Speaker 1: Hey, you welcome to Mythic Mind, where we pursue wisdom
Speaker 1: in the past between primary and secondary worlds. I'm your host,
Speaker 1: Andrew Snyder, and I always welcome you to join me
Speaker 1: on these trails. I don't have any brand new content
Speaker 1: for you at this moment, as I've been making myself
Speaker 1: take some time off to rest and to just be
Speaker 1: with my family. And I really love doing both of
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Speaker 1: isn't easy for me to do, just because I'm someone
Speaker 1: who always feels like I should be researching, that should
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Speaker 1: writing my dissertation that I just was never able to shake,
Speaker 1: which is kind of a blessing anachurse at times. But
Speaker 1: so it's been good just to chill out a little bit,
Speaker 1: although I have been doing a little bit of work
Speaker 1: here and there. I recently signed off on a publication
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Speaker 1: and I should have that done by mid to late spring,
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Speaker 1: And for now, as I continue to consolidate our two
Speaker 1: podcasts into one, I bring you the second Fellowship episode
Speaker 1: on the and so whether you're listening to this for
Speaker 1: the first time or to repeat, I hope that you enjoy.
Speaker 1: Hello and welcome to the Mythic Mind Fellowship podcast, which
Speaker 1: is a platform for giving a voice to our patrons.
Speaker 1: My name is Andrew Snyder, and I'm the founder of
Speaker 1: this fellowship and the hosts of the Mythic Mind Legacy podcast,
Speaker 1: and I heartily welcome you around our heart. This is
Speaker 1: the second episode in our patron led series on the
Speaker 1: Poetic Eda, which is one of our primary sources for
Speaker 1: information on Norse myths and legends. This is a lot
Speaker 1: of fun and I would love for you to join
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Speaker 1: the video on my YouTube channel, which you'll find a
Speaker 1: link to in the show notes. And if you're watching
Speaker 1: this on YouTube, know that you can also catch it
Speaker 1: on the podcast. Well, now let's go ahead and jump
Speaker 1: into the conversation. All right, Well, welcome back to the
Speaker 1: latest Mythic Mind Fellowship Chat as we continue through the
Speaker 1: poetic etam. This is our second episode on that, going
Speaker 1: through the next four sections of the atom, starting with
Speaker 1: bathrooun Deer's sayings, which is just saying that I'm probably
Speaker 1: butchering the Norse, but it still sounds really cool, especially
Speaker 1: if you just say confidently with some guttural intensity behind it. Well,
Speaker 1: so joined today by Thomas, who was with us last
Speaker 1: time and he's obviously made a number of appearances by
Speaker 1: this point. And then Chase, who's been on the other
Speaker 1: show we were talking about the ransom stuff, but first
Speaker 1: time on the Fellowship podcast. So Jase, Honey, tell us
Speaker 1: who you are.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Chase, I'm in Texas and just found out about
Speaker 2: Andrews classes and I did the Lewis class, and I
Speaker 2: just finished up the bo Atheist and Beowolf class and
Speaker 2: just can't get enough of it. So really enjoyed just
Speaker 2: giving myself a classical education in some.
Speaker 1: Ways fantastic And you know, you definitely have the beard
Speaker 1: for this conversation. I feel a little envious as we're
Speaker 1: talking about, you know, vikings and the Norse mythos. Well,
Speaker 1: just like last time, I'm gonna start off with each
Speaker 1: of these sections that we're reading. I'm just gonna read
Speaker 1: at least a portion of the intro that provided in
Speaker 1: the Larrington translation of the poetic Adam, since I know
Speaker 1: that the probably a number of people listening who haven't
Speaker 1: read along, and by the way, I should say that
Speaker 1: we're all amateurs at this kind of reading along ourselves
Speaker 1: for the first time, and so you know, we all
Speaker 1: have some interest in myths and legends and obviously the
Speaker 1: material that's been inspired by these legends, people like Tolkien,
Speaker 1: people like Lewis, and so it's a lot of fun
Speaker 1: to get beneath the surface and read the kinds of
Speaker 1: things that these people are reading. But I should emphasize
Speaker 1: that we are all just amateurs in these waters. But
Speaker 1: it's I think that's kind of fun as well. But yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna read a portion of the interest so
Speaker 1: that way we all have an idea as to what
Speaker 1: it is that we're talking about, and those kind of
Speaker 1: jumping around to whatever we feel like discussing. As the
Speaker 1: Seers prophecy saying that the High One and Greenmeier Sayings
Speaker 1: show Odin is characterized by his obsessive quest for wisdom,
Speaker 1: particularly for information about Ragnarok. In this poem, he sets off,
Speaker 1: against his wife's advice, disguise as a poor wanderer to
Speaker 1: test his wisdom against the giant bathroom deer known only
Speaker 1: from this poem, Odin has proved his metal by answering
Speaker 1: questions with the giant puts to him. He is invited
Speaker 1: to risk his head in questioning the giant. Buffery or
Speaker 1: sayings or Bathrudsmal belongs to the Giant Era of Wisdom
Speaker 1: contest known in many other cultures, and so this really
Speaker 1: comes down to a riddle contest. It's a contest of lore,
Speaker 1: which I mean, these contests should sound very familiar to
Speaker 1: us from you know, some of the literature that's been
Speaker 1: inspired from these stories, you know, I think of obviously
Speaker 1: Tolkien got your Riddles in the Dark with the.
Speaker 3: Yes, that was what I first thought of when when
Speaker 3: the little pro section before was explaining that, I'm like,
Speaker 3: it's Riddles of the Dark exactly.
Speaker 1: And then even I mean, you know it's spoiler. I
Speaker 1: guess you know at the end, you know, when Odin
Speaker 1: asked a question that only he could know. I mean,
Speaker 1: that's that's Bilbo, right, Uh, what's my pocket? It's like
Speaker 1: no one else can know that, And so I have
Speaker 1: to believe that Tolkien's pulling something from that. And then
Speaker 1: also I think of in that hideous strength when Merlin
Speaker 1: and Ransom starts ring with lore, you know, going back
Speaker 1: and forth about you know, just different aspects of the
Speaker 1: cosmos and you know, the mythos, and I've definitely see
Speaker 1: that pulled from this this genre as well. But yeah,
Speaker 1: so I mean, what'd you get? What'd you think of this?
Speaker 1: I mean, what are some things that stood out to
Speaker 1: you or you know, your first impressions.
Speaker 3: I felt like a lot of the questions, though, didn't
Speaker 3: seem like riddles to me. They just seemed more like
Speaker 3: trivia questions like can you answer this fact about the
Speaker 3: cosmos or about history or about the future. I'm like,
Speaker 3: is that really a riddle?
Speaker 1: It more like a question. Yeah. It definitely did seem
Speaker 1: more like a Jeopardy Mythology edition. Uh. Yeah, And so
Speaker 1: I agree that that's why I I feel like it
Speaker 1: has more resonance, you know, with specifically in that hideous
Speaker 1: strength that Ranks and Merlin lore battle when they are
Speaker 1: just you know, spotting off different aspects of lore. But
Speaker 1: I do think that ending is very riddles in the
Speaker 1: dark to me. I don't know, what do you think
Speaker 1: going into the chase?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean interesting kind of have like the threat
Speaker 2: of like you know, if you're not wise, like you're
Speaker 2: not leaving the hall, and just kind of like battling
Speaker 2: a little bit with I couldn't tell if he was
Speaker 2: like offering hospitality a bit of like kind with me,
Speaker 2: and then he's like, I'm not going to be tricked
Speaker 2: by something like that. I'm gonna stay where I'm at
Speaker 2: right now. I'm okay with that.
Speaker 1: But yeah, the hospitality definitely seems to be an invitation
Speaker 1: to a challenge, not genuine hospitality per se. Right, And
Speaker 1: I do find it interesting that Bothrond you that the
Speaker 1: Giant is he tends to be mostly focused on asking
Speaker 1: questions about just you know, general about the world as
Speaker 1: it is, whereas Odin has a much more chronological interest
Speaker 1: and that he has questions like from Origins going all
Speaker 1: the way up to Ragnarok. And this I think is
Speaker 1: to a theme that we see with Odin again and again.
Speaker 1: He's trying to get some understanding regarding the fate of
Speaker 1: the gods. He wants to know what's going to happen
Speaker 1: to him. I guess, out of some hope to evade
Speaker 1: fate maybe or at the very least to know what
Speaker 1: awaits him. And so he definitely has an interest regarding
Speaker 1: the timeline, I think more so than we get with
Speaker 1: the Giant, which I think is kind of interesting.
Speaker 2: I just thought it was interesting how kind of like
Speaker 2: visualizing the scene and how Odin had shown himself as
Speaker 2: basically a man, so I'm assuming he's small compared to
Speaker 2: this giant. Then he's also giants up sitting and he's
Speaker 2: talking about like you're from the floor, So I can
Speaker 2: just imagine like how imposing that would be, you know,
Speaker 2: like talking back and forth right you're he's seeing Odin
Speaker 2: so small that he's like, you're there from the hall floor,
Speaker 2: not front up by me.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I think that's part of Odin's tendency to mask
Speaker 1: his identity, and the fact that he is masking his
Speaker 1: identity or he's using a pseudonym here, it's not The
Speaker 1: Giant doesn't figure this out until the very end, and
Speaker 1: Odin does this all the time. Whenever Odin makes an appearance,
Speaker 1: he's almost always using a false name. He's in disguise,
Speaker 1: he's veiled in some way, shape or form, And I
Speaker 1: can only assume that's because you know, Odin's associated with wisdom,
Speaker 1: and so you know, speaks to the fact that wisdom
Speaker 1: requires the right kind of eyes to see. That you
Speaker 1: have to be wise in order to see wisdom, right,
Speaker 1: that the beginning of wisdom is this, get wisdom. The
Speaker 1: Proverbs tell us it's like it's kind of paradoxical, but
Speaker 1: it's like you need wisdom to reveal wisdom. And even
Speaker 1: Odin himself, you know, he has one eye because he
Speaker 1: had a sacrifice part of his vision in order to
Speaker 1: get wisdom. And so it's like you have to learn
Speaker 1: to see with the right eyes. And so, you know,
Speaker 1: wisdom is veiled and it's dealing with mortals, and we
Speaker 1: need the right kind of wisdom to uncover it.
Speaker 3: I've noticed that Merlin in the Arthur material does this
Speaker 3: a lot too, where he'll veil himself in some other form.
Speaker 1: You know, yeah, yeah, you know, I'm mostly familiar with
Speaker 1: Mallory for the Arthur Mythos does it for like no
Speaker 1: reason a lot of times, and I can tell, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's very chastly, veiling himself and appearing in different guises
Speaker 1: for again no clear reasons sometimes, which you know, it
Speaker 1: kind of makes sense that Gandolf is kind of inspired
Speaker 1: by Odin as well as surely you know Merlin is
Speaker 1: wrapped up in that and so interesting that there are
Speaker 1: these crossover tendencies between Merlin and Odin. And I can
Speaker 1: only wonder if maybe, you know, the early stories of
Speaker 1: Merlin have some connection to the earliest of Odin.
Speaker 2: Odin.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I know that that Gandolf also includes like
Speaker 3: I read somewhere that he includes a little bit of
Speaker 3: Odin as well, especially as like just this wanderer, like
Speaker 3: a higher being disguised as an old beggar, just wandering
Speaker 3: around and seeking wisdom.
Speaker 1: You know, yeah, yeah, if you I mean, if you
Speaker 1: look at some of the depictions of Odin, I mean
Speaker 1: very much get the Great Pilgrim imagery.
Speaker 2: I had wondered too. I don't know enough like historically,
Speaker 2: so I know, like Romans had made it to Britain
Speaker 2: much earlier than this and had at least brought some Christianity.
Speaker 2: I don't know how much like had stayed there throughout
Speaker 2: once they had left, or if they had kind of
Speaker 2: like completely gone back to take it roots. For the
Speaker 2: most part, just trying to see like okay, you know,
Speaker 2: like this was like composed like around a thousand, right AD,
Speaker 2: or was this earlier or they just don't know.
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't I'm not really sure. I know
Speaker 1: the pros ata is like somewhere around a thousand or
Speaker 1: so with uh, you know Snorri Storlsen, which you know
Speaker 1: that comes a little bit later than the poetic at
Speaker 1: a I'm actually can't recall offhand when when this was
Speaker 1: put together, but I assume more or less the same time.
Speaker 3: And I know that that the British Isles essentially had
Speaker 3: to be almost re evangelized at one point, where you know,
Speaker 3: Augustine of Canterbury is literally sent by the pope to say, okay,
Speaker 3: like you know, the Roman authority has collapsed, people are
Speaker 3: lapsing back into pagan beliefs. There's the Viking invasions of
Speaker 3: the British Isles, Like okay, go take some monks, go
Speaker 3: to Britain and re evangelize the place.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because I wondered just just from like saying of
Speaker 2: like the sayings of what was it, the sayings of
Speaker 2: the High One? I was right before it, and then
Speaker 2: even like them this like how much of it was
Speaker 2: Like Okay, maybe there were some proverbs left over or
Speaker 2: something like they had heard a little bit of that
Speaker 2: and that knowledge kind of kept in morphed. You know,
Speaker 2: I don't know, but I do think it is funny that,
Speaker 2: you know, Odin says like it's good to be averagely wise,
Speaker 2: but then he's on this quest untill they prove that
Speaker 2: he's the most wise, and you're like, you're not taking
Speaker 2: your own advice advice?
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it is interesting, just kind of wondering exactly
Speaker 1: what Odin is doing here. Is he simply trying to
Speaker 1: best the giant or is he trying to get some
Speaker 1: wisdom from the giant that you know he doesn't know.
Speaker 1: And I mean, I guess it kind of seems like
Speaker 1: he's trying to get some more knowledge of ragnarotcause my
Speaker 1: understanding of it, which.
Speaker 2: I think that's what they were saying too, where like
Speaker 2: he kind of shuts it down pretty quickly after finding out.
Speaker 1: Here, right, he got what he what he wanted to know,
Speaker 1: And you know, I I'm always kind of I'm kind
Speaker 1: of spitballing it here when I talk about like what
Speaker 1: different things mean, because you know, I'm not an expert
Speaker 1: on the Northern mythology or philosophy, but I know that,
Speaker 1: you know, the giants are more primordial than even the gods,
Speaker 1: and so you know, it kind of seems like giants
Speaker 1: almost have a sense of timelessness about them. And that
Speaker 1: is the gods, who you know, use this kind of
Speaker 1: primordial giant was e Mer, right, which they use em
Speaker 1: to construct the world, and then they created man within
Speaker 1: the you know, the cosmos created by the body of
Speaker 1: this giant. It's just like that the gods themselves are
Speaker 1: more essentially related to time, the movement of events, the
Speaker 1: creation of the material world, and so I assume that
Speaker 1: has something to feed into od obsession with sort of
Speaker 1: the end of things, the end of his life, the
Speaker 1: end of the reign of these gods. That there's almost
Speaker 1: a more intrinsically temporal element to the gods and the giants.
Speaker 3: I was struck by the creation of the world from
Speaker 3: Emir's body because that confused me because I'm like, wait
Speaker 3: a minute, I thought the world is the world tree
Speaker 3: in Norse mythology. So I'm wondering, like how these how
Speaker 3: they reconciled those, like if they were originally two kind
Speaker 3: of threads of cosmology that somehow got reconciled, or maybe
Speaker 3: like Emir's body is only mid Guard and that doesn't
Speaker 3: have to do with the rest of the realms on
Speaker 3: the world tree like it. I'm not sure their cosmology
Speaker 3: is entirely coherent, but.
Speaker 1: I think that's fair, especially when we're dealing with the
Speaker 1: poetic ida, which is you know, earlier it's more discordant.
Speaker 1: I mean, not all the misagree with each other. We're
Speaker 1: dealing with a number of different traditions sort of thrown together.
Speaker 1: It's not like they have a universal canon to work with. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so I don't know. Maybe it's like maybe it's it's
Speaker 1: just mid Guard and that might be, although I'm pretty
Speaker 1: sure at some point maybe it was one of the
Speaker 1: other the other readings from this this round that they
Speaker 1: talk about like Asgard being created as well, you know,
Speaker 1: from the Mirror, and so you know, maybe it's just
Speaker 1: like you've got the tree, which is like the foundation,
Speaker 1: and then the rest is sort of built on top
Speaker 1: of it. Perhaps I don't know, or maybe it's just incoherent.
Speaker 1: I don't know, but it is interesting that, you know,
Speaker 1: a lot of these pagan myths regarding the creation account
Speaker 1: deal with something like this, where you know, the world
Speaker 1: is made from a dead God or some primordial being.
Speaker 1: You see this in that like the Babylonian tale, the
Speaker 1: the New my Leish, right, yeah, yeah, right, everything's made
Speaker 1: out of Tiamat's body, this chaos goddess, which just all
Speaker 1: kinds of interesting conversations that can be had there regarding
Speaker 1: like you know, connection to biblical account and that sort
Speaker 1: of thing, you know, what's different, but also some of
Speaker 1: the themes that overlap. But this is a very common theme.
Speaker 1: You see it throughout different cultures, the idea that the
Speaker 1: world is made out of some kind of slaughter, some
Speaker 1: kind of brutal contest, which leads to the brutality very
Speaker 1: often see in the pagan world, right, the world itself
Speaker 1: is made out of brutal conflict, and that definitely feeds
Speaker 1: into the culture, especially the people like the Norse. You know,
Speaker 1: we talked about in the Havamal that there's that proverb
Speaker 1: that's just like, you know, if you need to get
Speaker 1: up early, if you want to go kill someone to
Speaker 1: take their stuff. It's just part of the process of
Speaker 1: a daily routine.
Speaker 3: It's very different not only from the Biblical account, but
Speaker 3: from Tolkien's Creation myth, where you know, the universe is
Speaker 3: brought into being through song, you know, and and Lewis
Speaker 3: as well with the creation of Narnia, you know. So
Speaker 3: it's even though they they they both you know, loved
Speaker 3: and respected these these myths, they truly they clearly jettisoned
Speaker 3: stuff that did not you know, harmonize well with their
Speaker 3: Christian worldview, right.
Speaker 1: They you know, I think we said last time, they
Speaker 1: gave us the Northern Story as it should have been, right, Yeah, exactly,
Speaker 1: like you can get off his Sorrowmond as he should
Speaker 1: have been.
Speaker 2: It even seemed like in the introduction, like Caroline kind
Speaker 2: of like Chasta's snory a little bit, because, like I guess,
Speaker 2: story was a Christian guy who was slowly trying to
Speaker 2: reconcile a little bit, you know, kind of like Beola
Speaker 2: or something else was. And so she was like, well,
Speaker 2: I you know, he was trying to like reconcile this
Speaker 2: stuff and write it coherently, and he seemed like he
Speaker 2: let too much of his Christianity weave itself in and
Speaker 2: you're like, okay.
Speaker 1: I mean it is interesting that when you read the
Speaker 1: prose that, you know, read the introduction that Snory gives us,
Speaker 1: and he says, like the gods came from Troy, like
Speaker 1: he makes it. He demathologizes some of it as a
Speaker 1: way of making it a little bit more palatable. He
Speaker 1: turns the gods into this race that came from I mean,
Speaker 1: the human civilization essentially, rather than these are the gods
Speaker 1: of Asgard who you know, who made everything?
Speaker 3: Oh, Geoffrey of Monmouth does that too, with some of
Speaker 3: the Arthur stuff he made. He essentially makes everybody he
Speaker 3: likes in history like secretly British somehow. It's like Constantine
Speaker 3: is British, the Trojans are British, Like everybody he likes
Speaker 3: just ends up as.
Speaker 2: A British person.
Speaker 1: That's funny. Hm, when you do our American telling of
Speaker 1: the mythos, Oh no, let's let's not do that. Any
Speaker 1: any other thoughts about this reading. I mean, obviously there's
Speaker 1: all kinds of lower stuff, but I'm not qualified to
Speaker 1: get into some of the weeds on that.
Speaker 3: I noticed, like a name drop that I recognized from Tolkien. Actually,
Speaker 3: I noticed several horse names that were that are that
Speaker 3: Tolkien either tweaked a little bit or just put wholesale
Speaker 3: into Lord of the Rings. In this involve Vathrunder saying
Speaker 3: there was a horse called frost Maine, and I immediately
Speaker 3: thought of Snowmane Thedan's horse, and then later I forget
Speaker 3: which one it is, but there's a horse called Lightfoot,
Speaker 3: which was Snowmane's sire, like the horse has sired him.
Speaker 3: So I'm like, okay, he's even taking I know that
Speaker 3: he took all the dwarf names from this, but he's
Speaker 3: also taking a lot of the names of horses and stuff,
Speaker 3: which makes sense that the royal here are very Norse
Speaker 3: inspired culture, right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, he definitely does lift a number of names,
Speaker 1: and sometimes he makes little tweaks, but yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: it's not as startling as the dwarf names that you lifted,
Speaker 1: but but yeah, so yeah, definitely that and there's something
Speaker 1: else he was one of the other ones that will
Speaker 1: come to me where he does that.
Speaker 2: You know, I thought that's interesting. You know that they
Speaker 2: talk about how giants basically came from poison drops, uh,
Speaker 2: and so that's why they're terrifying it. That's why evil.
Speaker 2: But then from a giant, even though it's like from
Speaker 2: straight poison comes to gods, I guess that grow underneath
Speaker 2: the frost giants arms, right, and so it's like good
Speaker 2: ends up coming true, I guess good in terms of
Speaker 2: not as bad kind of stuff.
Speaker 1: But yeah, there's there's not a clear good and evil
Speaker 1: in those dark like moral ontological terms. Now, the gods
Speaker 1: are definitely good relative to the monsters, but it's more
Speaker 1: of like they're fighting for the right side, but there's
Speaker 1: not a super clear, like eternal standard of goodness.
Speaker 3: Right, It's like they're less bad. It's like you want
Speaker 3: to be on the gods side because, like you know,
Speaker 3: they're not going to destroy the universe.
Speaker 1: So it's a good enough reason, right, I mean yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean they're they're the valiant ones, are the ones
Speaker 1: trying to bring about something like order, and so it's
Speaker 1: not so much that they are ontologically good, but they're
Speaker 1: good in the sense that they're fighting in the right direction.
Speaker 1: Then I mean, what what can you hope for?
Speaker 2: I guess in the setting, I like to what Carolan,
Speaker 2: it's too about how in her introduction about the giants
Speaker 2: like like like you're saying, memorial, they have a past,
Speaker 2: they were ancient, they know a lot of things, but
Speaker 2: their future is like in terms of attorney or whatever,
Speaker 2: it is short lived. And then while men and the
Speaker 2: gods are you know, started later they have the futures,
Speaker 2: it's kind of like not told completely what's going to
Speaker 2: happen with them, like long.
Speaker 1: Term right into the I mean, obviously most humans are
Speaker 1: going to die and most gods are going to die,
Speaker 1: but it seems like all the giants are going to die.
Speaker 1: But there is there is a remnant that's going to
Speaker 1: live past Ragnarok of both gods and men. Right, You've
Speaker 1: got the Leaf and Leaf throughout there, who are going
Speaker 1: to be like the new Adam and Eve following Ragnarok
Speaker 1: to re establish humanity. And you know, before I started
Speaker 1: reading that is I didn't even really recognize that there
Speaker 1: was a future past Ragnarok. You know, I always had
Speaker 1: the sense that that was like the apocalypse, which I
Speaker 1: mean it is of sort, but it's also the time
Speaker 1: of cosmic renewal, maybe even you know, moving into the
Speaker 1: kind of order that's not possible on this epic of history.
Speaker 3: I was also I'm also struck by what a clean
Speaker 3: slate Tolkien kind of had for his elves, because elves
Speaker 3: get mentioned a few times, but they're never described in
Speaker 3: any kind of detail at all. They usually get name
Speaker 3: dropped between gods and men and it'll say, you know, gods,
Speaker 3: elves and men, but they're that that we're never told
Speaker 3: anything about them. So like Tolkien just had like free
Speaker 3: reign to you know, create his own version.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they are whatever they are in these stories. It's
Speaker 1: very ambiguous, so we're not really giving physical descriptions. We're
Speaker 1: not giving any details regarding what they are. I mean
Speaker 1: even the context in which they appear. Like it's just
Speaker 1: not really clear what it is that we're talking about.
Speaker 1: It's sort of just this class of like other things,
Speaker 1: maybe even something like fairies of sorts, which I mean
Speaker 1: there is overlapping idea between you know, the fairies and the.
Speaker 3: Elves, right, Yeah, And like in the Arthur stuff, elves
Speaker 3: and fairies are just whatever the particular writer of that
Speaker 3: story needs them to be for for that story.
Speaker 1: Right, And I was it's interesting though. I was recently
Speaker 1: reading Peter Craff's The Philosophy of Tolkien, which goes to
Speaker 1: my background it's which it's it's a wonderful read. I mean,
Speaker 1: I tweeted a lot of it, so you may have
Speaker 1: seen some of that. But you know, he makes the
Speaker 1: point that, you know, Tolkien's elves are like the platonic
Speaker 1: ideal of elves, where we read them and we just
Speaker 1: kind of know, yeah, this is what elves are.
Speaker 2: Like.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's very strange, you know.
Speaker 1: Right, But yeah, and so he definitely had free reign
Speaker 1: with that.
Speaker 3: I've struggled with that as as a writer myself. When
Speaker 3: you try to do elves that aren't like his, like Tolkien's,
Speaker 3: you get this. At least for me, I get this
Speaker 3: cognitive dissonance where I'm like, no, that's not right, that's
Speaker 3: not what they should be like because they're not like
Speaker 3: the ethereal kind of platonic Tolkienian idea of elves.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I feel like, if I ever get in the
Speaker 1: business running fantasy, I'm just going to not talk about elves.
Speaker 1: I don't know how to get around that to create
Speaker 1: something that's believable but not derivative.
Speaker 3: I can't get around it because I ended up making
Speaker 3: them integral to the plot.
Speaker 1: So yeah, but yeah, it's tricky.
Speaker 3: It's just it's just interesting how much of you know,
Speaker 3: the Norse material was a fountain head for Tolkien and
Speaker 3: Lewis and their contemporaries, but then Tolkien and Lewis have
Speaker 3: become this fountain head for everything after you.
Speaker 1: Know, oh yeah, no, absolutely. I mean it's it's crazy that,
Speaker 1: you know, they're still relatively modern authors, and then just
Speaker 1: the influence that they've had to the point of I
Speaker 1: mean they've set the stage. I mean, especially of Gardillick fantasy.
Speaker 1: I mean, you can't do that without having talking somewhere
Speaker 1: in your mind. And he basically created the modern genre
Speaker 1: of the fantasy novel.
Speaker 3: Right, And I think because it's modern, that's why it
Speaker 3: was in the age of communication, you know, you know,
Speaker 3: radio had been a thing for decades by the time
Speaker 3: Lord of the Rings was that. You know, once you
Speaker 3: have mass communication and the mass distribution of literature, you know,
Speaker 3: it's it's going to become like the the a meme. Essentially,
Speaker 3: it's going to sweep across across cultures and across continents
Speaker 3: and just become you know, stuck in our imagination.
Speaker 2: We also, I mean, it's interesting. I was reading the
Speaker 2: introduction to this and it was talking about how you know,
Speaker 2: all the Norse thought like thought and stories and poems
Speaker 2: and stuff. I guess in Germany kind of like mainly
Speaker 2: in Europe were out of fashion. Let's talk about post
Speaker 2: World War two because of like the ties to you know,
Speaker 2: Germany and Nazism and stuff. But then immediately after Tolkien
Speaker 2: to Lewis kind of rectify them and shape them so
Speaker 2: that then they're i mean the look of what they've
Speaker 2: done for even American like telling of different Norse stuff,
Speaker 2: whether it's like Thor and Marvel or something or any
Speaker 2: of like the later books. Like you're saying it really
Speaker 2: kind of like Nope, you're not actually going to take
Speaker 2: that fully from it just because you associated with it, right,
Speaker 2: We're going to take it back, which is cool.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there, I haven't read I've heard tell of some
Speaker 1: kind of of some book that focuses specifically on talkien
Speaker 1: wrestling with the the myth as it's been adopted from,
Speaker 1: you know, with the Nazis. And I mean obviously he
Speaker 1: had wrote some letters about that about you know that
Speaker 1: ruddy ignoramus Adolf Hitler, and you know he said that
Speaker 1: at his age as like a you know, older middle
Speaker 1: aged guy. He says he'd be a better fighter than
Speaker 1: when he was in his prime, because he just really
Speaker 1: has such hostility towards what Hitler was doing. And you know,
Speaker 1: Louis said the same thing that, you know, he was
Speaker 1: furious with what the Nazis were doing to his beloved
Speaker 1: Northern Mythos until he recognized they were getting it all wrong,
Speaker 1: and then they kind of gave it back to them,
Speaker 1: because and the whole Northern Mythos is the idea that
Speaker 1: the heroes fighting alongside the gods, had their back against
Speaker 1: the wall, and that you know, at least up through Ragnarok,
Speaker 1: like the monsters are gonna end up winning, you know,
Speaker 1: in this grand sense. And so the heroes of the
Speaker 1: Northern Mythos are not the ones going out conquering everything.
Speaker 1: They're the ones with their back against the wall, fighting
Speaker 1: for as long as they possibly can. And so at
Speaker 1: the same time that the Nazis are trying to appropriate
Speaker 1: the Northern Mythos to portray themselves as these Northern heroes,
Speaker 1: they're actually playing the role with the monsters.
Speaker 3: The monsters. Yeah, I think it became more entrenched in
Speaker 3: Nazi ideology towards the end, Like I mean, where they
Speaker 3: started calling you know, like the complete collapse of Germany
Speaker 3: and it being overrun from all sides. They would use
Speaker 3: they would use phrases like God or Damar, the Twilight
Speaker 3: of the Gods, Ragnarok, and so I think it became yeah,
Speaker 3: so sort of like they identified it with it a
Speaker 3: lot towards the end, but it was, you know, they
Speaker 3: were trying to in some in some cases just replace
Speaker 3: Christianity with either like neo pagan ideas, especially Heinrich Kimmler
Speaker 3: and the SS. Like there's this great book called The
Speaker 3: Master Plan and I'm forgetting the author right now, but
Speaker 3: it's it. It chronicles the SS's kind of like appropriation
Speaker 3: of not just Norse mythology, but archaeology and history in general,
Speaker 3: trying to rewrite the whole thing along you know, Nazi lines.
Speaker 3: And they're crazy, sort of bizarre like creation of liturgies
Speaker 3: and rituals to rip to de christianize Germany and replace
Speaker 3: it with this new hodgepodge of Norse, old Germanic stuff
Speaker 3: and just stuff that they invented, and it's it's deeply unsettling. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, of course, the Nazis were interested in all kinds
Speaker 1: of cultic things and trying to reclaim religious artifacts and yeah,
Speaker 1: like that's a real thing.
Speaker 3: People think that's just Indiana Jones, but no, that's actual,
Speaker 3: you know, loosely, incredibly loosely, but based on real history.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, yeah, I mean, you know there are stories
Speaker 1: about you know, Hitler trying to find the you know,
Speaker 1: lanstep Pierce Christ or you know, contact aliens, like all
Speaker 1: sorts of stuff.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Himmler, Himmler thought, well, yeah, in the master Plan
Speaker 3: they talk about how Himmler wanted to find Thor's hammer.
Speaker 3: He thought Thor's hammer was an actual was an actual
Speaker 3: device that ancient people had used, some sort of electric
Speaker 3: weapon or something, and he's like, we'll win the war
Speaker 3: and all that stuff.
Speaker 1: So which it's it's unsettling, insane, but I mean it's interesting.
Speaker 3: And it's made for good stories ever since. If one
Speaker 3: good thing came out of it.
Speaker 2: You know, you're telling me, Jane Thor was really just
Speaker 2: a descendant of Ler. Look, you know, found the hammer
Speaker 2: that was finally there.
Speaker 1: But oh man, yeah, it's a good thing they lost
Speaker 1: for many reasons.
Speaker 3: Anything dealing with that today, right, just I was just
Speaker 3: going to say, like, you know that that danger of
Speaker 3: the appropriation of culture to be used for like state
Speaker 3: propaganda is the Nazis didn't invent it, and it certainly
Speaker 3: didn't die with.
Speaker 1: Them, oh for sure. And I mean it's probably it's
Speaker 1: me particularly a problem that can be presented within democracy
Speaker 1: where you know, so much of politics religous comes down
Speaker 1: to marketing, right that you know, especially in you know,
Speaker 1: a day and age where most of the electorate doesn't
Speaker 1: really know what's going on, right, and so you know,
Speaker 1: you watch the presidential debates over the last several years,
Speaker 1: and they're not really asking questions like, you know, what
Speaker 1: is the good of man? It was the role of
Speaker 1: the government in facilitating, you know, our actualization of the
Speaker 1: human potential. No, it's all just like kind of clickbaity
Speaker 1: type stuff like you know, how can I get my
Speaker 1: my little clip in there to you know, throw onto
Speaker 1: TikTok or Twitter or whatever. It's it's nothing dealing with substance.
Speaker 1: It all comes down to just marketing, right, And that's
Speaker 1: where you know, it can become very easy to appropriate
Speaker 1: these various marketing elements that are going to give rise
Speaker 1: to certain sentiments. And so it's very easy whether we're
Speaker 1: talking about you know, the autocratic style or even just
Speaker 1: the marketing style of democracy. It's very easy to appropriate culture,
Speaker 1: to move it in that sort of direction.
Speaker 2: I mean, uneducated democracy too, right, you know, like marketing it.
Speaker 2: If you don't, like Thomas was saying, if you're not
Speaker 2: understanding and knowing some of the background, you can't even
Speaker 2: tell that they miss misaligned it, or like reconfigured whatever
Speaker 2: it was. You know, whatever the message was, whatever the
Speaker 2: myth was, for their own purposes. If you don't know
Speaker 2: the myth, you're just like, okay, well let me throw
Speaker 2: it out, right, So because it's even related.
Speaker 1: So yeah, I mean, you know, it's even saying aside
Speaker 1: the political angle, and not to mention some of the
Speaker 1: propaganda marvels pushing through these days.
Speaker 3: That's something even our modern myths become essentially, you know,
Speaker 3: consumed by the marketing aspect. You know that that's something
Speaker 3: that the writers of this material did not have to
Speaker 3: deal with, you know the fact that you know, they're
Speaker 3: writing myths, but they didn't have to sell them to anybody.
Speaker 1: So right, and there's this idea that the myth is
Speaker 1: valuable for its own sake, right, I mean, and that's
Speaker 1: why you know this book is recorded, it's why you know,
Speaker 1: Snory put together the prosett It's this idea that there
Speaker 1: are things that are worth preserving. It's not so much
Speaker 1: what can I do to launch things forward with this,
Speaker 1: but it's more of how do we conserve the wisdom
Speaker 1: that we already have? And this is a very different
Speaker 1: mindset versus how can I market this? How can I
Speaker 1: publish this? What media can I spin out of this?
Speaker 3: How can I sell figures?
Speaker 1: Exactly? And that gets to the difference between and this
Speaker 1: is even like explicitly you know, political, but just general philosophical,
Speaker 1: the difference between conservatism and progressivism that one is set
Speaker 1: on preserving the wisdom that we have, the other is
Speaker 1: set on what can I do with this? Well, anything
Speaker 1: else anyone wants to mention about buffwunder sayings. If not that,
Speaker 1: we can jump to the next one. The Mythic Mind
Speaker 1: Fellowship presents a new study led by doctor Andrew Snyder,
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 a common desire of growing in wisdom
Speaker 1: while enjoying the heartening tales 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 lines, 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 Iuindulay, 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
Speaker 1: meetings which will be recorded in case you cannot attend.
Speaker 1: Whether you are reading The Lord of the Rings for
Speaker 1: the first time or the eleveny first time, I invite
Speaker 1: you to join our company. Prices are currently as low
Speaker 1: as they ever have been, and they are as low
Speaker 1: as they ever will be, So go ahead and join
Speaker 1: today at Andrew Schnyder dot Padia dot com, and I
Speaker 1: hope to see you on this road that goes ever on. Well,
Speaker 1: then jumping over to Grimner Sayings or or Grimney's Malle,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna read just a little bit of the first
Speaker 1: portion of the introduction here. The pro's introduction to Grimmy's
Speaker 1: Mall gives an unexpected account of Odin and Frigo as
Speaker 1: right patrons to two kingly candidates, the lost son of
Speaker 1: King rodund Oh buried thereund Odin uses cunning to give
Speaker 1: his foster son an unfair advantage, and then precipitates a
Speaker 1: matrimonial quarrel by pointing out the different fates which have
Speaker 1: overtaken their proteges. Friga is swift to get her own back,
Speaker 1: accusing Odin's favorite of stinginess, a serious charge giving the
Speaker 1: near sacred character which Germanic societies ascribed to hospitality. Friga
Speaker 1: duplicitly ensures that Gerud does mistreat his guest, relying on
Speaker 1: Odin's practice disguising himself when visiting strange halls, Odin arrives
Speaker 1: at Garrett's hall, calling himself Grimner, the masked one. Gerold's
Speaker 1: methods of torture, starvation, and heat have been thought to
Speaker 1: recall shamanistic rituals allowing access to arcane knowledge kept hidden
Speaker 1: from the uninitiated. Such practice could have been known to
Speaker 1: the Scandinavians from their northern neighbors. The lapse again, then
Speaker 1: it goes on, and then at the end Odin reveals himself,
Speaker 1: and so yeah, sou, they're these two lost sons of
Speaker 1: this king and too, Odin and Frigam. They both adopt
Speaker 1: one to you know, raise them up to take over
Speaker 1: the throne with the death of their father. But things
Speaker 1: don't go pretty well for Odin, and.
Speaker 3: They have two different fates. Like you said, I just
Speaker 3: thought this something just popped into my mind. That reminds
Speaker 3: me of the twins from the Horse and his Boy, Right,
Speaker 3: one becomes a prince and the other is like a slave.
Speaker 3: So that's a common trope, right where brothers or or
Speaker 3: twins have these extremely divergent outcomes.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it's a good indication of how you know,
Speaker 1: your own life very well could have gone in a different direction,
Speaker 1: but that we all are subject to fate, which obviously
Speaker 1: fate plays a very significant role in these Northern stories.
Speaker 1: And so it's this idea that okay, they're they're different past,
Speaker 1: we could find ourselves put on what are what are
Speaker 1: some things some thoughts that you had?
Speaker 3: Again, I like that he's called the masked one, like
Speaker 3: we were saying before about you know, like Merlin and
Speaker 3: Gandalf and just this this idea of illusion, you know,
Speaker 3: the wizard being a and you know even even the
Speaker 3: term wizard wise one, you know, being a creature of illusion.
Speaker 3: And they say he has a blue cloak, which immediately
Speaker 3: reminded me, you know of one of Tolkien, you know,
Speaker 3: the blue wizards.
Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, and we get that same idea that we
Speaker 1: were talking about about how Oudin is always he's almost
Speaker 1: always vailed. So later on in this story, you know,
Speaker 1: he recounts all these different names that he's had. It's
Speaker 1: like a million different pseudonyms that he's adopted here and there,
Speaker 1: again showing the fact that he's almost always veiled in
Speaker 1: his dealings with mortals.
Speaker 3: Gandalf does that once where he tells Parimir all the
Speaker 3: very sarious names that he's had in different lands.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it seems like Odin and Freig have got to
Speaker 2: a lull in the relationship where they just need to
Speaker 2: kind of you know, pick some people, just just make
Speaker 2: some make a fight happen, you know, right, it works.
Speaker 3: Oh, at one point I wrote this down, Odin calls
Speaker 3: himself Wanderer, so like Mithrandi or the gray Pilgrim, the
Speaker 3: gray Wanderer. So more more Gandalf associates.
Speaker 1: It's all in Tolkien, bless me. Yeah, you know, I
Speaker 1: kind of thought, especially by the time we get to
Speaker 1: the end of this story. You know, I thought of
Speaker 1: Hebrews about you know, entertaining strangers, because you know you
Speaker 1: might be entertaining angels unaware, you know, especially the role
Speaker 1: of hospitality plays as the king's son, you know, also
Speaker 1: Damed Gerodin. Right, Yeah, he's the one who shows hospitality
Speaker 1: to Odin, not recognizing who he is, and he gets
Speaker 1: rewarded for that and into you know, I think that's
Speaker 1: a potential connection there.
Speaker 3: And then what is it? The king gets impaled on
Speaker 3: his own sword, which wasn't because at first I was like, oh,
Speaker 3: like Turin, except Turin was suicide and this it was
Speaker 3: just a silly accent, almost a slapstick kind of accident.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And you know, I assume that that's a you know,
Speaker 1: the fate that wrought somebody who was consumed with pride
Speaker 1: that you know, he would stumble and fall very unheroically
Speaker 1: onto his own sword, you know, in this kind of
Speaker 1: slapstick way. And I think he's showing me that he
Speaker 1: was kind of a buffoon because he was so consumed
Speaker 1: by pride, like you know, this is how he treats
Speaker 1: his gut.
Speaker 3: Trying to roast them alive.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's right. It reminds me of that that Testerton
Speaker 1: quote about how you know, thinking in isolation and in
Speaker 1: pride makes you into an idiot. I think they see
Speaker 1: something like that playing out here.
Speaker 2: Who are the powers? Again? I was trying to what's
Speaker 2: the context, Like, uh, is this line six where since
Speaker 2: there is a third home where the cheerful powers roots
Speaker 2: the rooms with silver, is the powers just like pre
Speaker 2: god god's kind of thing?
Speaker 1: Or I think the powers are essentially just the gods.
Speaker 1: And you know in the Civil Rellion in particular, you
Speaker 1: know sometimes talking to refer to the powers, by which
Speaker 1: he means the valaar.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's right, gotcha, Okay, and that makes sense because
Speaker 2: line force until the powers for the center.
Speaker 1: Okay, yeah, right.
Speaker 3: I noticed a couple of name drops too that aren't
Speaker 3: actually not related to Tolkien, but are related to Star Wars.
Speaker 2: They mention.
Speaker 3: They mentioned Skull and Hati, who are the two wolves
Speaker 3: who devour the Sun and Moon or constantly chase them around.
Speaker 3: And in some of the more contemporary Star Wars there's
Speaker 3: two characters who are named after those figures. There are
Speaker 3: a couple of well they don't think of themselves as Jedi,
Speaker 3: but they're kind of like rogue Jedi, called Baleen Skull
Speaker 3: and Shin Hati, and they basically confirmed that. Yeah, their
Speaker 3: names Skull and Hati are taken from the North Smith
Speaker 3: of these wolves that chase the Sun and Moon. So
Speaker 3: I thought that was interesting.
Speaker 1: I'm curious. I'm not up to date on like the
Speaker 1: new Star Wars media, but I mean, is there any
Speaker 1: connection between their characters and their mythological kind of parts
Speaker 1: the naming.
Speaker 3: Well, we haven't seen the end of their character yet,
Speaker 3: so I'm not I'm not sure.
Speaker 1: Okay, I didn't.
Speaker 3: There was nothing that jumped out at me immediately, but
Speaker 3: I I know that the kind of Lucasfilm's kind of
Speaker 3: creative head honcho deve Filoni, is a big fan of
Speaker 3: the Norse stuff, so I'm just not surprised that he
Speaker 3: would he would litter some of the new material with
Speaker 3: Norse references.
Speaker 1: It's kind of interesting, just says he goes through the
Speaker 1: different realms of Asgar, the different homes of the gods,
Speaker 1: you get some insights into kind of did the different
Speaker 1: i mean different aesthetic associated with some of the different gods.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: I look to you know, Bullberge, because he's one of
Speaker 1: the gods I'm more familiar with because he played such
Speaker 1: an important role in the story, as well as I
Speaker 1: think his potential connection to Christ regarding the fact that
Speaker 1: you know, he's the god who dies and he resurrects
Speaker 1: and in his resurrection. He kind of brings us into
Speaker 1: the new world order post Ragnarok, and so I think
Speaker 1: there is some christological topology there in My Reckoning, you know,
Speaker 1: as Lewis says that the pagan myths are, you know,
Speaker 1: you've got celestial strength falling on a jungle of filth
Speaker 1: and imbecility. That there is glory and truth to be
Speaker 1: found here that needs to be extracted. But you know,
Speaker 1: we're told that, you know, Boulder, he dwells in a
Speaker 1: his hall has the fewest ruins of ill omen to
Speaker 1: show that, you know, he's associated with sort of peace
Speaker 1: and tranquility and prosperity and goodness. But it kind of
Speaker 1: makes sense that in the brutal scene that we get
Speaker 1: in the Northern story, that you know, he's one of
Speaker 1: the gods that dies.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there's there's more about Emir again in the Creation
Speaker 3: of the World. So the dwelling place of men mid
Speaker 3: guard Is is made from the eyelashes of Emir. That's
Speaker 3: that's rather humorous. His brains are the clouds. Oh okay, great.
Speaker 2: You wonder like why was it taken like eyelashes any
Speaker 2: significance there, but.
Speaker 3: Yeah, which this reminds me of another fantasy author who
Speaker 3: was heavily inspired by this material was a gene Wolf,
Speaker 3: because I'm currently reading his Wizard Night duology, and in
Speaker 3: that there's like there's the many worlds, but I don't
Speaker 3: think there's nine. I think there's seven in that, and
Speaker 3: the the sort of world above, the one where humans live,
Speaker 3: is populated by this race of gods that are very
Speaker 3: much like the the the Acier. I even think the
Speaker 3: the main one is even called all Father, like Odin
Speaker 3: All Father. And and there's that that thing about the
Speaker 3: clouds reminded me of like because there's a lot of
Speaker 3: cloud imagery and his ideas about how like that that
Speaker 3: literally that the realm of his sort of Acier gods
Speaker 3: is called sky, but it's not spelled it's spelled different,
Speaker 3: it's spelled s K A I. And like you can
Speaker 3: see like the clouds are how like the gods communicate
Speaker 3: messages down to humanity.
Speaker 1: They send thoughts through the brain. Yeah, yeah, yeah, interesting.
Speaker 1: And then we see a little bit more about Egersel
Speaker 1: as well. We're told that it's like filled with different creatures,
Speaker 1: especially different serpents in that need hog. You know that
Speaker 1: essentially hell is you know, chewing on its roots, and
Speaker 1: we're told that its side is decaying, and so it's
Speaker 1: like the world itself is groaning for renewal. Right, it's
Speaker 1: you know, it's kind of falling apart that the very
Speaker 1: structure of the cosmos is in a state of suffering
Speaker 1: and decay.
Speaker 3: Just the name of that creature and its whole like
Speaker 3: that whole aspect of like of what what its function
Speaker 3: is just screamed Lovecraft to me for some reason.
Speaker 2: I said, I just remember it from age mythology, where
Speaker 2: I just usually against my enies and it was the best.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's one of the important foundations for understanding the
Speaker 1: angel mythos.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I like seeing the like inescapable fate, Like, I know,
Speaker 2: I saw that a lot in the Bulls can say
Speaker 2: it was basically like you know, Brin Hill like basically
Speaker 2: says what's going to happen, you know, but the story
Speaker 2: still has to play out to get to that, and
Speaker 2: they can't really go around it. Like here at the
Speaker 2: end where he's you know, Oden says, I know your
Speaker 2: life is over and the guy just not realizing, like
Speaker 2: doesn't know the sword's gonna land hilt down at that time.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, and that's something that we do see very
Speaker 1: often in these myths, thissence on fate, the fact that
Speaker 1: we're told ahead of time what's going to happen. You know,
Speaker 1: it's like when're reading Beowulf, when basically as soon as
Speaker 1: he encounters the dragon, we're told the dragon is going
Speaker 1: to kill him, and it gets a point where even
Speaker 1: he knows he's about to die before even engaging with
Speaker 1: the dragon. And so you know, the story is not
Speaker 1: about what's going to happen. Really, the story is about
Speaker 1: how do you relate to fate? And so it's a
Speaker 1: different kind of hero's journey than you know, go forth
Speaker 1: and save the world. No, it's more of engage with
Speaker 1: honor as you engage with the fate that is going
Speaker 1: to take place.
Speaker 3: Right, It's less of like what you said, Andrew, that
Speaker 3: progressive kind of how can I change the world, And
Speaker 3: it's more, you know, how can I accept the faith
Speaker 3: that I've been given essentially and with honor and integrity.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it wouldn't be a bad thing to, you know,
Speaker 1: read something like Marcus Relis his meditation, So alongside the poetic,
Speaker 1: geta or some of this Norse literature, because there definitely
Speaker 1: is a stoic tone to the kind of heroism that's
Speaker 1: prescribed to us. Well, is there anything else that anyone
Speaker 1: wants to mention about, Grimner sayings, we spent a while
Speaker 1: on the first one, so I'm okay if you want
Speaker 1: to move on, if there's nothing else, all right, all right?
Speaker 1: Moving over to Skrenier's journey, Freyer falls in love with
Speaker 1: a giant's daughter, whom he sees from Odin's high seat
Speaker 1: healed scale. According to Snorri, his love sickness is a
Speaker 1: punishment for usurping Odin's place. The poem does not suggest this.
Speaker 1: Prayer's concerned parents, Njord and Scotti asked their son's old
Speaker 1: friend and servant, skear Neer him to help. Skearner volunteers
Speaker 1: to go on a wooing mission, and, after remarkably smooth journey,
Speaker 1: effectively bully's the reluctant girl into agreeing to a rendezvous
Speaker 1: with Freyer. Well it's out there. Yeah, it's not exactly
Speaker 1: a romance, per se. I don't know what do you
Speaker 1: guys think about this one?
Speaker 3: I like that they said that it could have been
Speaker 3: originally composed to be played out like a like a
Speaker 3: dramatic presentation. I definitely got that vibe from it.
Speaker 1: It is interesting, And so she brings up that in
Speaker 1: Snory's telling of this, we give this idea that Prayer
Speaker 1: is setting herself up for a kind of punishment because
Speaker 1: of his pride in taking up the spot of odin
Speaker 1: essentially trying to usurper role that doesn't belong to him naturally.
Speaker 1: And you know, she says that in the original ho
Speaker 1: and we don't really see that kind of judgment at
Speaker 1: play here. But one thing that it is interesting is
Speaker 1: that Skinner asked for Freyar's sword, which means that frey
Speaker 1: is going to lose his weapon, so he's not going
Speaker 1: to have a sword when it comes time for Ragnarok,
Speaker 1: and so he is surrendering something of value here. We
Speaker 1: kind of get the sense, I think that he is
Speaker 1: being short sighted in some way, shape or form in
Speaker 1: you know, what he's doing here. And there were some
Speaker 1: of the proverbs in the half of them all that
Speaker 1: warn against, you know, the foolishness that can come through
Speaker 1: your desire for women.
Speaker 3: Right, Yeah, we see that sort of brought to life
Speaker 3: in this little story.
Speaker 1: Right, and then of course we also see the idea
Speaker 1: of the curse that words can be binding, you know,
Speaker 1: as Gird this giantess, you know, initially refuses despite the
Speaker 1: fact that you know, Scannery has promised her all these things,
Speaker 1: including Odin's ring which he got from the dwarves, her
Speaker 1: his ring that produces more gold rings. And so he
Speaker 1: basically promises or offers her this great wealth, which I mean,
Speaker 1: I don't really know if this was Scariner's even offer.
Speaker 1: He's offering Odin's ring, which again, is that da that
Speaker 1: maybe he's trying to usurp some authority doesn't belong to him,
Speaker 1: But nonetheless, you know, that doesn't work, and so then
Speaker 1: he just starts threatening her and he goes through this
Speaker 1: you know, this barrage of curses that are going to
Speaker 1: befall her if she doesn't come with him. And since
Speaker 1: this idea that there's power simply in these verbal declarations,
Speaker 1: which I mean you see the importance of you know,
Speaker 1: oaths and curses in Tolkien as well.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, definitely, like with with the Oath Breakers or
Speaker 3: fane Or's Dreadful Oath, you know, and where they're just
Speaker 3: compelled to see it through to the end no matter what, right, Yeah,
Speaker 3: it just becomes like a litany of like threats and insults,
Speaker 3: like it just evolves towards the end, and and then
Speaker 3: you know, her and Frere get together. I'm like, okay, right, she.
Speaker 1: Kind of reluctantly agrees because well, I mean that sounds
Speaker 1: better than all these courses, so all right, fair enough?
Speaker 3: And then like, oh, the the symbolism of nine keeps
Speaker 3: cropping up in these and what is it like Frere
Speaker 3: has to wait nine days before you can have a
Speaker 3: tryst with her or something like that?
Speaker 2: Right? I had a contractor that I worked with one time.
Speaker 2: It was the first time we had ever worked, and
Speaker 2: he wanted to tell me about the magic number. Time.
Speaker 2: I went into like an hour long videos about it.
Speaker 2: So maybe there's something there.
Speaker 1: With yeah, maybe, But yeah, I don't really have a
Speaker 1: whole lot to say about this one. It wasn't really
Speaker 1: a very fun to read for me. No, Yeah, so
Speaker 1: I's nothing else. I'm fine just jumping to the next one.
Speaker 3: The next one was funnier. It was funny the set
Speaker 3: up and just like one since the reader is in
Speaker 3: the know, Well, I'll.
Speaker 2: Let you explain it.
Speaker 3: What's going on here?
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I don't even read it. But basically thor
Speaker 1: comes upon Odin in disguise, and Odin is disguised as
Speaker 1: a ferry man and into uh, Thor wants Odin to,
Speaker 1: you know, give him passage across this body of water,
Speaker 1: but instead they end up just getting into an insult match,
Speaker 1: which is just so brutal and sometimes vulgar and profane.
Speaker 1: It's like a couple just like just like frat guys
Speaker 1: just going at each other. Is Yeah, that was great.
Speaker 1: I mean, so, you know, it starts off with Thor,
Speaker 1: for no good reason, just insulting this ferryman, you know,
Speaker 1: by saying, who's that lot of lads who stands on
Speaker 1: the side of the inlet? And we get this idea
Speaker 1: and I think that's even a note in this translation
Speaker 1: here somewhere that says that basically Thor was making fun
Speaker 1: of the fact that this guy looked old, and so
Speaker 1: he's calling him a child, being sarcastic with him, and
Speaker 1: so that's what kicks us off. I love that one
Speaker 1: of the first things that this is this guy's Odin says, responses,
Speaker 1: you look like someone who's others.
Speaker 3: What does that even be?
Speaker 1: Yeah, that was great.
Speaker 3: There's some other funny stuff here was uh, yeah, he says,
Speaker 3: like the Thora's no guts. He says, at one point,
Speaker 3: just like it becomes like schoolyard insults, like Thora calls
Speaker 3: harbard is Odin's disguise. He calls him a pervert several
Speaker 3: times for seemingly no reason.
Speaker 1: Well, because because it starts off with you know, early on,
Speaker 1: Odin says that, you know, looks like your mom is dead.
Speaker 1: And then later on and he says, like you should
Speaker 1: probably go home because someone's sleeping with your wife. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: that's one of the times where he calls him a pervert.
Speaker 1: He says, yeah, someone was see fright, now you better
Speaker 1: go home.
Speaker 3: I thought this was interesting because at one point Odin says,
Speaker 3: Odin owns the nobles who fall in battle, and Thor
Speaker 3: owns the race of Thralls. And in the explanatory no,
Speaker 3: at the beginning, they say, maybe that's the author like
Speaker 3: making commentary on the cults of the two gods, where
Speaker 3: you know, Thor was more of the the the everyman's
Speaker 3: god basically of like farmers and herdsman and ordinary people,
Speaker 3: whereas Odin was for like the nightly class and the
Speaker 3: noble warriors and stuff like that, and nobility.
Speaker 1: Right, and so it's a way of putting Thor in
Speaker 1: his place as being under him. It's interesting that, you know,
Speaker 1: they go back and forth bragging about the different conquest
Speaker 1: of source that they've all engaged with, which very much
Speaker 1: makes you think of and and in the intro it
Speaker 1: brings it up. Even the exchange in Bewolf between Bewolf
Speaker 1: and Unforth where Beowolf shows up at Hero and you know,
Speaker 1: Unforth says, well, aren't you the bewolf who lost that
Speaker 1: swimming competition? Yeah? And then Bewolf says, you know, that's
Speaker 1: the meat talking, and you know, he goes off on
Speaker 1: all these you know, the explanation of what happened, how
Speaker 1: he was did kind of lose the swimming competition because
Speaker 1: he went off to kill all these sea monsters. And
Speaker 1: then he ends that by calling Unforth the kinslayer. It's
Speaker 1: like civil kind of just like brutal back and forth exchange.
Speaker 1: I love that.
Speaker 3: It was like, sure I lost the swimming contest, but
Speaker 3: it was only so I could go kill a bunch
Speaker 3: of semons. It's like humble bragging, you.
Speaker 1: Know, right, unlike you who you know, killed your own kin.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Odin talks about burial mounds. At one point that which
Speaker 3: they use a euphemism which they explain in the notes,
Speaker 3: the men who have their home in the woods means
Speaker 3: like cairns and burial mounds and stuff.
Speaker 1: It's interesting that basically all of Thor's conquests that he
Speaker 1: brags about are like little conquests like combat fighting, and
Speaker 1: so he's defeated all these different people and these she wolves,
Speaker 1: like all these different things. But then basically all of
Speaker 1: Odin's bragging is about his conquest of women. And I was, like,
Speaker 1: seduced all these women. That's his way of bragging, which
Speaker 1: I mean, I guess gets to his like wisdom using
Speaker 1: the loose sense of the fact that like he's able
Speaker 1: to use his knowledge to be manipulative and like that
Speaker 1: scene has some kind of strength, obviously not in accordance
Speaker 1: with what we would call virtue, but it just goes
Speaker 1: to their different strengths that you know, he has his mind,
Speaker 1: Thor has his hammer.
Speaker 3: Right, It's like Odin, I guess is what we would
Speaker 3: today would say, he's crafty.
Speaker 1: Right, He's crafty.
Speaker 2: Let's try to find it in the state of the Volsums.
Speaker 2: But they also a portion had the like insult contest
Speaker 2: basically going back and forth. I was like, it just
Speaker 2: must have been comment of like man say like, oh,
Speaker 2: you're this and no, no, you're actually this.
Speaker 1: Right, this mix of bragging and insults.
Speaker 2: Especially that's from like ship to like land or shift across.
Speaker 1: You know, it's like over a large distance, right, yelling
Speaker 1: these things.
Speaker 3: To each other so the other guy can't just like
Speaker 3: punch you in the head or stab you or something.
Speaker 1: We need to get a Odin and Thor on Twitter, it.
Speaker 3: Would be better than ninety percent of the stuff that's
Speaker 3: there now.
Speaker 1: I like that.
Speaker 3: Eventually he just gives floor directions. He refuses in passage,
Speaker 3: and and Thor's like, well, fine, can you give me
Speaker 3: directions then? And he just does and then.
Speaker 1: It ends at what point Odin says, you know, I'll
Speaker 1: compensate you with an arm ring. And I don't know
Speaker 1: if you read the note no, because you know, he
Speaker 1: whatever this is, it brings some great offense to Thor,
Speaker 1: because Thor responds to that by saying, where did you
Speaker 1: find such despicable words? If it never heard words more despicable?
Speaker 1: And Larrington suggests that, okay, maybe this is because you know,
Speaker 1: armoring is like, it's not that significant. So it seems
Speaker 1: like he's a way of like dishonoring him with like junk,
Speaker 1: but also that she thinks that this might be some
Speaker 1: kind of euphemism for like some kind of sexual activity.
Speaker 1: Oh so that's why he responds, like, you just say
Speaker 1: something really full great here, I've never heard something so despicable,
Speaker 1: which that seems to make more sense given his response.
Speaker 3: That's the thing when you read this this older material
Speaker 3: and even scripture, sometimes we're missing a lot of cultural context, right,
Speaker 3: you know, like people read older books or mythology or
Speaker 3: the or the books of the Bible and say, well
Speaker 3: that's weird, and it's like, well, yeah, but we're we're
Speaker 3: you know, we didn't grow up in these centuries. You know,
Speaker 3: we're missing a lot of context here.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we're gonna be weird at some point.
Speaker 1: That's true. But yeah, I mean I don't know how
Speaker 1: anything of like penetrating wisdom to break. It's funny exchange.
Speaker 3: I feel like this was more like entertainment, like this
Speaker 3: particular passage, and it was meant to like be anything
Speaker 3: profound or something like that.
Speaker 1: I just love how brutal it is. And again the
Speaker 1: fact that just kicks off with you looks like your
Speaker 1: mom died.
Speaker 3: I wonder if Thor's mom was actually dead by this point,
Speaker 3: because I think she was a giantess or something.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm not sure, but it's.
Speaker 3: Just and they, you know, they They've brought this up
Speaker 3: in other adaptations of this material, like in the in
Speaker 3: the recent God of War games about just how poorly
Speaker 3: Odin treats Thor. You know, he's his son, and yet
Speaker 3: he treats him. He's clearly not the favorite son, and
Speaker 3: he's treated like just you know, like scum on his boot,
Speaker 3: you know, like right most reason.
Speaker 2: Oh, Odin's actually smart because he gets into an insult
Speaker 2: match with someone that he knows, but he's disguised himself. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it's like he's got the insight track on everything that's
Speaker 2: happened with got.
Speaker 1: Thora is just like, what's wrong with this reign of
Speaker 1: very Man?
Speaker 2: Why are you being so me?
Speaker 3: I was just like the whole time, I was thinking,
Speaker 3: he wants to get across this bay or whatever it is,
Speaker 3: And I'm like, you're a god. Can't you fly or like,
Speaker 3: you know, do some other thing that will transport you
Speaker 3: across this area? Why do you need this very man?
Speaker 3: Maybe thinking too much about it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's like sometimes they seem very limited and other
Speaker 1: times they don't, which I assume just gets to some
Speaker 1: of the different traditions and stories thrown together that sometimes
Speaker 1: they seem more like mortals than other times.
Speaker 3: They definitely certainly act like mortals most of the time.
Speaker 3: There's petty, jealous, vulgar.
Speaker 1: Not a great conclusion here, Yeah, I mean, is there
Speaker 1: anything else that anyone wants to bring up? It's okay
Speaker 1: if not, but I don't want to cut you off.
Speaker 1: If there is, all right, fair enough, Well, I think
Speaker 1: that's at least a fun way to end. I feel
Speaker 1: like it's a good conversation. And despite the fact that
Speaker 1: we're all amateurs here and obviously there's a lot that,
Speaker 1: you know, we're not picking up, I feel like it's
Speaker 1: a good bit that we are picking up, and I
Speaker 1: feel it's producing some good conversation. And so I've enjoyed
Speaker 1: this and I look forward to seeing where it goes
Speaker 1: next time.
Speaker 3: Yeah, these are fun. I've enjoyed reading these because I've
Speaker 3: never really you know, my only experience with the Norse
Speaker 3: myths has mostly been through adaptations or summaries, you know,
Speaker 3: like secondary material. It's it's neat to go back to
Speaker 3: the original source and and finally learn about this stuff.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's definitely fun to dig into some things that
Speaker 1: we've only kind of experienced on the periphery. Also, it's
Speaker 1: just fun, you know, as somebody who you know, I
Speaker 1: make my living talking about things that I always claim
Speaker 1: to know. It's fun, you know, engaging with something like
Speaker 1: this where you know, none of us really know what's
Speaker 1: going on, which it's fun to explore it and to
Speaker 1: talk about it together. All right, well, I guess we'll
Speaker 1: go ahead and wrap it there, and so thanks again,
Speaker 1: thank you, thank you.