Here Thomas Gray, a poet whose work I’ve shared before, is adapting “Song of the Valkyries,” a piece from the Saga of Burnt Nial, one of the Icelandic sagas with a great deal of history behind it. As my previous discussion of this poem pointed out, this takes place at the Battle of Clontarf, which was the […]Read Post ›
As I’ve discussed previously, flyting is a rich Northern European tradition of poetic insults, where antagonists use their ingenuity to come up with rhymed verses where they say disrespectful things to one another, and, in most cases, things escalate with each exchange. You are correct to compare this in your head to battle-style rap, which […]Read Post ›
I’ve spent a few weeks now running through the runes, trying to give a feel for the different ways the runes are treated in poetry in different cultures, the more literary Icelanders, the Vikings of Norway, the melting pot of the Anglo-Saxons of Old England. Hopefully now we have most of the raw material to […]Read Post ›
I’m going to return to the subject of the Norse runes this week, but we’re going to start our first major upheaval in this discussion: the runes aren’t Norse anymore, they’re Anglo-Saxon. To elaborate somewhat: the island of Great Britain, where the modern nations of Wales, Scotland, and England are situated, had several indigenous tribes […]Read Post ›
We might easily forget that despite our immense numbers, despite our immense will, despite the sheer force which we may bring to bear when we cooperate with one another, humanity is not alone responsible for our future. 19. An ash I know, | Yggdrasil its name, With water white | is the great tree wet; […]Read Post ›
While I began last week with an introduction to the ancient runes and their uses, the ultimate goal is to gain a familiarity with them, their intended meanings, and to be able to understand their use in more complex situations. This is as much for the author, i.e., me, as it is for the reader. […]Read Post ›
I’ve avoided discussing the runes too much because they’re such a massive topic, almost as big on their own as it is to share major poems and tales of the Edda and explain the stories behind Thor and where he came from. Of course, avoiding the subject entirely, or treating the runes as some great […]Read Post ›
A lot of the poetry I share here is truly romantic – looking back on the Vikings and their forebears wistfully, with a bit of a gloss, written from the point of view of modern authors. This poem, from the Hálfs saga, was written around the 13th century, when the Poetic Edda was compiled and the Prose Edda […]Read Post ›
“Suttung’s Mead” is a reference to the Mead of Poetry, Kvasir, Óðrœrir. It has many names, and more than one story as well. Bragi is the god of poetry, or a human poet so excellent as to be indistinguishable from the god of poetry. Suttung’s Mead by Johan Sebastian Welhaven, translation by Rune Bjornsen The best drink […]Read Post ›
Over a year ago I first shared a piece from Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s Tales from a Wayside Inn, “The Challenge of Thor,” in which a powerful, vengeful thunder god angrily challenges Christ to combat: Thou art a God too, O Galilean! And thus single-handed Unto the combat, Gauntlet or Gospel, Here I defy thee! That poem stands alone well as an insight into how Longfellow viewed Thor, as a god […]Read Post ›
Throwback Thorsday 