Quote from Norse Mythology

Norse Mythology

by Neil Gaiman

W.W. Norton & Company, New York and London, 2017.   299 pp.

Maybe you'd like to brush up on some world mythology for your summer reading? Gaiman's version of the ancient Prose Edda and Poetic Edda is a fun choice.

"Before the beginning there was nothing--no earth, no heavens, no stars, no sky: only the mist world, formless and shapeless, and the fire world, always burning.

To the north was Niflheim, the dark world. Here eleven poisonous rivers cut through the mist, each springing from the same well at the center of it all, the roaring maelstrom called Hvergelmir.  Niflheim was colder than cold, and the murky mist that cloaked everything hung heavily. The skies were hidden by mist and the ground was clouded by the chilly fog.

To the south was Muspell. Muspell was fire. Everything there glowed and burned. Muspell was light where Niflheim was gray, molten lava where the mist world was frozen. The land was aflame with the roaring heat of a blacksmith's fire; there was no solid earth, no sky. Nothing but sparks and spurting heat, molten rocks and burning embers.

In Muspell, at the edge of the flame, where the mist burns into light, where the land ends, stood Surtr, who existed before the gods. He stands there now. He holds a flaming sword, and the bubbling lava and the freezing mist are as one to him.

It is said that at Ragnarok, which is the end of the world, and only then, Surtr will leave his station."  (pp. 29-30)

"Thialfi and his sister, Roskva, lived with their father, Egil, and their mother on a farm at the edge of the wild country. Beyond their farm were monsters and giants and wolves, and many times Thialfi walked into trouble and had to outrun it. He could run faster than anyone or anything. Living at the edge of the wild country meant that Thailfi and Roskva were used to miracles and strange things happening in the world.

Nothing as strange, however, as the day that two visitors from Asgard, Loki and Thor, arrived at their farm in a chariot pulled by two huge goats, whom Thor called Snarler and Grinder. The gods expected lodging for the night, and food. The gods were huge and powerful.

'We have no food for the likes of you,' said Roskva apologetically. 'We have vegetables, but it's been a hard winter, and we don't even have any chickens left.'

Thor grunted. Then he took his. . . "  (p. 155)

-- quote submitted by Jennifer Knight