Speaker 1: Hey, friends, Andrew here, I hope you had a good
Speaker 1: Christmas and that you're having a good new start to
Speaker 1: the new year, or maybe that it's a start to
Speaker 1: the new year to be good on or something like that.
Speaker 1: Things have been crazy busy for me at the moment.
Speaker 1: I've been working on my book. I've been getting ready
Speaker 1: for the new semester that just full of classes across
Speaker 1: three different universities, and the Lord of the Rings class
Speaker 1: that I'm leading through Patreon and Patia starts on Monday,
Speaker 1: and so there is so much going on as that
Speaker 1: it always seems to be well. For now, I'm going
Speaker 1: to bring you the next of our Fellowship chats on
Speaker 1: the Poetic Eda, or the Elder Eda as it's sometimes called,
Speaker 1: And as a reminder, this was previously posted to the
Speaker 1: Fellowship podcast, but I'm in the process of consolidating both
Speaker 1: shows into this one, and after this conversation, we're going
Speaker 1: to be up to speed on the edit chats up
Speaker 1: to this point, likely with a new one coming next week.
Speaker 1: And after that I'm going to be dropping in some
Speaker 1: more of the Fellowship content whenever I have gaps over here.
Speaker 1: But first, as a quick reminder, I very much welcome
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Speaker 1: and Philosophy of CS Lewis Course, which is twenty something
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Speaker 1: can join the live Lord of the Ring study that's
Speaker 1: beginning January fifth, and if you're listening to this late,
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Speaker 1: week includes two videos, one shorter that provides some kind
Speaker 1: of philosophical, theological, literary, biographical, or low context. It's kind
Speaker 1: of the wildcard video just hits on some angle that
Speaker 1: is directly related to that reading, and then you also
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Speaker 1: to see you there, but for now, I hope that
Speaker 1: you enjoy this conversation on the poetic da Hello and
Speaker 1: welcome to the Mythic Mind Fellowship podcast. I'm your host,
Speaker 1: Andrew Snyder, and I warmly welcome you around our heart. Now,
Speaker 1: before we get started, I want to let you know
Speaker 1: about some things. So I've decided that, at least for
Speaker 1: the moment, I don't really have very good justification for
Speaker 1: having two separate Mythic Mind podcast feeds and say earliest
Speaker 1: on the public level, and so I'm good to start
Speaker 1: to move some content from here over to the main
Speaker 1: show that is the Mythic Mind Legacy Podcast. Now, the
Speaker 1: odds are pretty high that if you sub to the
Speaker 1: Fellowship show, you already sub to the Legacy show as well,
Speaker 1: but make sure that you do. If that's not already
Speaker 1: the case, and if you're currently listening to this on
Speaker 1: the Legacy Podcast, then just keep doing what you're doing now.
Speaker 1: I do have some ideas for the Fellowship Show down
Speaker 1: the Road, and so don't delete it from your library,
Speaker 1: but you also should not expect it to be updated
Speaker 1: for a while. So again, for the foreseeable future, you
Speaker 1: can expect everything to come through one podcast, that is
Speaker 1: the Mythic Mind Legacy Podcast. Now for our monthly patron Chat,
Speaker 1: we're continuing to work through the poetic edit together, and
Speaker 1: I should begin by apologizing for my part in this,
Speaker 1: as I'm still coming off of a cold that hit
Speaker 1: my lungs pretty hard and so I was not at
Speaker 1: my a game during this conversation, resulting in more mispronunciations
Speaker 1: than is typical, even of some fairly familiar terms. I
Speaker 1: just had a hard time get some words out and
Speaker 1: I cough into the mic a few times, and I
Speaker 1: do apologize for that, but without aside, let's go ahead
Speaker 1: and get to it, all right, Welcome back to our
Speaker 1: Mythic Mind patron chats as we deal with the poetic
Speaker 1: EDA continue to work through that piece by piece, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna hit the next four sections this round now as
Speaker 1: a reminder, we are all amateurs here kind of going
Speaker 1: down the rapids with our homemade rafts, and but it's
Speaker 1: I think it's been a good run so far, and
Speaker 1: I'm really joining the conversations that are coming out of this.
Speaker 1: But before we get into the main topic, I want
Speaker 1: us to start just going around each time and filling
Speaker 1: each other in, filling the listeners in on whatever we
Speaker 1: have going on. And so if we're making something, if
Speaker 1: we're just reading something, thinking about something, listening to something,
Speaker 1: just something that's going on in your life, just give
Speaker 1: some kind of update, Josh, what do you have for us?
Speaker 2: Yeah, So I'm Josh. I'm a student at Memorial College
Speaker 2: right now, actually in the Masters of Arts Great Books programs.
Speaker 2: So basically in the class I'm in right now, we're
Speaker 2: reading either part of or an entire like great text
Speaker 2: a week. Most of those are short enough where it's
Speaker 2: not too crazy to read in a week, but basically
Speaker 2: writing on those like roughly once a week and then
Speaker 2: for a final paper doing something with trying to do
Speaker 2: something with kind of like just like the Mystery of
Speaker 2: Providence as a theme in Oedipus Rex right now, So
Speaker 2: just kind of consulting some scholarship and figuring out more
Speaker 2: specifically what direction to go in that, like what part
Speaker 2: of the text I'm going to talk about with that,
Speaker 2: and then also working on a seven Ecumenical Councils class
Speaker 2: that I'm working with my pastor on that to teach
Speaker 2: it at our church to mostly only people who don't
Speaker 2: really even know what like the Patristic era of church
Speaker 2: history is. So the challenge of being like, how you know,
Speaker 2: how specific or how general to go with that. So
Speaker 2: basically that's what I'm working on right now.
Speaker 1: Look, it's fantastic, that's definitely much needed. I used to
Speaker 1: teach at a classical Christian high school and for I
Speaker 1: think it was tenth maybe eleventh grade, eleventh grade, it
Speaker 1: was systematic theology. And basically the way I did that
Speaker 1: was by primarily focusing on the Ecumenical Councils to really
Speaker 1: get at sort of the way court you know, mere Christianity,
Speaker 1: essential Christian orthodoxy, how the ideas came together and you know,
Speaker 1: the heresies that were dealt with and the way that
Speaker 1: they present themselves today in ways that you know, the
Speaker 1: lay person very often is even going to recognize. And
Speaker 1: so I think that dealing with that early church period,
Speaker 1: it's just it's so important and so ever applicable. So
Speaker 1: that's that's fantastic that you're doing that.
Speaker 3: Absolutely excited about it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, good, Jase. What's something you have going on?
Speaker 4: Yeah? Right now, I'm back up in the Dallas area
Speaker 4: with my family, So I brought a bunch of books
Speaker 4: up to read. We have a guy from my church
Speaker 4: found out that I was. I was taking these classes
Speaker 4: and I was reading a lot of stuff, and he
Speaker 4: invited me to I guess him. Buddies have met for
Speaker 4: twenty years in a group called like the I guess
Speaker 4: it's the Anatheo. So all right, yeah, but it's a
Speaker 4: they go through like a book of months. So this
Speaker 4: next book is The Way of All Flash by Samuel Butler,
Speaker 4: which I had never heard of.
Speaker 1: But we'll see.
Speaker 4: So working through that one and then I'm going to
Speaker 4: jump into the Aliad shortly.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you you definitely need to produce something out there,
Speaker 1: make a podcast. You've been reading a lot of really
Speaker 1: good stuff recently. Yeah, even even beyond this uff we've
Speaker 1: been doing together. So that's that's fantastic that you've been
Speaker 1: doing all that. Yeah, and then on my end, I
Speaker 1: did just get confirmation that next week I should get
Speaker 1: an official offer for a book deal, so hopefully we
Speaker 1: get my book out there in the near future. So
Speaker 1: that's that's exciting. And then I've been making some progress
Speaker 1: on in the screenplay that I've been invited to collaborate on,
Speaker 1: which is just awesome that like, that's not something even
Speaker 1: a year ago was even on my radar. And then
Speaker 1: suddenly I get this invitation and you know, I've talked
Speaker 1: about that some in the discords. You put more information,
Speaker 1: become a patron, but otherwise definitely excited about the potential
Speaker 1: that's that's there. Just you never know where the road's
Speaker 1: going to take you. All right, Well, I guess we
Speaker 1: can go ahead and dive into this, starting with let
Speaker 1: see him Near's poem, all right, so I will read
Speaker 1: at least some of the introduction, maybe all of it
Speaker 1: provided by Larrington here, so that way we all have
Speaker 1: a general sense of what it is that we're dealing with.
Speaker 1: And so Humanar's poem or he Miskvida is a badly
Speaker 1: preserved is badly preserved in the manuscript but we can
Speaker 1: fill in the gaps from Snorri Snorri Stroulsen, who give
Speaker 1: us the proseetta. And so this is a difficult poem
Speaker 1: or difficult poem, yeah, text to work with. I was
Speaker 1: listening to Jack Crawford talk about this. Jack Crawford, who's
Speaker 1: an Old Norse specialist, and he has his own translation
Speaker 1: of the Atom, and he even said that this is
Speaker 1: just a notoriously difficult text to work together because it's
Speaker 1: it's likely that we have some fragments. We have sections
Speaker 1: of like the story from an old time mixed in
Speaker 1: with some updates, and so it's not entirely consistent. It
Speaker 1: kind of seems like some of the characters were swept
Speaker 1: out or were swapped out, and so you know Thor
Speaker 1: his companion in the story, is Tear, but it kind
Speaker 1: of seems like maybe it was Loki at some point,
Speaker 1: maybe somebody else. And so this just across the border.
Speaker 1: It's difficult to figure out exactly what is that we're
Speaker 1: dealing with. But the gods decide to have a feast
Speaker 1: and they compel the giant eg gear to prepare it.
Speaker 1: This may reflect the Scandinavian royal practices in which the
Speaker 1: king enforces his authority on its subordinates by visiting their
Speaker 1: homes and demanding to be feasted. Cunningly, Egger demands an
Speaker 1: enormous cauldron in Whish to brew beer for the feast.
Speaker 1: This can only be obtained with great danger from the
Speaker 1: giant him here Tier, who was probably not the original
Speaker 1: protagonist of the poem, and Thor set off to obtain
Speaker 1: the cauldron, and like most encounters between Thor and the giants,
Speaker 1: the adventure turns into a trial of strength. And so
Speaker 1: that's really the gist of the story, so that they're
Speaker 1: going off to get this giant beer cauldron from this giant.
Speaker 1: So what do we think about this text?
Speaker 2: I think you were definitely it made me feel a
Speaker 2: lot better when you kind of started this off to
Speaker 2: say that this would be a difficult thing to because I
Speaker 2: felt like I had a lot more to say about
Speaker 2: the first probably two or three texts within the poet.
Speaker 3: They eat itself.
Speaker 2: But it almost seems like, I guess like there's the
Speaker 2: kind of this recurring theme in Norse mythology of kind
Speaker 2: of it's like this right of the strongest, and it
Speaker 2: seems like that's probably in a sense like what's what's
Speaker 2: being shown like just like with like I guess like
Speaker 2: Thor's arc, if anything in this in this text.
Speaker 3: I'm exactly sure.
Speaker 2: But beyond that, maybe like hospitality, I guess in some
Speaker 2: ways you could like argue that would be a theme
Speaker 2: in some ways. But yeah, other than that, it's kind
Speaker 2: of hard to pin down exactly like any other like
Speaker 2: higher purpose in a sense.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we do see that even the humor, even he
Speaker 1: this this giant that they came to get the cultron from,
Speaker 1: show some degree of hospitality to Thor and tear here
Speaker 1: in that Thor like basically eat all this stuff, like
Speaker 1: all of its animals, and so then they have to
Speaker 1: go fishing in order to get more food. But then
Speaker 1: even that turns into essentially contest of strength in the
Speaker 1: the game that they're hunting. I don't know, Chase, do
Speaker 1: you have anything to say about this poem?
Speaker 4: Yeah, I will say I liked the the vocabulary for
Speaker 4: a beard the cheek forest. I think that's I I
Speaker 4: thought it was interesting where it talked about like the
Speaker 4: giant is walking across the floor like he saw that
Speaker 4: they so like they recognize who Thor is that slays
Speaker 4: the giants and a lot of battles. Yeah, it's hard
Speaker 4: to kind of tell exactly what it is like. At
Speaker 4: the end, it almost seems like it's like a caper,
Speaker 4: almost like they just came and stole like the butt,
Speaker 4: and he's running out with it and he has to
Speaker 4: turn around and kill all the giants.
Speaker 1: I don't know, right, despite the fact that he wanted,
Speaker 1: you know, he wanted the fair square, and so it
Speaker 1: was given to him. And there's some female giant who
Speaker 1: helps him by telling him. So, okay, to backtrack a
Speaker 1: little bit. So Hemyr and Thor are fishing together because
Speaker 1: I don't know, I guess they're buddies now, I don't know,
Speaker 1: so he mayor the giant. He catches two whales, which
Speaker 1: I mean, that's pretty impressive to go fishing and to
Speaker 1: catch a couple of whales. And then Thor goes fishing
Speaker 1: and he catches the midguard serpent urban gunder, you know,
Speaker 1: the serpent that stretches across the entire world. So that's
Speaker 1: what Thor catches. And in the pros added there's a
Speaker 1: version of the story that has some more details in it.
Speaker 1: When he pulls up the midguard serpent and he's about
Speaker 1: to like smash it with his hammer, and then he
Speaker 1: here he cuts the line because he gets scared about
Speaker 1: what's going on, so he cuts the line, which then
Speaker 1: causes the serpent to go back into the water and
Speaker 1: kind of go back down to the depths where he lives.
Speaker 1: And then Thor gets really mad at him here and
Speaker 1: throws him overboard and essentially kills him in this story,
Speaker 1: in the Snory's version of the story, And of course
Speaker 1: Thor to get angry about that, because the Midguard serpent
Speaker 1: is what's going to kill Thor at Ragnarok, and so,
Speaker 1: you know, Thor, I guess thought maybe he had a
Speaker 1: chance at fighting fate at this point, but of course
Speaker 1: that's not how fate works. That's kind of an interesting factor,
Speaker 1: and that's something that I guess I appreciate about a
Speaker 1: lot of these Norse tales. This is especially true of
Speaker 1: odin that he's always going about trying to fight fate.
Speaker 1: You know, he's trying to discover something about Ragnarok. We've
Speaker 1: seen that in several of the texts that we've been
Speaker 1: studying so far, where he wants some wisdom, some power
Speaker 1: in order to fight the fate that awaits him. His
Speaker 1: inevitable death at the Twilight of the Gods during Ragnarok.
Speaker 1: In fact, it's kind of interesting, you know. I recently,
Speaker 1: in teaching Beowulf to my students on campus, when we
Speaker 1: got to the section with Bewolf and unforth, who are
Speaker 1: you fighting against each other? With their little debate, I
Speaker 1: brought in Harvard's song, which is low key in Odin
Speaker 1: their debate. Brought them as a parallel, and you know,
Speaker 1: I got into a little bit more and thora a
Speaker 1: couple of times kind of chies Odin for always starring
Speaker 1: up conflicts, and that's because Odin does that in order
Speaker 1: to get great warriors to fight each other, so the
Speaker 1: way they die, that way he can bolster his ranks,
Speaker 1: you know, at Ragnarok. And so the gods, especially Odin,
Speaker 1: they're they're always trying to fight against this fate, this
Speaker 1: inevitable doom that's awaiting them. But of course they can't
Speaker 1: do that, because one thing that's unique about the North
Speaker 1: Mythos that even the gods are subject to fate and
Speaker 1: they simply can't escape that. I just I don't find
Speaker 1: that find that interesting. And also there's this mention that
Speaker 1: the Midguard serpent is the brother of the wolf, which
Speaker 1: according to the notes here is Fenrier, who is the
Speaker 1: wolf that's going to kill Odin, And so Fenrier and
Speaker 1: the Midguard Serpent are siblings, which I'm not quite sure
Speaker 1: how that works.
Speaker 3: Do you know that history behind that?
Speaker 1: Not entirely, especially since I know that Fenrier is actually
Speaker 1: Loki's child.
Speaker 2: They actually all are like so Orman Gander, Fenry or
Speaker 2: and then Hell like the goddess of the underworld.
Speaker 3: Like basically I think this is in the prose Ead
Speaker 3: as well.
Speaker 2: It's certainly in other sources, but there's a story where
Speaker 2: basically Loki has an affair with the Giantess and Gribbida,
Speaker 2: and like these three children are kind of like these
Speaker 2: abominable like a cursed offspring from this this sort of
Speaker 2: relationship with the Giantess, and that like results in these
Speaker 2: three beings that are like technically his children. But then
Speaker 2: you know, of course they all have like some sort
Speaker 2: of eschatological significance as well, as you had mentioned previously,
Speaker 2: especially with Jorman Gonder. So that's like the sourcing of
Speaker 2: all of these. It's certainly in like the in like
Speaker 2: what I've read, I'm not sure if there's any like
Speaker 2: conflicting uh, any like primary sources that have like conflicting
Speaker 2: narratives of that, but that's like the primary one I've seen.
Speaker 1: That's it's interesting. I don't really have a much to
Speaker 1: work with this, but the first parallel that comes to
Speaker 1: my mind is in Paradise Lost, Milton has Satan basically
Speaker 1: relate himself to his own pride, and that gives birth
Speaker 1: to this chaos monstrosity that is at the gates of Hell.
Speaker 1: And I don't know, I almost I think of some
Speaker 1: kind of parallelism here of this chaos, this unnatural union.
Speaker 1: You know. Even Loki he's kind of amorphous sexually, like
Speaker 1: sometimes he even takes the role of a female and
Speaker 1: actually gives birth to things himself. So this is all
Speaker 1: kinds of like chaos imagery wrapped up in the very
Speaker 1: person of Loki. I really don't have any point to
Speaker 1: make with any of this, but it's just uh, but
Speaker 1: I guess that's the point of chaos.
Speaker 3: I don't know, Yeah, that's an interesting parallel.
Speaker 2: I just have to think about that more before i'd
Speaker 2: commented on it, but I definitely, uh, it's an interesting
Speaker 2: peril with like Paradise Loss there, So I'm going to
Speaker 2: look into that one more.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I definitely anything worked out on that.
Speaker 4: It's just interesting that like through his affair there's like
Speaker 4: two god ending basically monsters in your role in the
Speaker 4: world Serpent taken out.
Speaker 1: In H four, Right, I don't know what happens to
Speaker 1: lookia Rackenrock. Does he die? Okay, I know not all
Speaker 1: the gods die.
Speaker 3: I'm trying to remember like if he's.
Speaker 2: I believe, yeah, he like basically ends up in like
Speaker 2: hell or the underworld. But yeah, before I want to
Speaker 2: make that coy and I would definitely have to like
Speaker 2: go lookt into that. But that's I read like a
Speaker 2: lot of like these like both both Greek like Greco
Speaker 2: Roman like Norse mythology. Ever, like the stories and like
Speaker 2: different like forms and like the books is like a teenager,
Speaker 2: but even those you're never sure like how much some
Speaker 2: like modern fantasy authors is kind of like taking like
Speaker 2: creative freedom and just like riffing off of the iris sources.
Speaker 2: So yeah, I'm like, I'm I'm trying to remember, like
Speaker 2: that was like different in different versions and like but yeah,
Speaker 2: I'm not.
Speaker 3: Exactly sure which.
Speaker 2: Like what like the original U or the really the
Speaker 2: canonical per se fate of like Loki would be in that.
Speaker 2: I know, like obviously like Balder is like ripborn and
Speaker 2: that's kind of like the big like almost like crystological
Speaker 2: symbol in a sense with with a lot of this.
Speaker 2: But yeah, I'm pretty sure that Loki does does like
Speaker 2: kind of like end up in the underworld basically.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I just did a quick Google search and says,
Speaker 1: LOOKI dies in battle with heim dollar Pindal in Ragnarok,
Speaker 1: and so yeah, so he dies in battle. Although it
Speaker 1: is interesting and this comes this is reference in one
Speaker 1: of the other texts that we look at. The actually
Speaker 1: the next text that LOOKI is the one who keeps
Speaker 1: Balder from coming back basically shortly after he dies. But
Speaker 1: I guess we can get back to that in a
Speaker 1: little bit, right And then and Chase mentioned that at
Speaker 1: the ending it's a little bit haphazard because so they
Speaker 1: do this swimming or this not swimming competition that's Beywolf.
Speaker 1: They do this fishing competition. And then you know, Thor
Speaker 1: is bragging about how great he is, and the Giant says, no,
Speaker 1: you're not. If you were that you know, great and
Speaker 1: that strong, you could break this special goblet of mind.
Speaker 1: This chalice, which is like unbreakable. But then this giantess
Speaker 1: for some reason helps Thor out by telling him that
Speaker 1: he can't break it if he breaks it on Humer's head.
Speaker 1: So he breaks it on his head, and then he's
Speaker 1: allowed to take the cauldron. But then apparently he's a
Speaker 1: deal with giants nonetheless, excuse me, and then his Thor's
Speaker 1: goat collapsed because of a curse from Loki, who is
Speaker 1: just now mentioned for the first time of this poem,
Speaker 1: which again kind of hints that there are some fragments
Speaker 1: of older versions of the story that are thrown in here.
Speaker 1: But it's interesting that so Odin, you know, he has
Speaker 1: these goats that you know, pull them around, which you know,
Speaker 1: they show up very annoyingly. That in the Marvel movie
Speaker 1: the latest one to Thor hit his goats, and these
Speaker 1: are special goats and you can kill them and even
Speaker 1: eat them, and then they resurrect the next day. But
Speaker 1: apparently another version of the story, Loki say, get somebody
Speaker 1: to break the bone and eat the marrow out, which
Speaker 1: then causes the the goat to be lain when it resurrects,
Speaker 1: And so that's how we get to this cursed goat
Speaker 1: that collapses half dead all of a sudden. I don't know,
Speaker 1: all right, anything else to say about Humor's poem.
Speaker 2: This is a super like random off the wall like
Speaker 2: thought that probably means absolutely nothing. But in the eighth
Speaker 2: stance of the poem, it just it talks about the
Speaker 2: lad found his grandmother very ugly. She seemed to him
Speaker 2: nine hundred had nine hundred heads she had. And so
Speaker 2: I'm almost like throwing out like just like a random
Speaker 2: number like nine hundred that's supposed to be like like
Speaker 2: less literal and more like symbolic, or is it supposed
Speaker 2: to be more of like a historical report where it's like,
Speaker 2: this is like about nine hundred, like I because you know,
Speaker 2: I think often it's like in the categories of like
Speaker 2: Jewish apocalyptic literature, like you know, the Book of Enoch,
Speaker 2: or like obviously like Zechariah and like Revelation, where like
Speaker 2: that numbers a lot of times correlate to some to
Speaker 2: some other meaning other than some mere historic historic narrative reporting.
Speaker 2: And I don't know if anybody has any thoughts of
Speaker 2: that or if that's making any sense, but I was
Speaker 2: curious if you think there's actually a significance to like
Speaker 2: numbers like that being reported, or if there's any way
Speaker 2: of even telling that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, given the genre of literature or dealing with,
Speaker 1: I can only assume it's symbolic. I mean, I have
Speaker 1: no idea about old Norse numerology, so I can't really
Speaker 1: comment on this specifically, but I can only assume that
Speaker 1: it's symbolic. And that's another reason why we have reason
Speaker 1: to think that Tira was probably not the original companion,
Speaker 1: and that here is said that his descendant or that
Speaker 1: he comes from giants. You know, he's the one who
Speaker 1: said that, you know, my father, this giant has this
Speaker 1: great cauldron, which his father is not supposed to be
Speaker 1: a giant. And so there's definitely some mishmashing of stories
Speaker 1: going on here with his ugly grandmother with nine hundred heads. Great.
Speaker 2: Yeah, like I said, it super super off the wall
Speaker 2: idea there. I'd be curious if there's any way to
Speaker 2: look into that. But yeah, I'd just be curious. I
Speaker 2: think if I almost like the number like one thousand
Speaker 2: and like you know a lot of like biblical categories
Speaker 2: and equating to like just many, I'm wondering if it's
Speaker 2: anything similar to that.
Speaker 3: But yeah, I have no idea either.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no idea, no idea. All right, well, I guess
Speaker 1: moving on to Loki's Quarrel, which is the next one
Speaker 1: or Lucas Sina. Now, in this one, basically the gods
Speaker 1: are having this great feast drinking party and Loki isn't invited,
Speaker 1: and so then he crashes the party and be just
Speaker 1: good one by one calling him all cowards and perverts.
Speaker 1: So but what what great insights do we have from
Speaker 1: Loki's Quarrel?
Speaker 2: I think one thing I read that was interesting in
Speaker 2: the I mean, like this edition of the text was
Speaker 2: that it says the poem maybe early and thus the
Speaker 2: composition of a poet who believes in the divinities he
Speaker 2: brolesques a little comedy cannot hurt the divinities whose cults
Speaker 2: is secure, or it may be late in the mockery
Speaker 2: be directed by a Christian poet at Heathen he the
Speaker 2: divinities whose immortality can trasts with the stern morality of
Speaker 2: the new religion. So obviously, without digging into the scholarship,
Speaker 2: it'd be hard to like form an opinion on.
Speaker 3: Whether this was earlier or later.
Speaker 2: But yeah, I always wonder, like with these kind of
Speaker 2: stories like how much like the Christian themes and even
Speaker 2: like kind of like the way Loki is treating the
Speaker 2: gods is more like anthropomorphic in a sense rather than
Speaker 2: being closer to something like transcendent or celestial, if that
Speaker 2: like if that is uh like just kind of like
Speaker 2: poking at like them being like lesser beings than like
Speaker 2: the true like Christian God, or if it's really just
Speaker 2: Loki kind of being Loki and just being the cunning
Speaker 2: trickster and smoking fun at people in a sense. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I'm not sure on that one, but I'm curious if
Speaker 2: you guys have thoughts.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I don't know. It's interesting to think about. Ah,
Speaker 4: I love this Loki. He just makes me think of
Speaker 4: Michael Scott saying boom roasted after every one of these,
Speaker 4: because everyone is a response to somebody, and it's just
Speaker 4: I could see if they did, like the Marvel Loki
Speaker 4: would be coming from something like this, you know, like
Speaker 4: this one where it's actually just kind of poking fun
Speaker 4: or cleverly going back against him.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it is I'm hard to say, especially if
Speaker 1: none of us are experts on the scholarship on this
Speaker 1: text that I I mean, one hand, assuming this was
Speaker 1: an older story actually originally written by a pagan who
Speaker 1: believed in the gods. Even still, like the pagan poets
Speaker 1: don't usually believe that they're simply recording actual history. I mean,
Speaker 1: how would they know about the actual historical ongoings in
Speaker 1: Asgard And so, you know, they're still working within the
Speaker 1: realm of imagination, and so it would take I think
Speaker 1: quite a degree of I don't know if it's confidence, courage,
Speaker 1: arrogance whatever to write, you know, these attacks coming from
Speaker 1: the mouth of Loki against the gods, because I mean,
Speaker 1: they do get right to it, of your coward or
Speaker 1: you're sleeping around everyone and you're a pervert, or like
Speaker 1: they really go after the immorality of the gods. Not Likewise,
Speaker 1: we could also see this coming from maybe a Christian
Speaker 1: poet who's trying to demonstrate the fact that these are
Speaker 1: not God's worth serving. And so it's I mean, I
Speaker 1: could see it coming from either way. I think the
Speaker 1: introduction made sense on that now also that I do
Speaker 1: appreciate this kind of the rhythm that goes at this,
Speaker 1: you know, as Chase is saying that the boom roasted
Speaker 1: thing that uh, you know, he wrote to somebody and
Speaker 1: then like somebody else will speak up in their defense,
Speaker 1: and then he turns to them, I know, someone else
Speaker 1: speaks up in their defense, and they basically keeps going
Speaker 1: with this, with Loki acting as the dialogue partner to
Speaker 1: essentially everybody's going around in a sequential manner. Here also
Speaker 1: we get another talkien lift here with Mirkwood's that's a
Speaker 1: good find.
Speaker 4: I did see that those. I told my brother that
Speaker 4: right when I read it school.
Speaker 1: Yeah, anything else from Loki's.
Speaker 3: Quarrel I didn't have a thought on.
Speaker 2: Like the eleventh stanza down there where it says it says,
Speaker 2: hail to the se Or, hails the sci Or and
Speaker 2: all the most sacred gods, except for that one god
Speaker 2: who sits further in Broggy on the benches. And I
Speaker 2: looked at the footnotes, and it kind of makes a
Speaker 2: claim that the one who sits further in is implying
Speaker 2: an or symbolic of like a place of higher honor
Speaker 2: in a sense. And so that made me think, is
Speaker 2: there any way in which this text could be implying that,
Speaker 2: you know, Broggy, like the the god of like this,
Speaker 2: the god of like scaldic poetry, per se, Could that
Speaker 2: be making a cooim potentially that like the art and
Speaker 2: like virtue of this form of poetry is like the
Speaker 2: highest of all values in that culture in some sense,
Speaker 2: or maybe the highest of values in this context. I'm
Speaker 2: not sure, Like it's like making like a distinction there
Speaker 2: of Broggy being in that specific place. I'm wondering if
Speaker 2: it has anything to do with that specifically.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and so, I mean, I can't really speak to
Speaker 1: why he would be in the seat of honor to
Speaker 1: begin with, but it does seem like Loki is elevating
Speaker 1: him for the purpose of knocking him down right, that
Speaker 1: Loki is pointing to the fact that, yes, you you
Speaker 1: got of you great honor, that you know, SA you
Speaker 1: have so much honor that you don't actually do anything.
Speaker 1: He calls him a coward, that you know, he's the
Speaker 1: shyest of shooting, that he's the wariest of war, and
Speaker 1: so he calls him a coward. He he just sits
Speaker 1: in honor, doesn't really do anything, and so you know,
Speaker 1: it provides just a way for Loki to take kind
Speaker 1: of a potshot at him. Again, I just don't know
Speaker 1: if an orse mythology to so much more about that
Speaker 1: about the God in particular, but can definitely see how
Speaker 1: Loki is making use of this perceived honor.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, for sure.
Speaker 2: Yeah, all part of you like wants to believe there's
Speaker 2: some really cool, like in depth symbolism there, but yeah,
Speaker 2: it's probably just a low key being Loki is.
Speaker 3: That's probably just like the default hs at the end
Speaker 3: of the day.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, like I do think that we can
Speaker 1: pull wisdom from a lot of these stories, but it's uh,
Speaker 1: the the so called barbarian tales. Well, there's a reason
Speaker 1: why the Romans, you know, call the barbarians. It's the
Speaker 1: very different kinds of stories I play here. It's a
Speaker 1: lot more just brutal and sort of guttural and the
Speaker 1: way that they treat each other.
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, for sure, I can kind of see where
Speaker 2: like a lot of like just like the stereotypes of
Speaker 2: like epic fantasy and such thing like today have like
Speaker 2: derived from this. You even mentioned like the swimming contest
Speaker 2: and bo Wolf earlier, where he's kind of like, yeah,
Speaker 2: I know I did lose that swimming contest, but I
Speaker 2: was also like in a full plate of armor and
Speaker 2: like flighting sea monsters. So it's just like it always
Speaker 2: has to be like, this is a super manly justification
Speaker 2: for everything, right, I love.
Speaker 4: The the insult. He's talking to Beyla and he ends
Speaker 4: with you don't splatter dairy maid. And then Thor comes
Speaker 4: in and he is like, the silent perverse creature, my
Speaker 4: mighty hammer you all near, shall deprive you of speech.
Speaker 4: Your shoulder rock, I shall strike off your neck, and
Speaker 4: then your life will be gone. It's like, okay, Thors
Speaker 4: coming into lot.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he's the only one who can really shut Loki
Speaker 1: up because he just comes in full strength.
Speaker 4: Uh.
Speaker 1: And this is well one point that is kind of
Speaker 1: interesting when at that point, yeah, he says, so be silent,
Speaker 1: perverse creature, my mighty hammer, millionaire, will deprive you of speech.
Speaker 1: I shall throw you up on the roads to the east. Afterwards,
Speaker 1: no one will ever see you. This seems to be
Speaker 1: a reference to another one of the stories of Thor,
Speaker 1: when Thor killed the giant Thiazzi and took his eyes
Speaker 1: and threw them up into the sky and they became
Speaker 1: stars and and so basically he's threatening to kill Loki
Speaker 1: and to make him into stars, make his corpse into
Speaker 1: into stars, just as he's done before. And there's another
Speaker 1: time when he kills Arvandil Arvondel and takes his toe
Speaker 1: and does the same thing. He throws into the sky
Speaker 1: as a star. Now what's interesting is a sorry, I'm
Speaker 1: butchering this name on shore. Ar Vandel is also known
Speaker 1: in the wider Germanic tradition as Erendil, and so this
Speaker 1: is the Norse version of the star of Arndial, which,
Speaker 1: of course Tolkien is going to pick up as he
Speaker 1: picks up that tradition as it comes to the Anglo
Speaker 1: Saxon and eventually makes his way to Tolkien. So I
Speaker 1: just find that interesting that the great mariner, Mariner of Arandeal,
Speaker 1: of of Arandial in tolkien story that it was the
Speaker 1: beginning of his mythology, I mean, finds his way back
Speaker 1: in Thor throwing a giant's toe into the sky.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think even the start of exchange two and
Speaker 4: Thor comes in, like right before Belo was saying, like
Speaker 4: all the Mount Green shakes, I think Thor must be
Speaker 4: on his way home, like they know that he's the
Speaker 4: kind of guy that handle it, the doer. It seems
Speaker 4: like for a lot of the gods, for the ones
Speaker 4: that kind of sit back or.
Speaker 1: Right and you can only assume the reason why Thor
Speaker 1: wasn't there beginning with is because he was off killing
Speaker 1: giants or something.
Speaker 2: I I wonder too, like how many of these like
Speaker 2: allegations like Loki or like are making. Like obviously some
Speaker 2: of them can be like qualified or like corroborated in
Speaker 2: like other sources in a sense, but some of them
Speaker 2: just like, like, I wonder if there's any like any
Speaker 2: basis for some of the claims he's making, if he's
Speaker 2: just kind of throwing some of them out there right, Like,
Speaker 2: I'm not entirely sure, but he certainly got like an
Speaker 2: accusation for everybody, sometimes more sometimes more than one.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I imagine there's always at least some grain of
Speaker 1: truth in this, in that these are the kinds of
Speaker 1: things that gods did, Like I mean, going back to
Speaker 1: that you know, Harvard song, like Odin is very clear
Speaker 1: about his various exploits with the women folk, and so
Speaker 1: this is probably the kinds of stuff they did. But
Speaker 1: at the same time, excuse me, so overcoming a cold here.
Speaker 1: I think of in Beowulf, even when Beoof calls unferth
Speaker 1: a kinslayer, probably he was a kinslayer. Excuse me, But
Speaker 1: At the same time, the fact that he was in
Speaker 1: Roathguar's court means that he probably had some legitimate reason
Speaker 1: for killing his kid, like to defend horoalth Guard or
Speaker 1: something like that. And so a lot of times in
Speaker 1: these Germanic insult fights, there's some grain of truth that
Speaker 1: gets like twisted and like, we just want to find
Speaker 1: some way to jab that knife into its probably already
Speaker 1: a dicey subject. So there's probably some truth to a
Speaker 1: lot of this, all right, anything else from Loki squarrel okay.
Speaker 1: Then moving on to Thream's poem orrmskvida. So the comedy
Speaker 1: of Thream's poem depends on the characterization of Freya and Thorpe.
Speaker 1: We're compelled to act against the reputations. Freya is addicted
Speaker 1: when Loki and Thorpe suggests that she might marry a giant,
Speaker 1: though her reputation for promiscuity is such that take a
Speaker 1: giant as a sexual partner might not be regarded as
Speaker 1: out of the question. Thor is the most masculine of
Speaker 1: the gods, who dressing up as a woman causes him
Speaker 1: acute embarrassment. Thrime, who has stolen Thoris Hammer, is a
Speaker 1: giant with considerable social pretensions. The simple structure and repetitiveness
Speaker 1: of the poem proved suitable for adaptation into the ballid form,
Speaker 1: and a number of versions of it are found among
Speaker 1: Danish and Swedish ballads. Okay, So any thoughts on this
Speaker 1: poem of Thor of retrieving his hammer.
Speaker 2: It's probably another really out there saying that I could
Speaker 2: read way too much into. But on the second stanza,
Speaker 2: like the last line, like it says like the god
Speaker 2: like with a capital G. I'm not sure if that's
Speaker 2: like a translation slash like punctuation thing, or if there's
Speaker 2: some sort of like greater implication with that versus like
Speaker 2: the god like lowercase G. It could literally just be
Speaker 2: like because like the semicle in there. Maybe it's like
Speaker 2: it's like a grammatical thing. But I was curious if
Speaker 2: that was somehow like an elevation of like of Thor
Speaker 2: referring to the god, the one who has been robbed
Speaker 2: of his hammer.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that stook up to me as well, and that
Speaker 1: not really knowing, my assumption is that this is emphasizing
Speaker 1: the reality that of Thor, you know, the fact that
Speaker 1: he's had his hammer stolen. It's such a big deal
Speaker 1: that in this context he is the god who has
Speaker 1: been dishonored, like it is a way of elevating him.
Speaker 1: Is that that's my assumption? Yeah, Yeah, an interesting guest
Speaker 1: to borrow Free's feather shirt so that he can fly
Speaker 1: is my understanding. So I guess that's not something he
Speaker 1: can do on his own. I'm gonna be honest. This
Speaker 1: is one that I actually just don't remember a lot
Speaker 1: of details on. I didn't take a lot of notes.
Speaker 2: I kind of wonder because obviously it highlights the fact
Speaker 2: that like obviously Thorn like dresses, has to like dress
Speaker 2: up as a woman and basically impersonate Freyer. Right, so
Speaker 2: maybe he's kind of like, you know, ashamed and uncomfortable
Speaker 2: with that. Like do you think that's like a pride
Speaker 2: and humiliation thing or do you think like there's like
Speaker 2: a like he's pretty justified and feeling that way because
Speaker 2: he's in a sense, like a symbol of this this
Speaker 2: like kind of like classical or like medieval like Norse
Speaker 2: masculinity in a sense, Like it's like, is it pretty
Speaker 2: justifiable that he's like uncomfortable with that? And like I
Speaker 2: would personally probably say yes, because even as a twenty
Speaker 2: first century man, I would be too right, So I
Speaker 2: can't imagine how Thor would feel. Yeah, I was kind
Speaker 2: of like I was kind of thinking about that where
Speaker 2: I'm like, I could see how somebody would almost like
Speaker 2: go the direction where it's like, oh, he just needs
Speaker 2: to be comfortable with it, But I'm like, no, like
Speaker 2: he probably shouldn't be comfortable with that.
Speaker 1: At the same time, Wait, you you wouldn't be comfortable
Speaker 1: wearing a dress and pretending to marry a giant. I
Speaker 1: can aggressive.
Speaker 3: You can't say that. I would dig it.
Speaker 4: Guiltiest charged. I think just coming from Loki's quarrel. It's
Speaker 4: funny because Loki's fine off and it gets like the
Speaker 4: interaction with the giants, and then here's kind of like
Speaker 4: what has to be done, and he had just like
Speaker 4: accused Ray I think of being very promiscuous and then,
Speaker 4: you know, agreed upon fixes that thorst kind of dress
Speaker 4: up as addressed to go be the bride. And I'm
Speaker 4: sure he found some you know, some enjoyment that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I assume that excuse me, sorry, so we're
Speaker 1: going this cough here. I assume that he's that this
Speaker 1: is really meant to be a comedy, right, it's to
Speaker 1: be funny. You've got this masculine, you know, the most
Speaker 1: mass one of the gods, this great warrior who's always
Speaker 1: uh killing giants, and he's always just bragging about what
Speaker 1: a great warrior he is. That now he has to
Speaker 1: submit himself to playing the part of a woman. And
Speaker 1: you know, I guess it shows a saucer that the
Speaker 1: giants aren't all that cunning. I mean, he starts to
Speaker 1: get a little thrown off, saying like there's a fire
Speaker 1: in your eyes that I'm not used to here, So
Speaker 1: he's getting a little worried, but he's still pretty much
Speaker 1: okay with it and keeps moving forward. The fact that
Speaker 1: his bride to be is like consuming vast amounts of food.
Speaker 1: But I guess he just is so enambored with, you know,
Speaker 1: his bride or his idea of his bride, that he's
Speaker 1: willing to buy all these ridiculous excuses till finally he
Speaker 1: presents the hammer of Thor and then of course propertly dies.
Speaker 4: It was cool, seems just kind of note something throughout
Speaker 4: all this stuff. But even where it says like let
Speaker 4: keys jingled by his side, I guess I had no
Speaker 4: idea what that was. But because you know, like the
Speaker 4: bride or the wife would have like the keys to
Speaker 4: like the pantry and all the storage stuff.
Speaker 3: Uh, which is cool.
Speaker 1: I like the pro's conclusion here that after this whole
Speaker 1: story about how thor you know, finally killed the giant
Speaker 1: with his hammer and got out of there, that it
Speaker 1: ends with so Odin's son got the hammer back. Good summary.
Speaker 3: It seems almost like a little bit unnecessary. It's like, yeah,
Speaker 3: of course I got them. You really think he didn't
Speaker 3: get it back?
Speaker 1: Like reminds you of a few times in the Bible
Speaker 1: where things like that happened, like when jail you know,
Speaker 1: uh nails the pentag through the guy's head and it
Speaker 1: says and he died, Like, yep, that'll happen.
Speaker 4: They battered all the race of giants.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I do wonder what this this giant, what thrime exactly?
Speaker 1: Who's intending?
Speaker 3: It?
Speaker 1: Says? Then Thring, the lord of Ogres, bringing the hammer
Speaker 1: to sanctify the bride, lay Mulenir on the girl's lap,
Speaker 1: consecrate us together by the hand of our I wonder
Speaker 1: what significant the hammer had for him the giant in
Speaker 1: what way? I mean? I guess it's just that it's
Speaker 1: an artifact of the gods or something. But I don't
Speaker 1: know what sanctifying role this would have for.
Speaker 4: That's the it's only the Marvel version that he can
Speaker 4: only lift the hammer, right, that's not like anything in this.
Speaker 1: Seems to be the case. Okay, yeah, that's the starting
Speaker 1: place that most of us are working with. But yeah,
Speaker 1: that does not seem to be the case here, Yeah,
Speaker 1: all right, anything else from this poem? All right? Then
Speaker 1: moving on to Voland? Right. The poem of poland Or
Speaker 1: appears to be a combination of two poems, the first
Speaker 1: the Tale of the Swan Maidens, and the second the
Speaker 1: Tale of Voland's imprisonment and his revenge. Voland is a
Speaker 1: strange character, neither human nor divine. At one point, he's
Speaker 1: referred to as prince of elves. Since we know so
Speaker 1: little about elves and the Norse mythic scheme, we cannot
Speaker 1: prove or disprove this attribution, and so Voland is some
Speaker 1: kind of elf, which you know, as it just said here,
Speaker 1: we we don't we don't really know what elves are
Speaker 1: based off the original Norse text. Here, they are these
Speaker 1: ambiguous kinds of creatures that him and maybe that's part
Speaker 1: of the nature of elves or what we would you know,
Speaker 1: later refer to as berries that they live kind of
Speaker 1: on the you know, beyond firm categories, sort of on
Speaker 1: the the barriers of knowledge. And this Voland gets kidnapped
Speaker 1: by this king, but then he manages to escape, and
Speaker 1: that's the the big point of the story. And so
Speaker 1: I don't know, what, what do we think of this story
Speaker 1: or what are some thoughts you have.
Speaker 4: It's interesting, like you had brought up earlier with Mirkwood Senior,
Speaker 4: which has always seemed mysterious. Kind of a lot of
Speaker 4: stuff happening, which kind of goes with the story for
Speaker 4: like too.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because some weird stuff happens. And so you've got
Speaker 1: these three brothers and they fall for or they embrace
Speaker 1: these three strange women. I think these swan women h
Speaker 1: swan herders or something, and then they these after was
Speaker 1: it nine years, yeah, nine years, the women just leave
Speaker 1: and two of the brothers go off looking for them.
Speaker 1: Volin stays home to make rings for his lady, which
Speaker 1: is when he gets captured when he's by himself, by
Speaker 1: this local king. And so there's just kind of there's
Speaker 1: weird stuff going onto this forest, which again kind of
Speaker 1: gives us the Tolkien Mirkwood vibe as well.
Speaker 4: It also brings up like the Lappish kings and the
Speaker 4: pros the beginning, which I know earlier they kind of
Speaker 4: talked about I think it was in grim near sayings
Speaker 4: with like it with the torture and everything kind of
Speaker 4: or was related to the ritualistic of the lap people.
Speaker 4: So I mean they're coming from it seems like kind
Speaker 4: of a harsher more mystical people, especially if it's the king.
Speaker 4: That's kind of how they talked about him. And then
Speaker 4: with the swan maidens being they'll say there they were valkyries,
Speaker 4: but it wasn't exactly sure kind of what that they
Speaker 4: could fly I guess because they had the swan feathers.
Speaker 1: But interesting. Yeah, and you know later in the story,
Speaker 1: you know, the way that he escapes is not jumping
Speaker 1: into here, but the way he escapes is he we
Speaker 1: interually get his ring back that the king had been
Speaker 1: taken from him, and he seems to be able to
Speaker 1: turn into a swan or something like that. He's able
Speaker 1: to fly around. And so so now we've got Mirkwood
Speaker 1: and now we've got magic rings, and so I assume
Speaker 1: it's because he was forging this ring for the swan maiden,
Speaker 1: that there's some connection there with like being able to
Speaker 1: be like a swan. Don't know where to go from there, but.
Speaker 4: Like how he just skis and then goes and kills
Speaker 4: her because she bear brings it back.
Speaker 1: Right metal right. And one thing that it's worth noticing
Speaker 1: is that even I don't even know if Volan can
Speaker 1: be called a hero. I mean, he's as much a
Speaker 1: trickster as anybody else, and that I mean, yeah, he's
Speaker 1: a victim when he gets captured by the king and
Speaker 1: he's made to basically be the king's slave smithy, you know,
Speaker 1: making stuff for him, and you know, because he is
Speaker 1: the king's wife. The queen advises that Fulan be hamstrung
Speaker 1: so that way he can't run away, and so he's
Speaker 1: forced to be on this island and to just make
Speaker 1: things for the king. But he ends up tricking the
Speaker 1: king's sons into coming to him by promising I'm the
Speaker 1: great treasure, and he just kills them and buries them,
Speaker 1: and then he gets the king's daughter to come to him,
Speaker 1: and he seduces her and you know, impregnates her, and
Speaker 1: that's part of how he gets his ring back, which
Speaker 1: then he's able to use to fly away. And then
Speaker 1: you know, that's kind of his parting insult to the
Speaker 1: king is that you know, now my offspring is in
Speaker 1: your court, see you later he flies away. So he's
Speaker 1: very much a trickster, which I guess connects with the
Speaker 1: idea being an elf in that you know, he's again
Speaker 1: kind of beyond the categories of order. He's not somebody
Speaker 1: that you can beat, that you can tame, he's not
Speaker 1: something you can domesticate. That the king was operating with
Speaker 1: a force that was outside of what he could possibly control.
Speaker 1: And so maybe there's some kind of message here regarding domination,
Speaker 1: which again could be very Tolkienian in that the more
Speaker 1: that you try to dominate, well, the more that you
Speaker 1: are going to find yourself dominated by the very power
Speaker 1: that you're trying to seize for yourself. So there may
Speaker 1: be some kind of power lesson to be understood here.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think of him being like a stronger guy too,
Speaker 4: because like having to cut his hamstring so that he
Speaker 4: doesn't and he actually doesn't like it's not like they
Speaker 4: bound him face to face, I think to come down,
Speaker 4: but he had just like fallen asleep because he was
Speaker 4: just waiting on his bride that he thought was there.
Speaker 1: I did see.
Speaker 4: They talked about how later prose account and Tiedric Saga,
Speaker 4: one of his brothers comes back to save him, and
Speaker 4: then later on Bullen returns with an army and then
Speaker 4: kills the king and marries Bodvild, and then their son
Speaker 4: becomes a great Germanic hero. So interesting how it changes throughout.
Speaker 2: I guess there was like a trickster, and there's some
Speaker 2: certainly bizarre aspects to the poem itself. I think there
Speaker 2: almost is like a level of admirability I have for
Speaker 2: like the character of Land himself, just like merely speaking
Speaker 2: in terms of it's kind of like the resilience in
Speaker 2: the face of adversity, Like he's trapped in this situation,
Speaker 2: like it seems like he's just faded to be there forever.
Speaker 2: But however that ultimately works out, like he does find
Speaker 2: a way to kind of like escape this this servile
Speaker 2: life and actually like become liberated in a way. It's
Speaker 2: almost like in like a weird way. It's almost kind
Speaker 2: of like like the Shawshank redemption in a sense for
Speaker 2: like this guy like in like the most impossible way,
Speaker 2: like finds a way out when it seems like impossible.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's that's something I kind of saw through there.
Speaker 2: There's there is like a level of admirability, like for
Speaker 2: the character himself.
Speaker 1: I think, yeah, there is a kind of a kind
Speaker 1: of pagan virtue here. And obviously we're not going to
Speaker 1: look at a bold and say he's anything like Christian virtue,
Speaker 1: and I know that's not the point you're making, but
Speaker 1: there is something here we see that you know, even
Speaker 1: Odin has a trickster element to him, and that he's
Speaker 1: always kind of manipulating people in order to achieve his ends.
Speaker 1: And that's part of I think what Norse Wisdom was right.
Speaker 1: It was about power. I'm able to assert myself. I'm
Speaker 1: able to make things better for me and for my kin.
Speaker 1: You know, we see this if you read the volsung
Speaker 1: saga that you know Zigmund mixed him up with cigarette
Speaker 1: sometimes because Beywolf kind of changes some of that. But
Speaker 1: you know when he's going off and he's just like
Speaker 1: rating people that that's not seen as a bad thing.
Speaker 1: It's just something that you do to advance your station
Speaker 1: and that if your kin you know, read the the Huffam,
Speaker 1: all the proverbs and the and there's a lot of
Speaker 1: that mentality there where virtue is just kind of what
Speaker 1: it takes to get ahead the best way. I understand
Speaker 1: that at least wisdom, it's about more cunning than anything else.
Speaker 1: And I think that we do see that. And with
Speaker 1: that kind of framing, maybe Foland is a kind of hero,
Speaker 1: a kind of a person to admire.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean with the.
Speaker 3: Is it.
Speaker 4: Sayings of the high one where he talks about, like
Speaker 4: it said multiple times, like whenever you receive a lie,
Speaker 4: like return it with deception. So it's not like even
Speaker 4: you know, you're like stupid, don't take the high road,
Speaker 4: go down and kind of went against this this lie
Speaker 4: that's been.
Speaker 3: Brought up against you.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean these Norse heroes, they're they're street fighters, right,
Speaker 1: It's just you get in there and you do what
Speaker 1: it takes to win. And that's really what it comes
Speaker 1: down to. And say, the honor and virtue they seem
Speaker 1: just mean something very different than how we're how we're
Speaker 1: used to talking about them. But at the same time, yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't know, I think that it's useful to kind
Speaker 1: of look with these these different eyes and just see,
Speaker 1: you know, what did these people honor and why did
Speaker 1: this translate into tales that are still around and that
Speaker 1: we're still discussed today and play such an important role
Speaker 1: in the cultural world in which we live. I'm not
Speaker 1: going to say that we need to go back to
Speaker 1: this kind of virtue, because there's a lot very wrong
Speaker 1: with this. But at the same time, you know, we
Speaker 1: need to you know, even Tolkien size this that in
Speaker 1: order to really know what's wrong with something, you have
Speaker 1: to see what's good within that thing first, and that's
Speaker 1: going to help you to better understand what is wrong
Speaker 1: with it, and it's going to give you the opportunity to,
Speaker 1: you know, to recognize the light where it is and
Speaker 1: then bring it back into proper focus. And so I
Speaker 1: don't think there's anything wrong with looking at some of
Speaker 1: these what we would see is very flawed heroes and
Speaker 1: seeing that there's something admirable about that, recognizing that any
Speaker 1: of the thoughts, yeah, I.
Speaker 4: Just agree and throw any other thoughts right now?
Speaker 1: Well, see was that last one from the section? All right, Well,
Speaker 1: this is definitely not an easy run. But I feel
Speaker 1: like we've pulled something out of this. I had mentioned
Speaker 1: going in just a little while ago that maybe we
Speaker 1: could provide some recommendations. Do you guys have anything offhand
Speaker 1: that you'd like to endorse anybody's listening. I think you've
Speaker 1: been listening to reading kind of wherever you want to
Speaker 1: go with that, Josh, what do you have for us? Yeah?
Speaker 3: I actually had an idea for that when I saw
Speaker 3: that earlier.
Speaker 2: So I think one thing I recommend, just for like
Speaker 2: a good kind of like robust perspective on more of
Speaker 2: like a traditional reading of a lot of a lot
Speaker 2: of different literature is actually the ignacious critical editions of
Speaker 2: different books. So you kind of see an example here
Speaker 2: of like Gulliver's travels him with like pride and prejudice,
Speaker 2: like then they do a bunch of other stuff as well.
Speaker 3: But Joseph Pierce, I.
Speaker 2: Don't know if anybody's familiar with him, but he's the uh,
Speaker 2: he's like the main editor for a lot of those
Speaker 2: very very solid, like just traditional understands the interpretations of
Speaker 2: a lot of these works, and it provides a lot
Speaker 2: a lot of really like top notch like scholarly essays
Speaker 2: like within the actual volumes themselves. Like along with the
Speaker 2: primary text itself. So I found those very helpful personally
Speaker 2: just for understanding these works and helping me to kind
Speaker 2: of grow out of reading them through like a very
Speaker 2: just like modernist like late twentieth early twenty first century
Speaker 2: lens like as I was certainly taught through, you know,
Speaker 2: going through the public education system as a kid and
Speaker 2: as a teenager. So I definitely like recommend those pretty highly.
Speaker 2: I would say, I think they're good additions and also.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, good, yeah, I've got a few of those,
Speaker 1: and so I definitely second that. Cool. Jase, you anything
Speaker 1: for us?
Speaker 4: I mean, just some books I've read over the last year.
Speaker 4: Recommended even this weekend. A guy that was into philosophy
Speaker 4: and I had brought up olitheus never heard of it,
Speaker 4: so he wrote down the constellation of philosophy to read that.
Speaker 4: Another book from the last year that I've read was
Speaker 4: Definders of the West. That's a really good read on
Speaker 4: just Christian heroes of old and kind of a lot
Speaker 4: of things you wouldn't necessarily a different perspective from what
Speaker 4: you get a typical public school.
Speaker 1: So wait, you mean Christians haven't always been the bad guys?
Speaker 4: Interesting, they were just doing it for gold.
Speaker 1: That's right, it's a greedy Christians. So I've got a
Speaker 1: couple of books. I think I might have recommend this
Speaker 1: on the recent podcast. I'm not sure, but I've been
Speaker 1: reading a lot for the upcoming Talkien study. I know
Speaker 1: that I still need to get out my supplemental reading list,
Speaker 1: and so i'll get that done probably tomorrow. But a
Speaker 1: couple of books that I've read recently is The Philosophy
Speaker 1: of Tolkien by Peter Crift, which if anyone, I mean
Speaker 1: probably most of the people listening to this probably do
Speaker 1: already follow me on Twitter, you know. I tweeted out
Speaker 1: a lot of this when I went through it recently.
Speaker 1: It's really good if you want an introduction of philosophy.
Speaker 1: It's actually a pretty good text if you're already kind
Speaker 1: of familiar with Talkien and you've never still He's philosophy
Speaker 1: before he even says in his intro that it can
Speaker 1: serve that kind of purpose. But even if you do
Speaker 1: already have some philosophical background, just a great book to
Speaker 1: get you excited about how good Tolkien is. And so
Speaker 1: definitely recommend that, and then for a deeper dive into
Speaker 1: Tolkien and philosophy. I really enjoyed the foot of my
Speaker 1: backgrounds messed this up. The Flame Imperishable by Jonathan McIntosh
Speaker 1: subtitled Tolkien, Saint Thomas and the Metaphysics of Fairy and
Speaker 1: so in this text he's mostly focusing on the delay
Speaker 1: Tolkien's opening creation story in the Cimmarillion and relating that
Speaker 1: to the theology of Thomas Aquinas and just a great
Speaker 1: philosophical dive into the underworkings of Tolkien's world. And you
Speaker 1: just you cannot read this text and then come out
Speaker 1: with the phreposterous belief that Tolkien was not giving us
Speaker 1: a Christian story. He most certainly was, as Tolkien himself said,
Speaker 1: But unfortunately that's still an argument that has to be
Speaker 1: had on a regular basis, usually with those talkiing society folks.
Speaker 1: But one day I want to start a Tolkien society
Speaker 1: for people who actually like Tolkien. That's that's my goal
Speaker 1: in life. But uh, that's why I guess we'll leave
Speaker 1: it from here. Do either of you have anything else
Speaker 1: that you wanted to say?
Speaker 3: I mean, I'll second to your Peter Christ recommendation, and
Speaker 3: I'll also can you can you please clarify.
Speaker 2: A little bit more that you you don't agree with
Speaker 2: Michael Moorcock's epic Pooh essay.
Speaker 3: Have you ever read that?
Speaker 1: Wait? Was that the one where wait what I might have?
Speaker 1: What was that one?
Speaker 2: It's like, uh, I think he wrote it like the
Speaker 2: seventies or something. But he's basically just like almost like
Speaker 2: imposing just these more like modernist, like Marxist claims like
Speaker 2: on on Tolkien this sense.
Speaker 3: And then if anybody's familiar with.
Speaker 2: The sci fi author gene Wolf, like he writes an
Speaker 2: essay in response to it, and it's it's it's incredible.
Speaker 2: I'll send this to you guys in the chat for sure.
Speaker 2: But both of them. Habipoo sucks, it's terrible, but gene
Speaker 2: wolves essay is really great.
Speaker 4: I always at a bachelor party with some guys this
Speaker 4: weekend and I was talking about Lord of the Rings
Speaker 4: and one of the guys I'd never met him before,
Speaker 4: and it's like, yeah, Lord of the Rings is great.
Speaker 4: He's like it other than like you know how folk
Speaker 4: and treats the goblins and the orcs.
Speaker 1: There we go. It was just like a face drop. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's that article that makes its ground up once in
Speaker 1: a while from the UK he's saying that Lord of
Speaker 1: the Rings in nineteen eighty four are right wing propagannit
Speaker 1: tacks or something. It's just absurd.
Speaker 2: I'm pretty sure, like an epic Pooh like more conclict
Speaker 2: makes the klay and that basically like there's like some
Speaker 2: sort of like just like slave morality, ethic and the
Speaker 2: like forts just like treat Sam like. It's just it's
Speaker 2: it's so terrible. I have to find this and send
Speaker 2: it to you guys so you can read it for yourself.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I feel like we need to have some standalone
Speaker 1: patron chat just about Tolkien and his legacy and all
Speaker 1: this stuff. It maybe something worth doing. I'm done cool,
Speaker 1: so we will work on that. Maybe once the smesters
Speaker 1: over here can have a bonus episode at some point,
Speaker 1: but that's for another time. For now, I'm good talk
Speaker 1: on the EDA and next time we'll cover some more stuff.
Speaker 1: So until then, it's been thanks again for joining us,
Speaker 1: And if you'd like to support the show and have
Speaker 1: the opportunity to join these chats as well as to
Speaker 1: access some exclusive content, including the fiction and philosophy of
Speaker 1: CS Lewis course, then you can become a patron over
Speaker 1: at Patreon dot com slash Mythic Mind and you can
Speaker 1: find that link in the show notes. But that's it
Speaker 1: for now. Until next time, God's Speaking. The Mythic Mind
Speaker 1: Fellowship presents a new study led by doctor Andrew Snyders,
Speaker 1: the Wisdom of Middle Earth, The Lord of the Rings.
Speaker 1: This will be the first study in the Wisdom of
Speaker 1: Middle Earth series, which seeks to bring an array of
Speaker 1: companions together with the common desire of growing in wisdom
Speaker 1: while enjoying the heartening tales of the great tale weaver J. R. R. Tolkien.
Speaker 1: The Lord of the Rings is a profound tale that
Speaker 1: has literally changed lives, as it has for mine. And
Speaker 1: what is it that makes this story so powerful and
Speaker 1: so compelling. It is because Tolkien's stories are fundamentally true,
Speaker 1: and those who engage with it know exactly what I mean.
Speaker 1: They speak to the way that things are. As Peter
Speaker 1: Christ said in the Philosophy of Tolkien, The Lord of
Speaker 1: the Rings is infused with this same light that illumined
Speaker 1: the man who wrote it. And that light is true,
Speaker 1: for it reveals the reality of the world and life.
Speaker 1: So join us on this adventure. Let us grow and
Speaker 1: wisdom together through immersion in this tale, not through cheap allegorizing,
Speaker 1: but by getting a better understanding of the ideas and
Speaker 1: the movements of the heart that bring a tale such
Speaker 1: as this to life. This twelve week study will begin
Speaker 1: with Tolkien's creation account, the Iinuindulay, and then move to
Speaker 1: the beginning of the Fellowship of the Ring. Each week
Speaker 1: will include a signed reading from The Lord of the Rings,
Speaker 1: a short side lesson in the beginning of the week
Speaker 1: that addresses a relevant theme, background story, or secondary text,
Speaker 1: and then once you've had some time to do the reading,
Speaker 1: there will be a longer video that serves as a
Speaker 1: guide in these forests of wisdom. Also, we will have
Speaker 1: additional recommended readings, an active discord channel, and weekly live
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Speaker 1: Whether you are reading The Lord of the Rings the
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