thor

The Skaldic Eagle Returns to the Nordic Mythology Podcast!

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On April 28, I returned to the Nordic Mythology Podcast for the first time in two years. On this occasion, I talked about my article that identifies the Valknut as the Heart of the Slain. 😊

It runs for about 83 minutes. Now, the recording is available as episode #263 on all podcast platforms for everyone to enjoy. Ones that I have links for in this post are:

Apple Podcasts
Youtube

Note, of course, that with the Youtube version, you also get the video! It’s also available on Google Podcasts, Spotify, and various other major podcast directories. Enjoy!

Thor’s Journey to Utgard, Part 4

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I now conclude the tale of Thor’s Journey to Utgard with the final seventeen stanzas, in which all is revealed about the strange happenings in the hall of Utgardaloki. Converting this to what I call “standard lines,” it was 264 lines long. My two longest poems are 729 and 983 lines, and, shorter than this, I think my Brisingamen poem came in at 96 lines. Next month will bring a new poem of some kind. Enjoy!

The crone then came,
cracking her knuckles,
ready for the match.
The wrestling began;
Ennilang strained hard,
yet Elli stood firm,
no matter the force
his might brought forth.

Then tricks she tried
and the True One slipped;
in pulling and pushing
Continue reading →

Thor’s Journey to Utgard, Part 3

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From last month, I continue the tale of Thor’s Journey to Utgard with another sixteen stanzas, and the poem is now three-quarters finished. Next month will bring the final 17 stanzas, in which you’ll see how Thor fares against Elli, and what’s been going on the whole time with these strange contests. Enjoy!

Out to the course,
Utgardaloki
and the troop then went
to test this feat.
A lad named Hugi
lined up for the race,
lean and lanky
was this little man.

The race started,
the running was fierce,
but ahead way far
did Hugi finish.
Time he still had
for turning around
to face Thjálfi
at the finish line.

The king urged Thjálfi
to increase his effort
on a second race,
though not seen at all
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Thor’s Journey to Utgard, Part 2

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From last month, I continue the tale of Thor’s Journey to Utgard with another sixteen stanzas, and the poem is halfway finished here with 33 stanzas so far. Next month will bring part 3, in which Thor finally takes part in the games in the hall. Enjoy!

The companions agreed
and pooled their food.
Long was that day,
with lengthy strides
by Skrýmir on the way;
they scored a night-stead
under an oak tree,
and got on to supper.

The etin slept
but the others tried
to open his knapsack
to eat their dinner.
But tricky it was:
untying the knots
proved impossible,
no piece would loosen.

Then rage-filled Thor
raised his hammer,
and smashed the head
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Thor’s Journey to Utgard, Part 1

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Wassail! For the first time in a long time, I have written a mythological story poem in stanzas of fornyrðislag. As the title indicates, it’s the one where Thor visits a mysterious king named Utgardaloki and attempts some challenges within his hall. It’s the longest mythological story in Snorri’s Edda, by far, which is why I had not rushed to turn it into a poem before! My whole poem is 66 stanzas, and I’ll run it over four months, either 16 or 17 stanzas at a time. Enjoy!

Thor is mightiest
as Thunderer of the Æsir,
yet the wicked work
he once had faced
of a cunning etin’s
crafty magic.
Give now a hearing
to my noble tale.

Once at one time,
the well-bearded Thor
went driving in his chariot,
drawn by two goats,
along with Loki
on his long journey.
They arrived at evening
at a rustic farm.

Its yeoman offered
the use of his lodgings,
and Sönnung then made
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Call to Thor

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I’ve posted a call to Thor previously on this blog, but like all the other ritual calls, it was two stanzas of ljóðaháttr. (See the Minor Poems list for the rest of the calls I’ve posted so far.) Since there is a lot of surviving lore about Thor, a longer call is possible. So today I present a seven stanza ljóðaháttr call to Thor. Like much of my poetry on my blog, it will be included in my upcoming book. It is titled “Call to Thor.”

Thunderous Thor,
threat-destroyer,
Asgard’s chosen champion,
we boast of your might
and bounty of main
in the call we declare today.

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Prayers to the Gods, Part 1

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April is the time of National Poetry Writing Month (NaPoWriMo), an annual event for encouraging poets to write a poem a day for each of the 30 days of the month. It was modeled after the more famous National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo). (See the site of NaPoWriMo’s creator or the Wikipedia page for more details.)

This year, I decided to join in the fun for the first time and take up the challenge myself. I’ve resolved to write a poem each day of the month and chose to write the thirty poems with a common theme and structure. Each is a prayer to one of the gods or goddesses of Asatru, and each is exactly nine lines in the style of Anglo-Saxon continuous verse that is not broken into stanzas. (I first featured this meter over a month ago in my “Beer in Midgard” poem, and it is like my usual fornyrðislag except for the changes in line and stanza breaks.) The prayers are written in plural form, and like the Calls to the Gods on this blog, they (usually) can be changed to singular without damaging the meter or the sense. It should be noted that prayer is not a requirement in Asatru, and many (most?) Asatruar don’t pray. I think it is something that individual Asatruar can experiment with if they feel so inclined. However, beyond such brief remarks, this blog is not the place to enter into the debate on the matter.

As I prepared this post, I was halfway finished with NaPoWriMo, having written 15 poems, one on each of the first 15 days of the month. Today I present three prayers from those written so far. They are prayers to Iðunn, Thor, and Eir.
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Audio for Building Asgard’s Wall

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Today I present an audio recording of another eddic tale that I’ve set in verse. This time, it is Building Asgard’s Wall, which was posted as text last March. In this spoken version, the words are different in a few places from what I posted, and the original post has not been edited.

Here is the downloadable file of me reciting the poem:
Eirik Westcoat – Building Asgard’s Wall

And here is the inline player:

Enjoy! Feel free to share the file. For details, see the Creative Commons link below.

This post is:
Copyright © 2014 Eirik Westcoat.
All rights reserved.

The linked audio file of Building Asgard’s Wall is:
Copyright © 2014 Eirik Westcoat.
Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives License.

The Duel, Part 2

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Concluding from last week, here are the final ten stanzas of “The Duel.”

Some of you may be wondering what Mokkurkalfi is doing in this tale. His presence probably strikes modern readers as a bit weird. Also peculiar is the emphasis that Snorri seems to put on the hearts of Hrungnir and Mokkurkalfi. There are perhaps some initiatory themes at work here, but whatever such strange details might mean, I prefer to keep them in rather than remove them out of a lack of understanding. The lore contains many mysteries, and we cannot learn from them if we start throwing them out simply because they don’t make sense at our current levels of understanding. But enough of the soapbox, here’s the rest of the poem.

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The Duel, Part 1

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I present another poetic rendering of a prose tale from the lore. It is the story of the first (and probably last) giant to challenge Thor to a formal duel, and it has several things in common with the last Thor story I posted three months ago about his visit to Geirrod (part 1 and part 2). Just like that tale, Snorri presents in it prose with many details, and he also quotes from a difficult skaldic poem that mentions the story as well. (The skaldic poem is Haustlöng by Þjóðólfr of Hvinir.)

Rather than a difficult skaldic meter, I have written my retelling in 20 stanzas of my usual and more accessible fornyrðislag. The spellings have been anglicized throughout. It is well known that Odin has many different names in the lore; less well known is that Thor also has many names, although not as many as Odin, of course. The reader will see quite a few of those names in this poem. Like the previous Thor tale, I present the first half here today, and the second half will follow next Wednesday. The poem’s title is simply “The Duel.”

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