Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to Mythic Mind. We pursue wisdom of
Speaker 1: the past between primary secondary worlds. Madre Snyder and I'm
Speaker 1: glad that you're here. Today we have our final patron
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Speaker 1: But for now, let's go ahead and jump into our
Speaker 1: final conversation on the poetic Eda. All right, welcome back
Speaker 1: to our final at a chat joined here with Thomas
Speaker 1: and Chase to go through the last several texts here,
Speaker 1: starting with the wedding of Gudrun, and so as a
Speaker 1: review of where we've been recently, at least we've covered
Speaker 1: a lot of ground obviously going through the Edda. But
Speaker 1: you know, Gudrun is the widow of Ziggurd, who is
Speaker 1: really the probably the the central figure of the vul
Speaker 1: Song story. He's the one who killed the dragon Faffnir
Speaker 1: and liberated the gold, which you know, as a dragon
Speaker 1: horde it tends to do it carries a doom about it.
Speaker 1: And so no matter what Ziggerd does, you know, in
Speaker 1: his acts of valor, his bravery's heroism, there's always just
Speaker 1: sort of this shadow over his life, very much giving
Speaker 1: his connections with turn turnbar special helmet everything, so very
Speaker 1: strong connections there. Well, Ziggard, after liberating this treasure from
Speaker 1: the dragon, he gets betrothed to his valkyrie lover Brinheld,
Speaker 1: but he's bewitched along the way forgets about her. Mauryes
Speaker 1: Gudrun Brinhield doesn't forget about it, and so eventually she
Speaker 1: conspires with Gudrun's brothers to have them kill off Ziggard,
Speaker 1: and so then Gudrun goes off to the court of Atli,
Speaker 1: where she marries Atli, who either is or leases inspired
Speaker 1: by Attila the hun. But then she after killing her
Speaker 1: children with Ally and then killing Ali, now she finds
Speaker 1: herself in another court, married to another kid. So she
Speaker 1: is now in her third court. Here. You think that
Speaker 1: people would get the message here and maybe stop taking
Speaker 1: her in, but here we are. And so while she's here,
Speaker 1: she does have with her her daughter of Ziggurd, and
Speaker 1: so her daughter is really the last direct tie to
Speaker 1: the Volsung clan. But she gets married off to this
Speaker 1: king see which she married Yorman Reck the Powerful. But
Speaker 1: this guy Beki comes to his court and tells Randver,
Speaker 1: the son of the king, that basically there's something going
Speaker 1: on between zvon Hild and Randford the Prince, and so
Speaker 1: then the king responds by having Randverord hanged and swan
Speaker 1: Hild tramped by horses. So naturally good and doesn't take
Speaker 1: too kindly to this. And so now she's gonna tell
Speaker 1: her children of with with King Yonaker to basically go
Speaker 1: off and get vengeance. And so that's kind of where
Speaker 1: we are in the story moving into this poem. All right,
Speaker 1: So what are your thoughts? Were some things that stood
Speaker 1: out to you about the wedding of Gudrun.
Speaker 2: One thing that set out to me in the beginning
Speaker 2: was how reluctant the two sons were to go on
Speaker 2: this vengeance mission. And they basically are like, Mom, you
Speaker 2: know that you're asking us to essentially go on a
Speaker 2: suicide mission and get killed. Right, you won't have any
Speaker 2: kids left when we're done.
Speaker 1: With this, right. And before that, they really dig in
Speaker 1: that if you didn't kill off your last kids, and
Speaker 1: maybe they can even help you with this, like we'd
Speaker 1: have some more support here, but you've a tendency to
Speaker 1: pretty cheap with the lives of your sons. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: they definitely have this sense of doom about them. Dear,
Speaker 1: one of these sons says that, let me treat this. Then,
Speaker 1: said Hamdar, the strong minded one, so comes home to
Speaker 1: visit his mother. The spear Lord brought low in the
Speaker 1: land of the Goths, so that you may drink the
Speaker 1: funeral ale for us, all for span Hild, and for
Speaker 1: your sons. So she's saying, like, look, you're going to
Speaker 1: lose all of your children if we do this yet
Speaker 1: to go anyways, And it just kind of gets at
Speaker 1: this theme of recognizing one's fate but moving forward anyways.
Speaker 1: And that's something we've seen pretty repeatedly.
Speaker 3: So interesting because you know, she, yeah, she loves cigarette
Speaker 3: so much, and so losing him, it's kind of like
Speaker 3: after that, all the kids are forfeit, Like she she
Speaker 3: cared about swan Hild, but like everything else, like the
Speaker 3: other four boys, it's like, mah, I don't really care.
Speaker 3: You're just like tools from my revenge, you know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, exactly. I mean with the kids that she
Speaker 1: had with Atlee, I mean she literally killed them and
Speaker 1: then fed them to Atlee. And now with these kids
Speaker 1: that she has with this third third husband, you know,
Speaker 1: now she just has no problem treating them as fodder
Speaker 1: to throw at her vengeance, no real concern for them.
Speaker 1: She only cares about her connection to Ziggard. In fact,
Speaker 1: she sounds a lot like Brin Hill toward the end
Speaker 1: of her life. When she starts going crazy at the
Speaker 1: end when she says, Nobles, build the build high the
Speaker 1: oak Wood pire, Let it be the highest among the princes.
Speaker 1: They fire, burn up the breast, so full of wrongs,
Speaker 1: may sorrows melt about my heart. And so just as
Speaker 1: Brent Hill, do you have her at the end, just
Speaker 1: falling into despair, I mean, just ready to die, ready
Speaker 1: to go up in flames metaphorically as well as literally.
Speaker 2: It's very denithor you know, build my pire, you know,
Speaker 2: like we shall burn like the Heathen Kings and all
Speaker 2: that stuff.
Speaker 1: You know, Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly right. And of course
Speaker 1: has gained off response to that that they only did
Speaker 1: so because they were under the sway of the Shadow essentially,
Speaker 1: that they were you know, inspired by Satan essentially.
Speaker 3: I feel like, uh, bicky uh in this like setup,
Speaker 3: it's very like low key, like you know, like kind
Speaker 3: of just like meddling and kind of like telling them
Speaker 3: to like, oh, you're you're actually destined for each other,
Speaker 3: and he's like, oops, I'm actually gonna get killed.
Speaker 1: Yeah. We don't have a lot of his backstories as
Speaker 1: far as what we're given. He definitely seems like just
Speaker 1: this trickster type. He just wants to see things burn.
Speaker 3: Yeah, a good pairing for Google, I would think, right right.
Speaker 2: This also seems to be like a common, at least
Speaker 2: in these stories, way to execute somebody is to have
Speaker 2: them be trampled to death. That's come up a few
Speaker 2: times now.
Speaker 1: Hmm.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's just just like the kind of savage imagery
Speaker 3: or just that was the cruelest of all my injuries.
Speaker 3: When the white blonde hair of span Hill they trampled
Speaker 3: in mud under her horse's hoofs. It's like, oh man, yeah,
Speaker 3: I believe Swan Hill like basically like had come to
Speaker 3: that island on her own, I think, or something, right.
Speaker 3: I can't remember what Snory had said about it. It's
Speaker 3: been too long since I've read that. It may have
Speaker 3: differed slightly.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't remember Snory's version, I do know, I
Speaker 1: mean for Gudrian, after the affair with Atli, after that
Speaker 1: went down in flames, then she tried to cast herself
Speaker 1: into the ocean, into the sea to kill herself, but
Speaker 1: she was providentially prevented from doing so, and so then
Speaker 1: she gets carried off to this island. I don't remember. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't remember what story says, but and I mentioned
Speaker 1: this last time, it very much reminds me of of
Speaker 1: an elo wing. You know, she's got the summer casting
Speaker 1: herself into the sea, and then you know the Dallar
Speaker 1: protect her, and you know she actually turns into a
Speaker 1: bird and flies away, and you know there's a Swan connection.
Speaker 1: Even with van Hilt, even like the name, there's that
Speaker 1: Swan connection there. And so I feel like it's not
Speaker 1: a one to one, but there's definitely some inspiration at
Speaker 1: play here for talking. Yeah, it's just I feel like
Speaker 1: this is such a I mean, it's such a Norse
Speaker 1: tale when we've been with the False Songs for so long,
Speaker 1: we've been at this point with Gudrun for so long,
Speaker 1: and it just ends in utter despair. Like there's no
Speaker 1: EU catastrophe here, there's no hope, it's just despair, which
Speaker 1: kind of again, it gives me the same feeling you
Speaker 1: get at reading Children of Purin once you get to
Speaker 1: the end.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I have the same sort of feeling when I
Speaker 2: read the Volsung saga on his own, and I was
Speaker 2: just like, I don't think I like this. Someone really depressing.
Speaker 2: I don't think I was. I was in the mood
Speaker 2: for it a couple of years ago. When I read it,
Speaker 2: I was just like, oh, I didn't like any of
Speaker 2: the characters. I'm like, they're just all miserable and getting
Speaker 2: revenge on one another. I'm like, hmm, maybe George R. R.
Speaker 2: Martin took some inspiration. Everybody's miserable and killing one another.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they're all just these pawns getting moved around essentially.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, in the Volsung saga, it really
Speaker 1: kicks off with Odin. You're delivering the sword, and then
Speaker 1: at the end it's Odin who leads to the death
Speaker 1: of the folk songs. Uh So, which is what Odin does.
Speaker 1: We've talked about this before, how he builds up these
Speaker 1: great warriors so that he can kill them off in
Speaker 1: battle and then recruit them into his army. Uh And
Speaker 1: that's really what bookends the main part of the Volsung saga,
Speaker 1: that they're just under the whims of the fate, that
Speaker 1: are under the whims of Odin, who's just sort of
Speaker 1: managing the whole situation. And it's there there is just
Speaker 1: a great deal of despair about that. That is no
Speaker 1: ultimate hope that's reaching out to them. Tolkien that most
Speaker 1: definitely took the northern spirit and baptized it, giving us
Speaker 1: that threat of hope.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I think it's it's interesting with all three the works,
Speaker 3: the pros at A, the Bolsing Sega, because you kind
Speaker 3: of each one you kind of need to read the
Speaker 3: other ones, but then you have to start somewhere, and
Speaker 3: so it's kind of like, okay, well you start with
Speaker 3: one and then you can just circle back and read it.
Speaker 3: You've read everything else because this is like all the
Speaker 3: notes are like, yeah, just check out Bolst.
Speaker 2: It's like okay, right, yeah, So I think now like
Speaker 2: the only one I I have left to read a
Speaker 2: story then because I've I've read volsung Saga now this,
Speaker 2: and so like that'll like complete the triptych.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I definitely feel like returning to the other text
Speaker 1: now more of it would stick with me. Uh. When
Speaker 1: you read any of these for the first time, there's
Speaker 1: just so much going on, so many names, so many
Speaker 1: things happening that things that kind of echo other things
Speaker 1: that have happened. It's hard to keep it. Kind of
Speaker 1: reading this so early in right, Yeah, hard time through.
Speaker 1: It's just you just have to push through and then
Speaker 1: you have to go through it again. And more of
Speaker 1: it will settle down.
Speaker 3: I was talking to my brother, He's gonna start reading
Speaker 3: some early and I'm like, all right, man, the first
Speaker 3: two chapters you just gotta push through. I was like,
Speaker 3: it's gonna make sense at the end. You can always
Speaker 3: flip back. But when they're just listening out names and
Speaker 3: here people are, You're like, okay, that that doesn't mean
Speaker 3: anything until.
Speaker 2: It's like I tell people, if you've read the Lord
Speaker 2: of the Rings and then you read the silm Merillion,
Speaker 2: what you do is that you go back and read
Speaker 2: Lord of the Rings again, because then all of those
Speaker 2: references to the Silmarillion that are scattered throughout Lord of
Speaker 2: the Rings, you'll have context for all of that, and
Speaker 2: you'll be like, oh my gosh, that's referring to And
Speaker 2: then it kind of makes reading Lord of the Rings
Speaker 2: again so much of a richer experience.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I can testified to that. It really is like
Speaker 1: reading it almost for the first time again, that you
Speaker 1: get so much more context out of that reading absolutely well.
Speaker 1: It's not a big change in content here, but looking
Speaker 1: over at the lay of Humdir, it starts off the
Speaker 1: same way as the other poem, and basically the only
Speaker 1: major difference is now it's going to continue on and
Speaker 1: give us the the vengeance story of the Suns going
Speaker 1: off to this king. Yes, it's basically the context here.
Speaker 1: Anything in particular stand to you about this one.
Speaker 2: Oh, this is the one where they kill their their
Speaker 2: step brother or something by accident or maybe not by accident.
Speaker 2: It wasn't that clear to me whether they knew who
Speaker 2: he was or not.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think this is another one where Larrington, the
Speaker 1: translator basically says some of it's kind of confusing, kind
Speaker 1: of broken, sometimes probably missing. Uh, but yeah, because this
Speaker 1: this guy, let's see who is it?
Speaker 3: Ip?
Speaker 1: I think that their half brother what a name?
Speaker 3: Uh?
Speaker 1: Think across that their half brother irp on the road,
Speaker 1: who gives them some enigmatic wisdom, and they respond by
Speaker 1: killing them for some reason, not entirely sure why, but
Speaker 1: later they recognized that he was giving them the wisdom
Speaker 1: that they needed to have in order to action secure
Speaker 1: vengeance against the king. There's like, boops, I guess we
Speaker 1: shouldn't have killed him. And I suppose there's a lesson
Speaker 1: built in here about not being rash about stopping to
Speaker 1: listen before acting so differently, some some kind of proverbial
Speaker 1: wisdom built into this. But but yeah, not really clear
Speaker 1: why they killed her.
Speaker 3: That ties back to Hockney and uh, I already forgot
Speaker 3: the names guthm uh No, it's uh Gunner and Hockey, right. Yeah.
Speaker 3: They don't listen to their wives, who are like telling
Speaker 3: them they each have bad dreams and I'm like describing
Speaker 3: what the dream is meaning for you, and you're like,
Speaker 3: I don't know. I think I'm gonna go ahead, and
Speaker 3: it's just like, what are you doing?
Speaker 1: Right? They basically say women say a lot of things,
Speaker 1: just go.
Speaker 3: You have quite an imagination there, honey, I'm gonna go
Speaker 3: get slaughtered.
Speaker 1: So yeah, I mean it kind of makes sense that
Speaker 1: there are a lot of lessons in here about not
Speaker 1: being impulsive, because a lot of people are just very impulsive.
Speaker 1: They just do stuff right, like I've been dishonored, so
Speaker 1: I'm going to go secure vengeance. It's like they don't
Speaker 1: stop and think through what they're doing or even how
Speaker 1: exactly to secure vengeance in the best way, like to
Speaker 1: actually do what they want.
Speaker 2: That.
Speaker 1: They're very impulsive, and so there's definitely a lesson regarding
Speaker 1: that built into this that they actually you know, burst
Speaker 1: into this king's home and they cut off his feet
Speaker 1: in his hands, but he's still able to use his
Speaker 1: speech because they have some kind of magic about them
Speaker 1: where they can only being stoned.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the notes talk about this they had, I guess,
Speaker 3: I don't know if it was from Sigurd. They had
Speaker 3: a basically like magic mythril chain bl basically, and so
Speaker 3: they couldn't be stabbed or heard or anything with those
Speaker 3: with those on, but they could be stoned. I think
Speaker 3: attention here because it kind of just gives like a
Speaker 3: blip of like their interaction with the brother r I think,
Speaker 3: And I think it's fulsome sega. It's a little more
Speaker 3: like as like drawn out, I guess, and it shows
Speaker 3: that he's like they think he's being arrogant or something,
Speaker 3: and so they're just like, oh, we're gonna we don't
Speaker 3: need you.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, he says here and stands at thirteen, you know,
Speaker 2: he Herp's talking to them, and then it just says
Speaker 2: they said that bastard was very bold, so they just
Speaker 2: miss him as a bastard. Go away, stop talking to us,
Speaker 2: you know.
Speaker 1: Proverb in that same stanza, it's no good showing the
Speaker 1: way to a cowardly man.
Speaker 2: Hmmm, sounds like a very Norse proverb.
Speaker 1: It does like a very Norse proverb.
Speaker 2: Yes, Like it seems like their downfall was they you know,
Speaker 2: like you said, they still left the king the ability
Speaker 2: to speak, and I guess he cries out what their
Speaker 2: weakness is, and so they get stoned to death.
Speaker 1: Right, Whereas apparently if they picked up on whatever Earp
Speaker 1: was telling them, they would have known to cut off
Speaker 1: his head so he couldn't talk.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they say, evil, you brought about brother when you
Speaker 2: opened up that bag. For often from the bag comes
Speaker 2: bad advice, from which they mean, you shouldn't have killed
Speaker 2: that guy, because yeah, important information.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 2: So they're like blaming each other as soon as things
Speaker 2: go wrong.
Speaker 3: And this is one of the oldest they said to
Speaker 3: one of the oldest poems. So it's it's missing a
Speaker 3: lot just from age, I think.
Speaker 2: And they blame fate again, they they say. Then they
Speaker 2: say that the dcer, who are like female ancestor spirits
Speaker 2: of some kind, drove them to kill Arp is what
Speaker 2: they said.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And a little bit later, facing their death, they say,
Speaker 1: no man outlast the evening after the norns had given
Speaker 1: their verdict. So again we get this idea that we're
Speaker 1: being driven by fate, that they didn't really have a
Speaker 1: lot of choice in the matter. And so even their
Speaker 1: their rash decision to kill off RP, as well as
Speaker 1: just everything that leads to their demise here, it's all
Speaker 1: ultimately led by fate. They don't have a whole lot
Speaker 1: of agency in the matter.
Speaker 2: I guess in a society where like this kind of
Speaker 2: retributive violence was very endemic, it must have just been
Speaker 2: kind of a way to make yourself feel better. Well, like,
Speaker 2: none of this is my fault, I can just chalk
Speaker 2: it up to or anybody's fault. I could just chalk
Speaker 2: it up to fate. You know that we're all sort of,
Speaker 2: you know, puppets of the of Oden the puppet Master.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And so it definitely promotes a very stoic kind
Speaker 1: of wisdom, a stoic understanding of wisdom that my chief
Speaker 1: obligation is not necessarily to do this or that, but
Speaker 1: it's simply accept fate to situate myself in relation to fortune.
Speaker 1: So I am confident in who I am and where
Speaker 1: I'm standing, no matter what's happening around me. And so
Speaker 1: I mean, there is a kind of noble confidence in there,
Speaker 1: but also obviously there's some limitations of the soul, So
Speaker 1: like what this means you're definitely trapped in a kind
Speaker 1: of despair? Well, any other thoughts before we leave the
Speaker 1: Volk songs? All right? All right, moving on to Balder's dreams.
Speaker 1: So we're moving back to the gods now, getting back
Speaker 1: to more or less where things begin. So Balder has
Speaker 1: been having some bad dreams. So Odin goes to Hell
Speaker 1: to check it out again, not to be confused with
Speaker 1: the Christian Hell. He's just going to the place of
Speaker 1: the dead here who he summons up this seer to
Speaker 1: get some information, and this is when he finds out
Speaker 1: that Balder is going to die and that this is
Speaker 1: going to be basically the first sign of Ragnarok. And
Speaker 1: so we're back to Odin figuring out things about Ragnarok.
Speaker 1: What's stuck to you from this one?
Speaker 3: This is just the way that Odin prefers to talk
Speaker 3: or conversation. He's just he likes to ask questions, leading
Speaker 3: questions to get them to say something that ultimately he'll
Speaker 3: never know exactly what he wants to know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that kind of riddling talk again that Odin seems
Speaker 2: to be very fond of I.
Speaker 1: Mean, I guess he's kind of like the Socrates of
Speaker 1: the air. He's the god of wisdom. He's always asking questions.
Speaker 2: Mm hmm.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So he finds out that Balder is going to die.
Speaker 1: He asked who's going to kill Balder. He finds out
Speaker 1: it's going to be the god hold which and I
Speaker 1: don't remember if this is explicitly described in the poetic
Speaker 1: Adam maybe was earlier. I know it is in the
Speaker 1: Prosta the Death of Balder when it's a Freaka or
Speaker 1: Fred mixing up my god my gods. Now, basically there
Speaker 1: there's a protection, you know, built on Balder where you know,
Speaker 1: everything was made to give an oath that it couldn't
Speaker 1: hurt Balder or something of that nature, except for one thing,
Speaker 1: which is mistletoe, for whatever reason, didn't give its oath
Speaker 1: that it was going to, you know, refrain from killing Balder.
Speaker 1: And so Balder was basically invincible. And so the gods
Speaker 1: developed this game where they were just like throw stuff
Speaker 1: at Balder because nothing could hurt them, until finally Loki
Speaker 1: sneaked in some mistletoe here to Hoad, who is a
Speaker 1: blind god, and so he unwittingly, you know, threw the
Speaker 1: one thing that could hurt Balder at him and ended
Speaker 1: up killing him. And so then Odin finds out that
Speaker 1: the one who's going to get vengeance is going to
Speaker 1: be one of his children that he needs to go
Speaker 1: and have so that will then have vengeance on Balder,
Speaker 1: and so I know, it's we start to get kind
Speaker 1: of soap opera here. Sounds very Greco Roman at this point.
Speaker 3: Sephen crazy too, because like the like basically Volley won't
Speaker 3: do anything until he like his son that's going to
Speaker 3: be born, isn't really to do anything until he kills
Speaker 3: hod like what his whole purpose was.
Speaker 1: I am fascinated by the connections that have been made
Speaker 1: between Balder and Christ when we're told that Balder is
Speaker 1: going to die as like the beginning of essentially the
Speaker 1: judgment on the gods, right at the beginning of the
Speaker 1: Final Movement, and that following Ragnarok, he's actually going to
Speaker 1: be resurrected and he's going to be one of the
Speaker 1: gods that survives and lives into or it really kind
Speaker 1: of ushers in the renewal of the cosmic order. And
Speaker 1: in fact, even in verse nine here it says it
Speaker 1: will dispatch the high glory tree, by which they means Balder,
Speaker 1: and so Balder here is called the high Glory tree.
Speaker 1: And so there are all these connections that can pretty
Speaker 1: readily be made here symbolically speaking, between Balder and christ.
Speaker 1: Not to say that was a one to one, but
Speaker 1: I think that it is. You know, who's to say
Speaker 1: how much of this has taken, you know, after the
Speaker 1: Christian era versus before the Christian era. But you know,
Speaker 1: you read someone like Lewis and he definitely thought that
Speaker 1: what we have here is the pagan imagination approaching something real,
Speaker 1: even if dim and distorted.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I've always been fascinated by this is slightly different.
Speaker 2: But the pagan fascination of the hero who descends into
Speaker 2: the underworld, that that is like this constantly recurring motif
Speaker 2: from everybody from the Greeks to the Mayans, has the
Speaker 2: hero or heroes who descend into the underworld to either
Speaker 2: rescue a person or retrieve some boon. And of course,
Speaker 2: you know, from Lewis's perspective, it's like, well, you know
Speaker 2: that it's all for a pagan foreshadowing. Their imagination is
Speaker 2: haunted by the future Harrowing of Hell by Christ.
Speaker 1: Hm hm, yeah, I mean you can't escape it. That
Speaker 1: death and resurrection. It's all over the pagan mythologies.
Speaker 2: On a lighter note, I like that when Odin is
Speaker 2: found out by this woman, he just gets peevish and
Speaker 2: angry and says, you are not a serious nor a
Speaker 2: wise woman. Rather, you are the mother of three ogres
Speaker 2: got her, And it's like, well, there's no need for that.
Speaker 2: I'm like, come on.
Speaker 3: It's always interesting for people that nowadays latch onto this
Speaker 3: stuff and like want to just believe all of this stuff,
Speaker 3: and they don't really see, like you're saying some connections
Speaker 3: to whether like the descent into the underworld or the
Speaker 3: Christ figures, and it just seems like, you know, you
Speaker 3: really didn't spend time like trying to read some other
Speaker 3: stuff because there's just so much stuff. It's like ties
Speaker 3: to it, just a little bit tweaked here and there
Speaker 3: once in a while.
Speaker 1: All right, well we'll come back around to Odin a
Speaker 1: little bit. But now I guess moving on to the
Speaker 1: list of rig also known as Himdahl and so Heimdahl
Speaker 1: is we see going and basically we get him Dahal
Speaker 1: being sort of like the progenitor of these three major
Speaker 1: classes of people, different casts. You've got Thrall and Farmer
Speaker 1: and Lord. So pretty on the nose here with what
Speaker 1: we're talking about different you know, class of society. I
Speaker 1: think it's interesting that the mother of Thrall is the
Speaker 1: great is her name is great Grandmother, and then when
Speaker 1: we moved to farmer, we go to grandmother, and then
Speaker 1: for Lord we go to mother. And so it's like
Speaker 1: we get this progression of time that as we get
Speaker 1: you know, further and further in time, more and more recently,
Speaker 1: I suppose that's when we get the newer cast being
Speaker 1: developed up out of I suppose what came before it.
Speaker 1: And so there's that kind of evolutionary sociology at play here.
Speaker 3: It's kind of a weird take, maybe, but I like
Speaker 3: kind of the hierarchy that it kind of gives because
Speaker 3: it still shows the people that are the Thrall and
Speaker 3: the Thrall women like a children they have, they lived
Speaker 3: together and were happy and you know, like they're doing
Speaker 3: their tasks or like not really like the most desired task.
Speaker 3: But it's also like, you know, that's things that maybe
Speaker 3: they're the extent of their abilities or the extent of
Speaker 3: their like desire to do anything. But yeah, I enjoyed
Speaker 3: this one because it's just interesting to see how it
Speaker 3: described them differently.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and like not not none of the three are
Speaker 2: shown as unnecessary, right, you know that like even like it,
Speaker 2: there seems to be a recognition here that like, okay,
Speaker 2: even the people doing the most menial, undesirable tasks, well,
Speaker 2: somebody's got to do it, you know. So it's like
Speaker 2: the lords or the farmer, like their society couldn't function
Speaker 2: without the people doing the work that nobody else wants
Speaker 2: to do or can do.
Speaker 1: Although at the same time, it's not super uplifting to
Speaker 1: see like their names or it's like noisy cow, should boy, horsefly,
Speaker 1: smelly fatty sluggard, it's.
Speaker 2: Not their daughters are stumpy and dumpy and I'm like
Speaker 2: what bulgie and Ash knows.
Speaker 3: Yeah, not the I think it also like it's good
Speaker 3: all the way at the end, but like forty seven
Speaker 3: when he says because it has young kin, which I
Speaker 3: guess when you're using the the original language, it's like
Speaker 3: the young kin, so it's actually ends up being king
Speaker 3: and him Deel asks like, why young king, are you
Speaker 3: charming birds? Rather you could be riding horses, laying low
Speaker 3: and army. Basically like he's he's doing things like where
Speaker 3: he has like this draws back to the laf half
Speaker 3: near where there he has the ability to talk to birds,
Speaker 3: but he's kind of spending his time doing that rather
Speaker 3: than like, you know, you're actually meant for greater things.
Speaker 3: You need to get to it, man, because put in
Speaker 3: all this work for him.
Speaker 1: But yeah, yeah, and as he starts to embody his
Speaker 1: role as king, it says he even got the right
Speaker 1: to be called rig and to deploy runes, and he
Speaker 1: gets like identified with Heimdahl essentially as he lives out
Speaker 1: his destiny.
Speaker 2: The kind of mine right of kings almost.
Speaker 1: Right, right, he becomes like a stand in. He's the
Speaker 1: vicar of Heimdahl.
Speaker 2: Well, what's interesting is that each of these families of
Speaker 2: people spring from an act of hospitality on the original
Speaker 2: couple's part, where they show hospitality to rig Or Heimdall
Speaker 2: by feeding him and speaking with him and how letting
Speaker 2: him sleep in their bed essentially housing him for the
Speaker 2: night and that and he blesses them with progeny based
Speaker 2: on this, you know, and and this shows up in
Speaker 2: multiple pagan mythologies that like when you show hospitality to
Speaker 2: the stranger, you're potentially showing hospitality to the gods, and
Speaker 2: you know that this could redound rebound to your good
Speaker 2: I mean, and this goes this will linger all the
Speaker 2: way into like early Saint higiographies like with you know,
Speaker 2: I believe it's Martin of Tours who like shows hospitality
Speaker 2: to a poor man and then has a dream where
Speaker 2: Christ is like, well it was actually me or the
Speaker 2: poor man was supposed to represent me and you gave
Speaker 2: me your cloak. Here it is.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 2: So this whole idea of you know, both in the
Speaker 2: Pagan and Christian stories of showing you know, hospitality to
Speaker 2: strangers because you never you never know, you know, you
Speaker 2: might be showing hospitality to angels or gods or you.
Speaker 1: Know, yeah they could.
Speaker 3: I'm just gonna say they each of them is actually
Speaker 3: like giving their best meal, you know, like the thralls
Speaker 3: or giving like it's like a very desirable basically course
Speaker 3: loaf with the broth from a calf that well, the
Speaker 3: best of delicacies. We don't really get the far worst
Speaker 3: kind of uh, it's left out. But then the other
Speaker 3: one it's like silver dishes and all these different meats
Speaker 3: and or or ornamented goblets. It's just like so exactly yeah, pointing.
Speaker 1: Out Yeah, And I mean I think of this hospitality
Speaker 1: idea that we see here and elsewhere, and it's this
Speaker 1: idea that when you are holding out your hand to others, well,
Speaker 1: now you're holding out your hand, and so now you're
Speaker 1: able to receive right versus keeping what you have in
Speaker 1: the closed hand. Well, now you're not in a posture
Speaker 1: to receive anything else divine blessing, whatever, grace, mercy, and
Speaker 1: so you need to be able to extend that hand out, brothers,
Speaker 1: if you're going to receive yourself. I do think it's
Speaker 1: interesting also how we see the advancement of society with
Speaker 1: each of these casts. Where with Thrall, we don't get
Speaker 1: any kind of marriage ceremony or anything. They're just together,
Speaker 1: whereas once we go to Farmer, well, now there's an
Speaker 1: exchanging of rings. Now there's actually a ceremony that's happening here.
Speaker 1: That there there's a society is being raised to a
Speaker 1: higher level. And then when you get to the Lord family,
Speaker 1: now it's emphasized that they couple sat together gazing into
Speaker 1: one another's eyes. Now we get romance, uh, something that
Speaker 1: is a benefit of aristocracy compared to everyone else. You
Speaker 1: just they just got to get paired up. Now we
Speaker 1: can actually afford to have something like romantic love. And
Speaker 1: so with each step there's allst more freedom.
Speaker 3: Yeah. And uh and with the with the king, or
Speaker 3: I guess with the with the Lord, it says then
Speaker 3: he alone ruled eighteen settlements. He started to share his wealth,
Speaker 3: offered to everyone's treasures and precious things, slim rope horses,
Speaker 3: He scattered rings, hacked up our rings. Which all this
Speaker 3: is like he's building them up to be good kings
Speaker 3: and not to be tyrants, or building them up just
Speaker 3: because like they're they have more wealth or more light
Speaker 3: than they should just roll over everyone with the iron fist.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's that thing of like a good king is generous.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we saw that in one of the poems and
Speaker 1: a few sessions ago, where there was that like competition
Speaker 1: between two different kings. I can't read the details. Let's
Speaker 1: say the gods and goddesses were, you know, basically each
Speaker 1: kind of pitch and eyed different king, and you know,
Speaker 1: one of them was really cruel and stingy, and you
Speaker 1: heat it up falling on his own sword, I believe.
Speaker 1: And so there's that warning about like, you know, powerself,
Speaker 1: like being a king is potentially a good thing, and
Speaker 1: that there's nothing wrong with executing that kind of dominion
Speaker 1: if you do it in the right manner. But the
Speaker 1: one who is the king is just cruel and bloodthirsty
Speaker 1: that he's inevitably going up falling on his own sword.
Speaker 1: All right, Moving on to this song of Hindla, I
Speaker 1: suppose Heindler maybe. So in the song of Heindler, we
Speaker 1: have Freya who is trying to assist her protege o
Speaker 1: Tar in gaining his inheritance against competing claims of someone
Speaker 1: called h I'm I'm gone a tear. IM probably put
Speaker 1: that terribly, and so she has to go to this
Speaker 1: giantess to get some information out of her. I struggled
Speaker 1: a little bit with this one, trying to figure out
Speaker 1: exactly what's going on. So I'll for do you guys
Speaker 1: to start us off here. What's something that stood out
Speaker 1: to you from this one?
Speaker 3: Yes, this is like a definitely a later or at
Speaker 3: least the only existing ones, like a fourteenth century Icelandic codex,
Speaker 3: so it could be later Yeah, there's a lot in
Speaker 3: here that I feel.
Speaker 1: See, it's like I just tell genealogical kind of stuff.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And then it breaks in the middle and kind
Speaker 3: of like talks about the gods side, which I I
Speaker 3: think I liked better.
Speaker 2: I see they seem to be trying to prove that
Speaker 2: o Tar has like this great lineage that like into
Speaker 2: like by somehow educating o Tar about his lineage, that's
Speaker 2: going to help him somehow, Because there's a note because
Speaker 2: like they call him Otar the simpleton. But if I
Speaker 2: remember the note correctly in the back of the book
Speaker 2: says like it's not that he's stupid, he's a simpleton
Speaker 2: in the fact that he doesn't know. He's literally lacking
Speaker 2: knowledge about his illustrious lineage, and somehow possessing the knowledge
Speaker 2: about his family is going to be to his advantage.
Speaker 2: Oh and this one had the very interesting reference in
Speaker 2: that god list of one who is greater than all,
Speaker 2: who will come after Odin, who, it says here in
Speaker 2: the introduction, is conceivably an allusion to Jesus Christ.
Speaker 1: Right, then it'll come another even mightier, though I dare
Speaker 1: not say his name. You can see further than when
Speaker 1: Odin has to meet the wolf, so there's some anticipation
Speaker 1: of someone greater coming about after Odin's judgment essentially.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So the whole setting of this was that Freya
Speaker 3: is showing Odar that basically he's gonna he has the
Speaker 3: lineage lineage the for claims to an inheritance that is
Speaker 3: being contested against him. Mm hmmm, and he ends up
Speaker 3: having it. Yeah. I thought that that was the line
Speaker 3: that stuck out the most of me as well for
Speaker 3: one that was to come later. Makes you wonder if
Speaker 3: like they were hearing this from traders or from different
Speaker 3: travelers at the time. I don't know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's interesting because there's that, and then you know,
Speaker 1: I don't spoil it. Yeah, when a couple of texts
Speaker 1: that down the road that we're about to get to
Speaker 1: and there's a mention of like a Christian woman and specifically,
Speaker 1: and so we're definitely in an era. Now there's some
Speaker 1: overlap here between Christian influence or at least recognition of Christians.
Speaker 1: You know, whether this is you know, pre pre conversion
Speaker 1: relations with Christians, I don't really know, but it's just
Speaker 1: it's interesting here that now we're coming into some direct
Speaker 1: connections between the Northern Mind and Christianity.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and there seems to be this this understanding that
Speaker 2: there is an order of being, like much greater than
Speaker 2: the Acier, that the Acier or not the end all
Speaker 2: be all there, that they are small g gods like
Speaker 2: there there seems to be this understanding that there's some reality,
Speaker 2: you know, and you know, like even above know, the
Speaker 2: fate that seems to control all the asier and their actions,
Speaker 2: that that there's you know, that that they are still
Speaker 2: themselves contingent beings who are immeshed in the same fate
Speaker 2: as all the mortals are. So it's like they're only
Speaker 2: gods in the sense that they are superhuman, but they
Speaker 2: you know, like they don't rule the world in the
Speaker 2: sense that you know, they didn't make it. It was
Speaker 2: there before them, it's going to be there after they're gone.
Speaker 2: So it's like it's a completely different conception of the
Speaker 2: Christian understanding or the Judeo Christian understanding of God as
Speaker 2: the transcendent, omnipotent creator God.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and that the gods experienced time essentially the same
Speaker 1: way we do. They just live longer and you know,
Speaker 1: they're they're stronger, obviously, but yeah, even the gods operate
Speaker 1: according to fate, but even there's question regarding where did
Speaker 1: the norms come from? Like what what what fate are
Speaker 1: they working with? And so there is room for asking
Speaker 1: what's at the top of things here, and they never
Speaker 1: write into that.
Speaker 3: Mm hmm.
Speaker 1: So I do wonder where that line and it just
Speaker 1: keeps standing out to me that that stands it from
Speaker 1: forty four where it talks about someone coming after Odin
Speaker 1: who's even greater in the name they can't mention, Like I,
Speaker 1: I wonder when exactly that stands that it came into play.
Speaker 2: Here, right it's or yeah, if this is.
Speaker 1: You know, built into the actual pagan writing, then it's
Speaker 1: very interesting.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't know. Yeah. One modern, more modern fantasy
Speaker 2: book that I've been reading through recently is Gene Wolf's
Speaker 2: The Wizard Night. It's actually two books, and in that
Speaker 2: he liked Tolkien takes a lot from the Norse, and
Speaker 2: he has an analog to the Acier. He calls them
Speaker 2: something different, but they are basically like the Norse gods,
Speaker 2: like the one who's in charge is even called the
Speaker 2: All Father. But there's like but there's even a recognition
Speaker 2: among them that oh we're not the top of the heap,
Speaker 2: and there's these beings above them who are essentially Judeo
Speaker 2: Christian angels, and then above them is like the most
Speaker 2: High God. So it's like you've got the acier sort
Speaker 2: of nestled you know, between humans and angels essentially in
Speaker 2: that conception and in this kind of nested doll relationship,
Speaker 2: which is I thought was an interesting way of sort
Speaker 2: of in this fantasy universe, kind of reconciling these two
Speaker 2: different ideas, the two different cosmologies of Judeo Christian you know,
Speaker 2: cosmology and the and the Norse one.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and even in you know, with Tolkien's mythos, you know,
Speaker 1: his valor are definitely I would say they're kind of
Speaker 1: a blend almost between this year and angels. And you know,
Speaker 1: in a in a BBC interview that he did that
Speaker 1: Tolkien did, he's asked about his religion in his world
Speaker 1: and the BBC Journal's camera who it is offhand, but
Speaker 1: says that your people never call out the names of gods.
Speaker 1: They call out like their ancestors or where they're from
Speaker 1: or something I can battle, but they never call out
Speaker 1: the names of gods. You know, why is that? And
Speaker 1: Tolkien says that there's no place for something like Asgard
Speaker 1: in my world, and so he's kind of quick to
Speaker 1: on one hand, obviously this year are inspired by the
Speaker 1: mythology that he loved, or the Valor are inspired by
Speaker 1: the mythology that he loved. But at the same time he
Speaker 1: sees them as something else, and so they take much
Speaker 1: more angelic kind of role there, and so he kind
Speaker 1: of conflates the two almost The Elder Scrolls in Philosophy,
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Speaker 1: of the chiefs among these titles is The Elder Scrolls,
Speaker 1: namely Marowin Oblivion and Skyrim. The level of artistry, mythology,
Speaker 1: and lore of this universe is vast and provides a
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Speaker 1: that special code for your all access pass. I hope
Speaker 1: to see you there, which it is kind of interesting that,
Speaker 1: you know, if you look at just how the mythologies
Speaker 1: were adapted from the old pagan world into like medieval Christianity,
Speaker 1: that in large part, in fact, even Plato himself did
Speaker 1: this where he would take the gods and he basically
Speaker 1: relegated them to a lower kind of position, where he
Speaker 1: basically took what we think of as the Greco Roman
Speaker 1: pantheon they're the Greek pantheon for him, and made them
Speaker 1: like well, damons, He made them lesser beings, whereas he
Speaker 1: had something like a monotheistic creator God who is ultimately,
Speaker 1: you know, in charge of putting things into order, but
Speaker 1: he downgrades them. And the medieval Christians larger took that position,
Speaker 1: which is why they're okay talking about, well why we
Speaker 1: still call the planets by their you know, Roman god names,
Speaker 1: because they're very much okay with that just kind of
Speaker 1: moving the context around a little bit and downgrading what
Speaker 1: it is that we're talking about.
Speaker 2: And they kept the names of months and days. They
Speaker 2: didn't try to Christian eyes.
Speaker 4: Them, right, They basically treated the old gods as misunderstood
Speaker 4: angelic powers don't have a seguay.
Speaker 1: Moving to I suppose the Song of Grotty. So in
Speaker 1: this song and the poem, the Danish king Frodie acquires
Speaker 1: on a visit to Sweden two female slaves whom he
Speaker 1: takes home to grind with the magic millstone Grotty and
Speaker 1: this magic stone with millstone would grind out whatever the
Speaker 1: grinder is asking for, and so he puts these slaves
Speaker 1: to work. We find out eventually that they actually made
Speaker 1: this thing once upon a time. Yeah, and you know,
Speaker 1: at first, they're willing to go along with whatever he
Speaker 1: tells them to do, but he just drives them too far,
Speaker 1: doesn't let them sleep. He's just so abusive and driving
Speaker 1: toward them that eventually they grind out and army to
Speaker 1: attack him. And that's where it ends anything at from this.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, just maybe maybe this is just like
Speaker 3: a lesson to not drive your slaves basically to exhaustion
Speaker 3: or death.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: It reminds me what is it from the movie The
Speaker 2: Ten Commandments? Charlton Hessen's Moses tells Pharaoh at some point like,
Speaker 2: you know, hell, you know, well, fed slaves make many bricks,
Speaker 2: Starving slaves make nons. So I think at one point,
Speaker 2: don't they mentioned that the two women are also giantesses.
Speaker 2: Am I misremembering that.
Speaker 1: I think that's.
Speaker 2: Right because they mentioned giants as they're close kinsmen, right,
Speaker 2: and that they're descended from them.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you're right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, probably not a good idea to enslave giantesses.
Speaker 3: But they can push a mill man, they can do it. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, This one I think is a pretty obvious lesson
Speaker 1: in treating your people well, Like, even if you know
Speaker 1: they're they're slaves, don't don't overdo it. Don't consume them,
Speaker 1: or you turn will be consumed.
Speaker 2: They're they're given an animal's job, you know, to turn
Speaker 2: a millstone. And so it's almost like if you degrade
Speaker 2: people in this way, it won't end well for you.
Speaker 1: Right, And so even though they have this firm castastem,
Speaker 1: there's a clear social hierarchy that, for no other reason
Speaker 1: than just pragmatic reasons, there's a reason for the lords
Speaker 1: to treat their people well for no other reason than
Speaker 1: simply because that's going to help them to get more
Speaker 1: of what they want. I don't have anything else from
Speaker 1: this one, unless yere Okay, I think it's pretty straightforard
Speaker 1: lest on that one, all right, Next one grow his
Speaker 1: chant to these This is what's this one? Okay, So
Speaker 1: this one is Zip Dugger is going to his dead
Speaker 1: mom to get some kind of blessing to go off
Speaker 1: on this impossible wooing mission he's been given. Is basically
Speaker 1: what's going on here.
Speaker 3: From the you know it was. It was a later
Speaker 3: written one to try and kind of like build it
Speaker 3: up again, and I actually had some I think irish
Speaker 3: connections just in somebody like the myth mm hmm type
Speaker 3: things that was interesting.
Speaker 2: This is the one you mentioned earlier. Andrew with the
Speaker 2: it mentions the Christian woman and stands at thirteen you know.
Speaker 2: She she's giving her son advice the U and says
Speaker 2: this eighth one, I will chant for you less to night,
Speaker 2: overtake you in the open, out on a misty path,
Speaker 2: so that it's inconceivable that she might do you harm
Speaker 2: a dead Christian woman.
Speaker 1: I'm not really sure what to make of that, but
Speaker 1: it seems interesting. Yeah, by a dead Christian woman would
Speaker 1: pose a threat to him.
Speaker 2: I like the imagery though, you know, less night overtake
Speaker 2: you in the open. So maybe it's this idea that like,
Speaker 2: if you're caught out in the open after dark, you
Speaker 2: could encounter like the vengeful dead or something like that. Interesting,
Speaker 2: a banshee of some kind, you know, the kind of
Speaker 2: vengeful spirit of right.
Speaker 1: So maybe yeah, so with Christian representing a hostile spiritual power,
Speaker 1: perhaps that maybe hey, maybe Christian ghosts or something like
Speaker 1: Bookiyman to the to the north Pagans. Yeah, so she
Speaker 1: gives him all these well, she chants all these things
Speaker 1: over him that just provide different kinds of protection, very
Speaker 1: much in line with the kind of runic wisdom text
Speaker 1: that we've seen previously. We'll just go through saying what
Speaker 1: different I don't know, different ways to get power, I guess, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't have anything else to say about that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, this one's kind of just straightforward, Champion.
Speaker 2: It's set up for the next one too, right, Yeah,
Speaker 2: because with the circular quest for the.
Speaker 1: The rooster, right, yeah, so this is the one where
Speaker 1: Zip Dog that that P and the D right next
Speaker 1: each other, throws me off that Zip Dog finally goes
Speaker 1: off for his quest here to wed see me glowed.
Speaker 1: But he meets with this giant on the pathway and
Speaker 1: he's given yeah, the circular requests of let's see who
Speaker 1: I don't know, can you can you remember offhand what
Speaker 1: he had to do.
Speaker 3: Here.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's like he needs to get into this meat
Speaker 2: hall or whatnot. But to get past the gates, he
Speaker 2: needs to give the guard dogs meat from this rooster cock.
Speaker 2: But the the only weapon that can kill the bird
Speaker 2: is I think a scythe or something, but it's in
Speaker 2: the possession of a giantess and she will only yield
Speaker 2: the weapon. Oh, because the side is inside the rooster's body.
Speaker 2: So you and then well, you know, I was, yeah, circuit,
Speaker 2: and when I was reading this too, it reminds me
Speaker 2: of those like really strong out video game quests where
Speaker 2: you're trying to do something simple like get into a
Speaker 2: place and they're like, well, you got to get this
Speaker 2: key from this guy. Oh, I'll only give you the
Speaker 2: key if you bring me you know, twenty seven nern
Speaker 2: roots or something like that, And then you go off
Speaker 2: and do that, and then it turn out you got
Speaker 2: to do something else. You've spent like three hours just
Speaker 2: trying to open a door.
Speaker 3: Thomist has still burned from the one small favorite quest
Speaker 3: from Real Escape, just non stop go.
Speaker 1: And then after all that, he just says who he is,
Speaker 1: and then we just bypassed the whole thing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he's like, oh, well, if you had just said so,
Speaker 2: I would, But.
Speaker 3: I think that's what he recognizes. He's like, yeah, that's
Speaker 3: that's not gonna happen, Like it's impossible. I'm just gonna
Speaker 3: like fruit force my I have all these like all
Speaker 3: this protection on, I'll just force my way in. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Like I get the idea that this one was written
Speaker 2: with the intent to be funny because of the absurdity
Speaker 2: of the ridiculous quest that's impossible to fulfill. And then
Speaker 2: all he had to do was say his name in
Speaker 2: the first place to get in, because yeah, I guess
Speaker 2: he's been prophesied to like come there, because the lady
Speaker 2: of the house is like, oh, is he really here?
Speaker 2: You know, like she's you know, she she almost doesn't
Speaker 2: believe that he's he's shown up.
Speaker 3: And I thought it was in this one where it
Speaker 3: was actually in Balder's dreams with garm the dog that
Speaker 3: basically was like reminded me of the guard dog at
Speaker 3: a tumbno or whatever.
Speaker 1: Yeah, right, definitely definitely some Cerberus vibes as well. I mean,
Speaker 1: this idea of the Underworld guard dog. But yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: as you said that, it's like they're like prophesider they're're
Speaker 1: fated to be together. So again we get this idea
Speaker 1: that no matter how complicated things are, things are going
Speaker 1: to turn out the way that they're going to turn out,
Speaker 1: the way that they're supposed to turn out, the way
Speaker 1: that they're written to turn out, and so in the end,
Speaker 1: the norms always win.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, he explicitly says this is no man can
Speaker 2: overcome URD's decree, and Urge is one of the three Norns.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 1: Right, No one can overturn Urg's decree, even if it's
Speaker 1: been shamefully laid down. And so I guess that's even
Speaker 1: It's like fate is written out, or at least revealed
Speaker 1: by the Norns, and you know, the way that it
Speaker 1: is carried out can have nobility or shame depending on
Speaker 1: how you are conducting yourself, but in the end, the
Speaker 1: end result is going to be the same.
Speaker 2: It's like the whole time travel trope in science fiction.
Speaker 2: You know, you you'll cause the very thing you're trying
Speaker 2: to prevent, you.
Speaker 1: Know, right, like in a Futurama where Fry becomes his
Speaker 1: own grandmother.
Speaker 2: I was thinking of Terminator, but that.
Speaker 1: All right, well, I guess now moving on to the
Speaker 1: last one, the waking of I'm Got I'm Gone to here,
Speaker 1: I'm gone to here. We'll get that.
Speaker 2: This one was my favorite, and the whole book. I
Speaker 2: loved this one. It was just so I just love
Speaker 2: this idea of this girl like going to like you know,
Speaker 2: essentially converse with the spirit of her dead father and
Speaker 2: they keep you know, you know. It was it was
Speaker 2: very dramatic and you could get a lot of feel
Speaker 2: for the two characters.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And so she's trying to if I call correctly,
Speaker 1: she's trying to get like this sword from him, right, yes,
Speaker 1: and he's very reluctant to give it to her because
Speaker 1: he says it's cursed, which also reminds me of Turin
Speaker 1: Turnbar and his her sword. And so yeah, and the
Speaker 1: whole environment is very kind of haunting here. When you
Speaker 1: see the shepherd here who's initially trying to turn her away,
Speaker 1: says foolish. Seems to me anyone who journeys here, a
Speaker 1: person alone in dark shadows of night. Flames are flickering,
Speaker 1: the mounds are opening, solid ground and marshland burning. Let's
Speaker 1: go more swiftly. Still, it's really this just hellish kind
Speaker 1: of environment. Like the mounds are opening. It's like that
Speaker 1: the dead are coming away here. Everything's on fire, the
Speaker 1: marsh lands on fire, which when you read Beowulf, this
Speaker 1: is basically the Grendel's Layer, you know, Grendel's mother. This,
Speaker 1: this environment is very much described this way of like
Speaker 1: burning marshland, because this brings up something like the Norse
Speaker 1: vision of hell or sort of like a haunting kind
Speaker 1: of environment. And so we see this come up even
Speaker 1: in you know, the Baywell story, which is at least
Speaker 1: culturally connected, and it.
Speaker 2: Brings to mind the marsh fires in the dead marshes,
Speaker 2: right and all the dead you.
Speaker 1: Know, right, same idea.
Speaker 2: And also the barrows too, there's kind of a barrow
Speaker 2: white feel to all this. And the sword that she
Speaker 2: gets out of the mound, like the three Hobbits get
Speaker 2: their get magic swords from the mounds. I mean, I
Speaker 2: like that even her dead father understands like she shouldn't
Speaker 2: be doing this, you know, Harvore, daughter, why do you
Speaker 2: call out so risking danger runs? You are heading for
Speaker 2: a disaster, You are mad, you are out of your wits,
Speaker 2: your thinkings awry to awaken dead men. So he's like, yeah,
Speaker 2: like don't practice necromancy, don't talk to the dead. This
Speaker 2: isn't gonna end. Well, there's nothing I could give you
Speaker 2: that is going to help you.
Speaker 4: Huh.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 4: And then.
Speaker 1: We're told here in the intro I guess probably in
Speaker 1: the text as well, that her voard that she dresses
Speaker 1: as a man and calls herself by a man's name,
Speaker 1: her Vard, and she leads a band of vikings out
Speaker 1: and so she adopts the role of a man in
Speaker 1: order to charge off into war very aoin, you know,
Speaker 1: even changing her name to do so. And then at
Speaker 1: least tangential connection here, you've got this Aoin kind of vibe.
Speaker 1: We also get communicating with the dead, and so you know,
Speaker 1: it's kind of there's there's some general vague connections here
Speaker 1: with that part in Lord of the Rings.
Speaker 3: Right, I think it's easy to say that he probably
Speaker 3: liked this story.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's a lot.
Speaker 3: Of a lot of stuff from here.
Speaker 2: Oh and it even says that the sword Tearfing is
Speaker 2: a dwarf crafted weapon.
Speaker 1: Right by Dvalin.
Speaker 2: Oh that's right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, And so we're continuing this theme that we've
Speaker 1: seen in a lot of the female leads of these stories,
Speaker 1: where she's doing something really rash, you're not thinking through
Speaker 1: things clearly, and that it's going to end in disaster
Speaker 1: because her father says that the sword will, if you
Speaker 1: may believe it, destroy your kindred girl utterly. And so
Speaker 1: this quest for vengeance, for power, whatever it is that
Speaker 1: you're going to do with this is going to consume
Speaker 1: you and your kindred utterly, so like completely, which again
Speaker 1: gives me turn and turn bar vibes as well as
Speaker 1: again just continue this theme of women throwing themselves off
Speaker 1: in vengeance or passion or whatever and it not going well.
Speaker 2: I love the ending Stanza too. You know, she's leaving
Speaker 2: the island with the sword and says to the the
Speaker 2: shade of her father, you know, may you all dwell,
Speaker 2: I'm off alway now, safe in the mound. I'll go
Speaker 2: quickly for now. I thought most of all that I
Speaker 2: was between worlds when these flames blazed all about me,
Speaker 2: the whole between worlds. Like she's in a liminal space,
Speaker 2: you know, between the world of the living and the
Speaker 2: world of the dead.
Speaker 1: Right, and so I mean it's again a kind of
Speaker 1: descent into the underworld of sorts to recover something of desire.
Speaker 1: And before that she says when she's still trying to
Speaker 1: get the sword, she says, I determine it thus worthy
Speaker 1: dead men that you will never vanish to lie quietly
Speaker 1: dead with the ghost decaying in the mound unless you
Speaker 1: give me out of the grave the danger to shields
Speaker 1: he Almar's killer. So say she has some kind of
Speaker 1: power over her father and her brothers, over their ghosts
Speaker 1: to decide whether or not they're going to rest in
Speaker 1: peace or not. It's like she's going to keep them
Speaker 1: from having the kind of rest that the dead should
Speaker 1: experience if they don't provide what she wants. And so
Speaker 1: again we get an application of an oath over against
Speaker 1: the dead.
Speaker 2: Mm hmm, yeah, Like it very much left me at
Speaker 2: the end being like, well, what's the rest of that story?
Speaker 3: Like, yeah, y'all may have already touched on this. If
Speaker 3: you did, versus so may the god then leave you
Speaker 3: safe inside of the mountain. It's like an unnamed god,
Speaker 3: which is interesting.
Speaker 1: It definitely feel for her her dead father here, who
Speaker 1: obviously wants to protect her, but she is just intent
Speaker 1: on this quest that she's on and won't be turned away. Well,
Speaker 1: any other thoughts, questions, concerns, plans, to complete these stories,
Speaker 1: but not your ethic fan fictions.
Speaker 3: That son is good. This is definitely it's tied in
Speaker 3: a lot to other readings already excuse the basis.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it is good. I definitely enjoyed this, and I
Speaker 1: definitely need to return to some of the other related
Speaker 1: texts now that we've been through this, and I guessid
Speaker 1: I think more well, I'll build a hold on to
Speaker 1: more of it and sort of piece together different traditions.
Speaker 1: I think it's really interesting. You know, we talked about
Speaker 1: I think this last time that they obviously don't have
Speaker 1: a firm canon, that we have several different traditions that
Speaker 1: sort of overlap with each other, and so it's very
Speaker 1: interesting to see which traditions emphasize different roles, different people,
Speaker 1: different actions, different virtues even, and so it's it's definitely
Speaker 1: worth going back to some of that now. As we've
Speaker 1: talked before, I would like to, in the relatively near future,
Speaker 1: jump into the Children of Furin as sort of a
Speaker 1: follow up to this. You know, next next month we're
Speaker 1: doing a co tour series. But then after that when
Speaker 1: we get back to the text, and I think Children
Speaker 1: of Short will be the next one to go and
Speaker 1: so hopefully you'll be able to join us again. Maybe
Speaker 1: we'll be able to pull in some others who are
Speaker 1: you know with the Tolkien connection, But otherwise I definitely
Speaker 1: appreciate you guys coming along for this journey.
Speaker 2: Thank you.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's great, Pans, this is great, absolutely.
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening. And next month we're going to
Speaker 1: be getting into our Star Wars series, which would be fun,
Speaker 1: good summer series, maybe a little bit beyond. Mark your
Speaker 1: calendars for May fourth, May the fourth, at nine pm,
Speaker 1: as we get things started with a live stream general
Speaker 1: conversation about Star Wars and of our our experience with
Speaker 1: Star Wars, our history with Star Wars, our view on
Speaker 1: sort of some broad level topics before we get into
Speaker 1: the series of looking at some specific media. But now
Speaker 1: before we go, I want to thank all patrons who
Speaker 1: make things like this possible, and by name, I would
Speaker 1: look to thank all Tier three patrons, So that's Samanda, Chase, Chads, Clinton,
Speaker 1: Aaron Evy, Jamie, Justin, Justin, Kyle, Mariah, Roger Tyler and
Speaker 1: William and many extra. Most of these Tier three patrons
Speaker 1: have purchased an annual subscription, which means that they'll be
Speaker 1: able to access all four of my upcoming courses currently
Speaker 1: on the schedule. Go ahead and join this growing community
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Speaker 1: it for now, until next time, godspeed. The realms of
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