PENGUIN BOOKS THE PENGUIN BOOK OF NORSE MYTHS Kevin Crossley-Holland was educated at Bryanston School and St Edmund Hall, Oxford. He was Gregory Fellow in Poetry at the University of Leeds from 1969 to 1971, editorial director of Victor Gollancz (1972– 7) and Lecturer in Anglo-Saxon Literature and Culture for the Tufts University London program, from its inception in 1967 until 1978. He has recently returned from Minnesota, where he was Fulbright Visiting Scholar at St Olaf College (1990) and Endowed Chair in the Humanities and Fine Arts at the University of St Thomas (1991–5). His translations of Old English poetry are brought together in The Anglo- Saxon World (1982), and he has also translated The Exeter Book Riddles for Penguin Classics (revised edition, 1993). His publications include six volumes of poetry, the most recent being The Language of Yes (1996), and two anthologies: The Oxford Book of Travel Verse (1986) and Folk Tales of the British Isles (1986). His books for children include Beowulf (1982), British Folk Tales (1987) and Storm, which was awarded the Carnegie Medal for 1985. Crossley-Holland has collaborated with a number of composers, including Sir Arthur Bliss, William Mathias and Nicola LeFanu, with whom he has written two operas, The Green Children and The Wildman. Kevin Crossley-Holland has two adult sons and two young daughters, and he lives in Norfolk. The Penguin Book of Norse Myths Gods of the Vikings Introduced and retold by Kevin Crossley-Holland PENGUIN BOOKS PENGUIN BOOKS Published by the Penguin Group Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England Penguin Putnam Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA Penguin Books Australia Ltd, 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia Penguin Books Canada Ltd, 10 Alcorn Avenue, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4V 3B2 Penguin Books India (P) Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi – 110 017, India Penguin Books (NZ) Ltd, Cnr Rosedale and Airborne Roads, Albany, Auckland, New Zealand Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank 2196, South Africa Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England www.penguin.com First published by André Deutsch Ltd 1980 Published in Penguin Books as The Norse Myths 1982 Reprinted under the present title 1993 18 Copyright © Kevin Crossley-Holland, 1980 All rights reserved Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser ISBN: 978-0-14-193741-0 for my mother Contents Acknowledgments Introduction The Norse World Cosmology The Pantheon Sources The Literary Structure of the Myths Approach THE MYTHS 1 The Creation 2 The War of the Aesir and Vanir 3 The Building of Asgard’s Wall 4 Lord of the Gallows 5 The Song of Rig 6 The Mead of Poetry 7 Loki’s Children and the Binding of Fenrir 8 The Theft of Idun’s Apples 9 The Marriage of Njord and Skadi 10 The Treasures of the Gods 11 Skirnir’s Journey 12 The Lay of Grimnir 13 The Necklace of the Brisings 14 The Lay of Thrym 15 The Lay of Vafthrudnir 16 Thor’s Journey to Utgard 17 The Lay of Hymir 18 Hyndla’s Poem 19 Thor’s Duel with Hrungnir 20 Odin and Billing’s Daughter 21 Gylfi and Gefion 22 The Lay of Harbard 23 The Ballad of Svipdag 24 Thor and Geirrod 25 The Lay of Loddfafnir 26 Otter’s Ransom 27 The Lay of Alvis 28 Balder’s Dreams 29 The Death of Balder 30 Loki’s Flyting 31 The Binding of Loki 32 Ragnarok Notes Glossary Bibliography Index Fearlessness is better than a faint-heart for any man who puts his nose out of doors. The length of my life and the day of my death were fated long ago. Anonymous lines from For Scirnis They say miracles are past, and we have our philosophical persons, to make modern and familiar, things supernatural and causeless. Hence is it, that we make trifles of terrors, ensconcing ourselves into seeming knowledge, when we should submit ourselves to an unknown fear. William Shakespeare, All’s Well That Ends Well, II, iii, 1–6 I think Scandinavian Paganism, to us here, is more interesting than any other. It is, for one thing, the latest; it continued in these regions of Europe till the eleventh century; 800 years ago the Norwegians were still worshippers of Odin. It is interesting also as the creed of our fathers; the men whose blood still runs in our veins, whom doubtless we still resemble in so many ways. Thomas Carlyle