to say that was a one to one, but I think that it is. You know, who's to say how much of this has taken, you know, after the
Christian era versus before the Christian era. But you know, you read someone like Lewis and he definitely thought that what we have here is the pagan imagination approaching something real, even if dim and distorted.
Yeah, and I've always been fascinated by this is slightly different. But the pagan fascination of the hero who descends into the underworld, that that is like this constantly recurring motif from everybody from the Greeks to the Mayans, has the hero or heroes who descend into the underworld to either rescue a person or retrieve some boon. And of course, you know, from Lewis's perspective, it's like, well, you know
that it's all for a pagan foreshadowing. Their imagination is haunted by the future Harrowing of Hell by Christ.
Hm hm, yeah, I mean you can't escape it. That death and resurrection. It's all over the pagan mythologies.
On a lighter note, I like that when Odin is found out by this woman, he just gets peevish and angry and says, you are not a serious nor a wise woman. Rather, you are the mother of three ogres got her, And it's like, well, there's no need for that. I'm like, come on.
It's always interesting for people that nowadays latch onto this stuff and like want to just believe all of this stuff, and they don't really see, like you're saying some connections to whether like the descent into the underworld or the Christ figures, and it just seems like, you know, you really didn't spend time like trying to read some other stuff because there's just so much stuff. It's like ties to it, just a little bit tweaked here and there once in a while.
All right, well we'll come back around to Odin a little bit. But now I guess moving on to the list of rig also known as Himdahl and so Heimdahl is we see going and basically we get him Dahal being sort of like the progenitor of these three major classes of people, different casts. You've got Thrall and Farmer and Lord. So pretty on the nose here with what
we're talking about different you know, class of society. I think it's interesting that the mother of Thrall is the great is her name is great Grandmother, and then when we moved to farmer, we go to grandmother, and then for Lord we go to mother. And so it's like we get this progression of time that as we get you know, further and further in time, more and more recently, I suppose that's when we get the newer cast being developed up out of I suppose what came before it.
And so there's that kind of evolutionary sociology at play here.
It's kind of a weird take, maybe, but I like kind of the hierarchy that it kind of gives because it still shows the people that are the Thrall and the Thrall women like a children they have, they lived together and were happy and you know, like they're doing their tasks or like not really like the most desired task. But it's also like, you know, that's things that maybe they're the extent of their abilities or the extent of
their like desire to do anything. But yeah, I enjoyed this one because it's just interesting to see how it described them differently.
Yeah, and like not not none of the three are shown as unnecessary, right, you know that like even like it, there seems to be a recognition here that like, okay, even the people doing the most menial, undesirable tasks, well, somebody's got to do it, you know. So it's like the lords or the farmer, like their society couldn't function without the people doing the work that nobody else wants to do or can do.
Although at the same time, it's not super uplifting to see like their names or it's like noisy cow, should boy, horsefly, smelly fatty sluggard, it's.
Not their daughters are stumpy and dumpy and I'm like what bulgie and Ash knows.
Yeah, not the I think it also like it's good all the way at the end, but like forty seven when he says because it has young kin, which I guess when you're using the the original language, it's like the young kin, so it's actually ends up being king and him Deel asks like, why young king, are you charming birds? Rather you could be riding horses, laying low
and army. Basically like he's he's doing things like where he has like this draws back to the laf half near where there he has the ability to talk to birds, but he's kind of spending his time doing that rather than like, you know, you're actually meant for greater things. You need to get to it, man, because put in all this work for him.
But yeah, yeah, and as he starts to embody his role as king, it says he even got the right to be called rig and to deploy runes, and he gets like identified with Heimdahl essentially as he lives out his destiny.
The kind of mine right of kings almost.
Right, right, he becomes like a stand in. He's the vicar of Heimdahl.
Well, what's interesting is that each of these families of people spring from an act of hospitality on the original couple's part, where they show hospitality to rig Or Heimdall by feeding him and speaking with him and how letting him sleep in their bed essentially housing him for the night and that and he blesses them with progeny based on this, you know, and and this shows up in multiple pagan mythologies that like when you show hospitality to
the stranger, you're potentially showing hospitality to the gods, and you know that this could redound rebound to your good I mean, and this goes this will linger all the way into like early Saint higiographies like with you know, I believe it's Martin of Tours who like shows hospitality to a poor man and then has a dream where Christ is like, well it was actually me or the poor man was supposed to represent me and you gave me your cloak. Here it is.
You know.
So this whole idea of you know, both in the Pagan and Christian stories of showing you know, hospitality to strangers because you never you never know, you know, you might be showing hospitality to angels or gods or you.
Know, yeah they could.
I'm just gonna say they each of them is actually like giving their best meal, you know, like the thralls or giving like it's like a very desirable basically course loaf with the broth from a calf that well, the best of delicacies. We don't really get the far worst kind of uh, it's left out. But then the other one it's like silver dishes and all these different meats and or or ornamented goblets. It's just like so exactly yeah, pointing.
Out Yeah, And I mean I think of this hospitality idea that we see here and elsewhere, and it's this idea that when you are holding out your hand to others, well, now you're holding out your hand, and so now you're able to receive right versus keeping what you have in the closed hand. Well, now you're not in a posture to receive anything else divine blessing, whatever, grace, mercy, and so you need to be able to extend that hand out, brothers,
if you're going to receive yourself. I do think it's interesting also how we see the advancement of society with each of these casts. Where with Thrall, we don't get any kind of marriage ceremony or anything. They're just together, whereas once we go to Farmer, well, now there's an exchanging of rings. Now there's actually a ceremony that's happening here. That there there's a society is being raised to a
higher level. And then when you get to the Lord family, now it's emphasized that they couple sat together gazing into one another's eyes. Now we get romance, uh, something that is a benefit of aristocracy compared to everyone else. You just they just got to get paired up. Now we can actually afford to have something like romantic love. And so with each step there's allst more freedom.
Yeah. And uh and with the with the king, or I guess with the with the Lord, it says then he alone ruled eighteen settlements. He started to share his wealth, offered to everyone's treasures and precious things, slim rope horses, He scattered rings, hacked up our rings. Which all this is like he's building them up to be good kings and not to be tyrants, or building them up just because like they're they have more wealth or more light than they should just roll over everyone with the iron fist.
Yeah, there's that thing of like a good king is generous.
Yeah, we saw that in one of the poems and a few sessions ago, where there was that like competition between two different kings. I can't read the details. Let's say the gods and goddesses were, you know, basically each kind of pitch and eyed different king, and you know, one of them was really cruel and stingy, and you heat it up falling on his own sword, I believe.
And so there's that warning about like, you know, powerself, like being a king is potentially a good thing, and that there's nothing wrong with executing that kind of dominion if you do it in the right manner. But the one who is the king is just cruel and bloodthirsty that he's inevitably going up falling on his own sword. All right, Moving on to this song of Hindla, I
suppose Heindler maybe. So in the song of Heindler, we have Freya who is trying to assist her protege o Tar in gaining his inheritance against competing claims of someone called h I'm I'm gone a tear. IM probably put that terribly, and so she has to go to this giantess to get some information out of her. I struggled a little bit with this one, trying to figure out exactly what's going on. So I'll for do you guys to start us off here. What's something that stood out to you from this one?
Yes, this is like a definitely a later or at least the only existing ones, like a fourteenth century Icelandic codex, so it could be later Yeah, there's a lot in here that I feel.
See, it's like I just tell genealogical kind of stuff.
Yeah, And then it breaks in the middle and kind of like talks about the gods side, which I I think I liked better.
I see they seem to be trying to prove that o Tar has like this great lineage that like into like by somehow educating o Tar about his lineage, that's going to help him somehow, Because there's a note because like they call him Otar the simpleton. But if I remember the note correctly in the back of the book says like it's not that he's stupid, he's a simpleton
in the fact that he doesn't know. He's literally lacking knowledge about his illustrious lineage, and somehow possessing the knowledge about his family is going to be to his advantage. Oh and this one had the very interesting reference in that god list of one who is greater than all, who will come after Odin, who, it says here in the introduction, is conceivably an allusion to Jesus Christ.
Right, then it'll come another even mightier, though I dare not say his name. You can see further than when Odin has to meet the wolf, so there's some anticipation of someone greater coming about after Odin's judgment essentially.
Yeah, So the whole setting of this was that Freya is showing Odar that basically he's gonna he has the lineage lineage the for claims to an inheritance that is being contested against him. Mm hmmm, and he ends up having it. Yeah. I thought that that was the line that stuck out the most of me as well for one that was to come later. Makes you wonder if like they were hearing this from traders or from different travelers at the time. I don't know.
Yeah, it's interesting because there's that, and then you know, I don't spoil it. Yeah, when a couple of texts that down the road that we're about to get to and there's a mention of like a Christian woman and specifically, and so we're definitely in an era. Now there's some overlap here between Christian influence or at least recognition of Christians.
You know, whether this is you know, pre pre conversion relations with Christians, I don't really know, but it's just it's interesting here that now we're coming into some direct connections between the Northern Mind and Christianity.
Yeah, and there seems to be this this understanding that there is an order of being, like much greater than the Acier, that the Acier or not the end all be all there, that they are small g gods like there there seems to be this understanding that there's some reality, you know, and you know, like even above know, the fate that seems to control all the asier and their actions, that that there's you know, that that they are still themselves contingent beings who are immeshed in the same fate
as all the mortals are. So it's like they're only gods in the sense that they are superhuman, but they you know, like they don't rule the world in the sense that you know, they didn't make it. It was there before them, it's going to be there after they're gone. So it's like it's a completely different conception of the Christian understanding or the Judeo Christian understanding of God as the transcendent, omnipotent creator God.
Yeah, and that the gods experienced time essentially the same way we do. They just live longer and you know, they're they're stronger, obviously, but yeah, even the gods operate according to fate, but even there's question regarding where did the norms come from? Like what what what fate are they working with? And so there is room for asking what's at the top of things here, and they never write into that.
Mm hmm.
So I do wonder where that line and it just keeps standing out to me that that stands it from forty four where it talks about someone coming after Odin who's even greater in the name they can't mention, Like I, I wonder when exactly that stands that it came into play.
Here, right it's or yeah, if this is.
You know, built into the actual pagan writing, then it's very interesting.
Yeah, I don't know. Yeah. One modern, more modern fantasy book that I've been reading through recently is Gene Wolf's The Wizard Night. It's actually two books, and in that he liked Tolkien takes a lot from the Norse, and he has an analog to the Acier. He calls them something different, but they are basically like the Norse gods, like the one who's in charge is even called the
All Father. But there's like but there's even a recognition among them that oh we're not the top of the heap, and there's these beings above them who are essentially Judeo Christian angels, and then above them is like the most
High God. So it's like you've got the acier sort of nestled you know, between humans and angels essentially in that conception and in this kind of nested doll relationship, which is I thought was an interesting way of sort of in this fantasy universe, kind of reconciling these two different ideas, the two different cosmologies of Judeo Christian you know, cosmology and the and the Norse one.
Yeah, and even in you know, with Tolkien's mythos, you know, his valor are definitely I would say they're kind of a blend almost between this year and angels. And you know, in a in a BBC interview that he did that Tolkien did, he's asked about his religion in his world and the BBC Journal's camera who it is offhand, but says that your people never call out the names of gods. They call out like their ancestors or where they're from or something I can battle, but they never call out
the names of gods. You know, why is that? And Tolkien says that there's no place for something like Asgard in my world, and so he's kind of quick to on one hand, obviously this year are inspired by the mythology that he loved, or the Valor are inspired by
the mythology that he loved. But at the same time he sees them as something else, and so they take much more angelic kind of role there, and so he kind of conflates the two almost The Elder Scrolls in Philosophy, a six week course beginning in September twenty twenty five. I don't play many video games these days, but there are certain titles that have stuck with me, enchanting the mind of my youth and never entirely fading away. One of the chiefs among these titles is The Elder Scrolls,
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that special code for your all access pass. I hope to see you there, which it is kind of interesting that, you know, if you look at just how the mythologies were adapted from the old pagan world into like medieval Christianity, that in large part, in fact, even Plato himself did this where he would take the gods and he basically relegated them to a lower kind of position, where he basically took what we think of as the Greco Roman pantheon they're the Greek pantheon for him, and made them
like well, damons, He made them lesser beings, whereas he had something like a monotheistic creator God who is ultimately, you know, in charge of putting things into order, but
he downgrades them. And the medieval Christians larger took that position, which is why they're okay talking about, well why we still call the planets by their you know, Roman god names, because they're very much okay with that just kind of moving the context around a little bit and downgrading what it is that we're talking about.
And they kept the names of months and days. They didn't try to Christian eyes.
Them, right, They basically treated the old gods as misunderstood angelic powers don't have a seguay.
Moving to I suppose the Song of Grotty. So in this song and the poem, the Danish king Frodie acquires on a visit to Sweden two female slaves whom he takes home to grind with the magic millstone Grotty and this magic stone with millstone would grind out whatever the grinder is asking for, and so he puts these slaves to work. We find out eventually that they actually made
this thing once upon a time. Yeah, and you know, at first, they're willing to go along with whatever he tells them to do, but he just drives them too far, doesn't let them sleep. He's just so abusive and driving toward them that eventually they grind out and army to attack him. And that's where it ends anything at from this.
Yeah, I mean, just maybe maybe this is just like a lesson to not drive your slaves basically to exhaustion or death.
Yeah.
It reminds me what is it from the movie The Ten Commandments? Charlton Hessen's Moses tells Pharaoh at some point like, you know, hell, you know, well, fed slaves make many bricks, Starving slaves make nons. So I think at one point, don't they mentioned that the two women are also giantesses. Am I misremembering that.
I think that's.
Right because they mentioned giants as they're close kinsmen, right, and that they're descended from them.
Yeah, you're right.
Yeah, probably not a good idea to enslave giantesses.
But they can push a mill man, they can do it. Yeah.
Yeah, This one I think is a pretty obvious lesson in treating your people well, Like, even if you know they're they're slaves, don't don't overdo it. Don't consume them, or you turn will be consumed.
They're they're given an animal's job, you know, to turn a millstone. And so it's almost like if you degrade people in this way, it won't end well for you.
Right, And so even though they have this firm castastem, there's a clear social hierarchy that, for no other reason than just pragmatic reasons, there's a reason for the lords to treat their people well for no other reason than simply because that's going to help them to get more of what they want. I don't have anything else from this one, unless yere Okay, I think it's pretty straightforard lest on that one, all right, Next one grow his
chant to these This is what's this one? Okay, So this one is Zip Dugger is going to his dead mom to get some kind of blessing to go off on this impossible wooing mission he's been given. Is basically what's going on here.
From the you know it was. It was a later written one to try and kind of like build it up again, and I actually had some I think irish connections just in somebody like the myth mm hmm type things that was interesting.
This is the one you mentioned earlier. Andrew with the it mentions the Christian woman and stands at thirteen you know. She she's giving her son advice the U and says this eighth one, I will chant for you less to night, overtake you in the open, out on a misty path, so that it's inconceivable that she might do you harm a dead Christian woman.
I'm not really sure what to make of that, but it seems interesting. Yeah, by a dead Christian woman would pose a threat to him.
I like the imagery though, you know, less night overtake you in the open. So maybe it's this idea that like, if you're caught out in the open after dark, you could encounter like the vengeful dead or something like that. Interesting, a banshee of some kind, you know, the kind of vengeful spirit of right.
So maybe yeah, so with Christian representing a hostile spiritual power, perhaps that maybe hey, maybe Christian ghosts or something like Bookiyman to the to the north Pagans. Yeah, so she gives him all these well, she chants all these things over him that just provide different kinds of protection, very much in line with the kind of runic wisdom text
that we've seen previously. We'll just go through saying what different I don't know, different ways to get power, I guess, Yeah, I don't have anything else to say about that.
Yeah, this one's kind of just straightforward, Champion.
It's set up for the next one too, right, Yeah, because with the circular quest for the.
The rooster, right, yeah, so this is the one where Zip Dog that that P and the D right next each other, throws me off that Zip Dog finally goes off for his quest here to wed see me glowed. But he meets with this giant on the pathway and he's given yeah, the circular requests of let's see who I don't know, can you can you remember offhand what he had to do.
Here.
Yeah, it's like he needs to get into this meat hall or whatnot. But to get past the gates, he needs to give the guard dogs meat from this rooster cock. But the the only weapon that can kill the bird is I think a scythe or something, but it's in the possession of a giantess and she will only yield the weapon. Oh, because the side is inside the rooster's body.
So you and then well, you know, I was, yeah, circuit, and when I was reading this too, it reminds me of those like really strong out video game quests where you're trying to do something simple like get into a place and they're like, well, you got to get this key from this guy. Oh, I'll only give you the key if you bring me you know, twenty seven nern roots or something like that, And then you go off and do that, and then it turn out you got
to do something else. You've spent like three hours just trying to open a door.
Thomist has still burned from the one small favorite quest from Real Escape, just non stop go.
And then after all that, he just says who he is, and then we just bypassed the whole thing.
Yeah, he's like, oh, well, if you had just said so, I would, But.
I think that's what he recognizes. He's like, yeah, that's that's not gonna happen, Like it's impossible. I'm just gonna like fruit force my I have all these like all this protection on, I'll just force my way in. Yeah.
Like I get the idea that this one was written with the intent to be funny because of the absurdity of the ridiculous quest that's impossible to fulfill. And then all he had to do was say his name in the first place to get in, because yeah, I guess he's been prophesied to like come there, because the lady of the house is like, oh, is he really here? You know, like she's you know, she she almost doesn't believe that he's he's shown up.
And I thought it was in this one where it was actually in Balder's dreams with garm the dog that basically was like reminded me of the guard dog at a tumbno or whatever.
Yeah, right, definitely definitely some Cerberus vibes as well. I mean, this idea of the Underworld guard dog. But yeah, I mean, as you said that, it's like they're like prophesider they're're fated to be together. So again we get this idea that no matter how complicated things are, things are going to turn out the way that they're going to turn out, the way that they're supposed to turn out, the way that they're written to turn out, and so in the end, the norms always win.
Oh yeah, he explicitly says this is no man can overcome URD's decree, and Urge is one of the three Norns.
Right.
Right, No one can overturn Urg's decree, even if it's been shamefully laid down. And so I guess that's even It's like fate is written out, or at least revealed by the Norns, and you know, the way that it is carried out can have nobility or shame depending on how you are conducting yourself, but in the end, the end result is going to be the same.
It's like the whole time travel trope in science fiction. You know, you you'll cause the very thing you're trying to prevent, you.
Know, right, like in a Futurama where Fry becomes his own grandmother.
I was thinking of Terminator, but that.
All right, well, I guess now moving on to the last one, the waking of I'm Got I'm Gone to here, I'm gone to here. We'll get that.
This one was my favorite, and the whole book. I loved this one. It was just so I just love this idea of this girl like going to like you know, essentially converse with the spirit of her dead father and they keep you know, you know. It was it was very dramatic and you could get a lot of feel for the two characters.
You know.
Yeah, And so she's trying to if I call correctly, she's trying to get like this sword from him, right, yes, and he's very reluctant to give it to her because he says it's cursed, which also reminds me of Turin Turnbar and his her sword. And so yeah, and the whole environment is very kind of haunting here. When you see the shepherd here who's initially trying to turn her away, says foolish. Seems to me anyone who journeys here, a person alone in dark shadows of night. Flames are flickering,
the mounds are opening, solid ground and marshland burning. Let's go more swiftly. Still, it's really this just hellish kind of environment. Like the mounds are opening. It's like that the dead are coming away here. Everything's on fire, the marsh lands on fire, which when you read Beowulf, this
is basically the Grendel's Layer, you know, Grendel's mother. This, this environment is very much described this way of like burning marshland, because this brings up something like the Norse vision of hell or sort of like a haunting kind of environment. And so we see this come up even in you know, the Baywell story, which is at least culturally connected, and it.
Brings to mind the marsh fires in the dead marshes, right and all the dead you.
Know, right, same idea.
And also the barrows too, there's kind of a barrow white feel to all this. And the sword that she gets out of the mound, like the three Hobbits get their get magic swords from the mounds. I mean, I like that even her dead father understands like she shouldn't be doing this, you know, Harvore, daughter, why do you call out so risking danger runs? You are heading for a disaster, You are mad, you are out of your wits, your thinkings awry to awaken dead men. So he's like, yeah,
like don't practice necromancy, don't talk to the dead. This isn't gonna end. Well, there's nothing I could give you that is going to help you.
Huh.
Yeah.
And then.
We're told here in the intro I guess probably in the text as well, that her voard that she dresses as a man and calls herself by a man's name, her Vard, and she leads a band of vikings out and so she adopts the role of a man in order to charge off into war very aoin, you know, even changing her name to do so. And then at least tangential connection here, you've got this Aoin kind of vibe.
We also get communicating with the dead, and so you know, it's kind of there's there's some general vague connections here with that part in Lord of the Rings.
Right, I think it's easy to say that he probably liked this story.
Yeah, there's a lot.
Of a lot of stuff from here.
Oh and it even says that the sword Tearfing is a dwarf crafted weapon.
Right by Dvalin.
Oh that's right.
Yeah, yeah, And so we're continuing this theme that we've seen in a lot of the female leads of these stories, where she's doing something really rash, you're not thinking through things clearly, and that it's going to end in disaster because her father says that the sword will, if you
may believe it, destroy your kindred girl utterly. And so this quest for vengeance, for power, whatever it is that you're going to do with this is going to consume you and your kindred utterly, so like completely, which again gives me turn and turn bar vibes as well as again just continue this theme of women throwing themselves off in vengeance or passion or whatever and it not going well.
I love the ending Stanza too. You know, she's leaving the island with the sword and says to the the shade of her father, you know, may you all dwell, I'm off alway now, safe in the mound. I'll go quickly for now. I thought most of all that I was between worlds when these flames blazed all about me, the whole between worlds. Like she's in a liminal space, you know, between the world of the living and the world of the dead.
Right, and so I mean it's again a kind of descent into the underworld of sorts to recover something of desire. And before that she says when she's still trying to get the sword, she says, I determine it thus worthy dead men that you will never vanish to lie quietly dead with the ghost decaying in the mound unless you give me out of the grave the danger to shields
he Almar's killer. So say she has some kind of power over her father and her brothers, over their ghosts to decide whether or not they're going to rest in peace or not. It's like she's going to keep them from having the kind of rest that the dead should experience if they don't provide what she wants. And so again we get an application of an oath over against the dead.
Mm hmm, yeah, Like it very much left me at the end being like, well, what's the rest of that story?
Like, yeah, y'all may have already touched on this. If you did, versus so may the god then leave you safe inside of the mountain. It's like an unnamed god, which is interesting.
It definitely feel for her her dead father here, who obviously wants to protect her, but she is just intent on this quest that she's on and won't be turned away. Well, any other thoughts, questions, concerns, plans, to complete these stories, but not your ethic fan fictions.
That son is good. This is definitely it's tied in a lot to other readings already excuse the basis.
Yeah, it is good. I definitely enjoyed this, and I definitely need to return to some of the other related texts now that we've been through this, and I guessid I think more well, I'll build a hold on to more of it and sort of piece together different traditions.
I think it's really interesting. You know, we talked about I think this last time that they obviously don't have a firm canon, that we have several different traditions that sort of overlap with each other, and so it's very interesting to see which traditions emphasize different roles, different people, different actions, different virtues even, and so it's it's definitely
worth going back to some of that now. As we've talked before, I would like to, in the relatively near future, jump into the Children of Furin as sort of a follow up to this. You know, next next month we're doing a co tour series. But then after that when we get back to the text, and I think Children of Short will be the next one to go and
so hopefully you'll be able to join us again. Maybe we'll be able to pull in some others who are you know with the Tolkien connection, But otherwise I definitely appreciate you guys coming along for this journey.
Thank you.
Yeah, it's great, Pans, this is great, absolutely.
Thank you for listening. And next month we're going to be getting into our Star Wars series, which would be fun, good summer series, maybe a little bit beyond. Mark your calendars for May fourth, May the fourth, at nine pm, as we get things started with a live stream general conversation about Star Wars and of our our experience with Star Wars, our history with Star Wars, our view on sort of some broad level topics before we get into
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