大象传媒

Hail to the gods!Hail to the goddesses!Hail to the bounteous earth!Speech and witGive to us famous onesAnd healing hands, while we live!
A white-bearded Icelandic gentleman, bundled up against Reykjav铆k鈥檚 midwinter cold, recites these verses of medieval pagan poetry before an attentive gathering. They stand closely together beneath a clear night sky, holding candles, gathered in a circle around a roaring fire. So begins the Yule celebration of Icelanders who practice a modern iteration of Norse religion, a contemporary practice that considers the poems and legends of Norse mythology to be core texts for ritual and reflection.
Far from Iceland, my parents were philosophers in Chicago. When I was a child, they made sure I read Greek, Jewish and Christian mythology, telling me I could believe whatever I wanted as an adult, but that I needed to know these three traditions, so I could understand the art, literature and music of the western world.
My father, from a German farming village in eastern Europe, told me stories of Siegfried the dragon-slayer and introduced me to Grimms鈥� Fairy Tales and fabulous folklore from the Rhine River region. The one thing I didn鈥檛 learn about was Norse mythology. As a kid, Norse myths seemed like exclusive property of far-away Scandinavia.
After my dad died, I read Children of Odin, a retelling of Norse myths by Irish poet Padraic Colum. The god Odin, wandering the world in a quest for wisdom 鈥� a quest confirming his existential concerns about the future 鈥� reminded me of my father鈥檚 decades of work in philosophy after escaping from anti-German extermination camps run by Marshall Tito鈥檚 Communist Partisans. The god Thor, world-traveler, lover of children and ale, quick to anger and quick to forgiveness, reminded me of my Opa, my grandfather who went from family farm to Soviet prisoner-of-war camp to new life in America, yet never lost his passion for living.聽
It suddenly seemed as if I had always known the Norse gods and heroes. I began to read the mythic material written down in medieval Iceland and Denmark, to study the poems preserved in what we now call the Poetic Edda, to learn about the literature, religion and history of the ancient northern world. Along the way, I found that many other people have been bitten by the same bug that bit me.
There have been repeated revivals of international interest in Norse mythology as people around the world continue to find connections to the gods, goddesses, heroes, and heroines. The Eddas 鈥� the thirteenth-century Icelandic sources for the majority of surviving myths 鈥� were first published in modern translation three-hundred-and-fifty years ago in Denmark.聽
Nineteenth-century Romantics plunged into Norse mythology. William Morris worked with Eir铆kur Magn煤sson to translate selections from the Eddas and sagas 鈥� Iceland鈥檚 great prose precursors to the novel 鈥� then wrote original poetry and prose inspired by them. Jacob Grimm鈥檚 massive treatise on what he called 鈥淕erman mythology鈥� arguably launched the repeated appropriations of medieval Icelandic literature for nationalist projects throughout the century. The greatest flowering of this Romantic fascination (or its lowest ebb, depending on your perspective) is Richard Wagner鈥檚 seventeen-hour Ring of the Nibelung, which 鈥� despite Germanization of character and place names 鈥� is almost completely based on Icelandic sources.聽
In the twentieth century, the Romantic melding of myth and nation yielded a strange and bitter crop in the Third Reich鈥檚 propagandist imagery. This perversion continues to seduce the radical right of racist revivalists, despite Hitler鈥檚 repeated repudiation of those who, in his words, 鈥渒eep harping on that far-off and forgotten nomenclature which belongs to the ancient Germanic times.鈥澛�
The myths recovered and were recovered. Hollywood has done its fair share of rewriting.聽
Marvel鈥檚 movie versions of the Norse gods are rewritten to fit a Judeo-Christian worldview. Instead of the wondering, wandering wizard of the myths, Odin is an angry Old Testament patriarch. Although Thor plays his mythical role as protector of the human world, the first film follows the comics in recasting him as a Viking Jesus from outer space. He is sent by his father to live as a mortal among men, win a small group of faithful followers who must be convinced of his godliness, and prove his worthiness by sacrificing himself to save us all. This is New Testament, not Norse mythology.
Whatever form it takes, there is an eternal return of interest in the myths. A thousand years after the conversion of the Nordic countries, Norse mythology still somehow speaks to people around the world. This appeal appears to work at three levels 鈥� dramatic, emotional, and spiritual.
At the first level 鈥� that of drama 鈥� these are grand adventure tales. The gods create the world from the corpse of a primeval giant and set the moon, sun and stars on their courses to begin a golden age. The dwarves are created from earth, the first humans are made from trees, and a mysterious un-killable sorceress brings strange magic.
Ages pass, a dragon sucks juices from the dead by a stream full of murderers, and a giantess gives birth to the wolf that will eat the moon. A monstrous dog breaks free, signaling an age of axes, swords and shields, wind and wolves. The gods prepare for war, and a figure of fire comes from the south. The sun and stars are destroyed as the world perishes in fire and flood.
Finally, a new world rises up from the waters, new gods appear, and a new golden age begins. All is joy in the halls of the gods, until the corpse-sucking dragon is seen flying over the hills under the moon.
These mysterious goings-on are enough to fill a series of fantasy novels, yet they are merely elements of the first prophetic poem of the Poetic Edda. From this bite of the barest beginning of the mythology, it should be clear that this is exciting stuff.
At the second level 鈥� that of emotion 鈥� the myths appeal as an expression of exuberant excitement at the experience of existence. There is a cast of colorful characters including Nj枚r冒r, the god who rules over wind and sea, and Freyr and Freyja, his beautiful children. Freyr rules the world of elves and presides over prosperity and peace, rain and sunshine. Freyja rides in a chariot pulled by cats and loves love songs and love affairs.聽
Thor most embodies the joy of life lived. Unlike Odin, he doesn鈥檛 meditate on coming darkness. Instead, he wrings every moment of experience for its full flavor. Admittedly, he spends much of his time smiting giants with his heavy hammer, but he does so with his heart laughing in his breast. Otherwise, his main interests are drinking prodigious amounts, taking kids on adventures, going on long walks with friends, and feasting on the magically regenerating goats that pull his sky-chariot. This is a fellow who likes to enjoy himself.
At the third, spiritual level, the myths present a powerful worldview. Although everything Odin learns about the future tells him he and the world will die, he never stops searching for knowledge and never ceases to rage against the dying of the light. The gods die, yet the ending of the prophecy is a life-affirming one. We will not live forever, but our children will survive us, and their children will survive them. The branches of the World Tree will continue to grow as new leaves appear each springtime.
The spiritual message of the myths survives, despite bloody centuries of Christian conversion. In 1972, Icelandic farmer-poet Sveinbj枚rn Beinteinsson led the foundation of the 脕satr煤arf茅lagi冒, a fellowship for those who follow the religion of 脕satr煤 鈥� an Icelandic term meaning 鈥渇aith in the Norse gods.鈥� For those raised to believe that Christianity is the natural religion of the western world, it may come as a surprise to realize that the older religions of northern Europe were closer to Hinduism. Today, 脕satr煤 attracts those who feel a connection to the Old Way, and 鈥� like other religions 鈥� it provides a rich experience of ritual, celebration, and community.
In 1973, the Icelandic government officially recognized the 脕satr煤 religion. Forty years later, it is the largest non-Christian religion in Iceland, and the faith has spread throughout the world. Although practitioners respect the Icelanders for beginning the religion鈥檚 rebirth, the Icelandic organization is a local group and now just one aspect of a global practice. There are many branches of the tradition, yet most participants agree that Heathenry (with a capital H) is the most general term to cover all of today鈥檚 variant forms.
In 2013, I conducted the first Worldwide Heathen Census and received over sixteen thousand responses from ninety-eight countries. Iceland has the highest Heathen density 鈥� the greatest number of Heathens as a percentage of the country鈥檚 population. The United States has the highest number of Heathens; my interpretation of the data suggests that there are approximately twenty thousand American practitioners. That may not seem like a large number in a country this size, but it is impressive for a religion that is not even half a century old, has no central authority, does not engage in missionary work, and has been almost completely ignored by academia and media.
Mythology is only one part of a lived and living religion. What matters most to me is how myths can inspire us to live our lives in new ways. As a professional musician, I understand intellectually that improvisation and composition involve chemical interactions between stored memories of past experiences that interact across areas of the brain to produce new combinations. However, my experience of performing and writing music is more spiritually understandable when I consider that, over a thousand years ago, northern poets felt that their flashes of inspiration came from Odin, the god who brings creative frenzy.
Like most artists, I feel my best work is done when I鈥檓 not fully in control of the creative process, when the melodies appearing in my head seem to come from somewhere else. It deepens the reality of the creative moment to realize that I share this feeling with poets of long ago, and that we also share a vocabulary and system of symbols that enable the experience to be emotionally understood at a deeper level.
Jimmy Cheatham, one of my musical mentors, often talked about 鈥渙pening yourself up to the Creative Spirit.鈥� At the time, I was young and dumb and thought he was an inscrutable mystic. Decades later, I understand what he meant about turning from our everyday lives of volunteered slavery and listening to what Odin has to tell us. At least, that鈥檚 how I choose to understand it. Norse mythology offers a poetic way of perceiving our experiences from a perspective outside our day-to-day existence. It overlays the mythical over the mundane 鈥� which is especially welcome during the long winter darkness.
At the Icelandic Yule celebration, a woman with joyously twinkling eyes explains how the god Freyr falls in love with the beautiful maiden Ger冒r. In her telling of the tale, Freyr鈥檚 desire for the girl with the shining arms is parallel to the longing of Icelanders to see the sun during the long nights of northern winter. When Ger冒r finally agrees to give her love to the young god, she tells him he must wait for nine nights. His lament ends the medieval poem that preserves the myth:
Long is a night 鈥搇ong are two 鈥揾ow can I suffer through three?Often a month to meseemed shorterthan half of this nuptial night.
After the sharing of the story, the Yule-feast begins. Like Freyr, we all wait through the long, dark nights for the coming of the sun. The communion of companionship in celebration of our lives together makes the wait a joyous one, and the Norse myths 鈥� like the myths of any faith 鈥� give us a shared tradition that shapes the cycle of the year. That is a wonderful gift from the past that continues into the future.