The Elder Edda's idea of paradise goes like somewhat like this: In Valhalla ("Hall of Battle") the heroes rise in the morning to engage in thrilling combat with each other all day long. In the evening after the day's sport, the fallen return to life and everybody gets cleaned up for the great banquet. They slaughter the two goats that pull Thor's chariot, being careful not to break any of their bones (a goat's toe-bone had once accidentally been broken during dinner. That goat was lame ever after.) The heroes eat copiously and drink themselves into insensibility on mead. In the end everybody collapses in a stupor.

In the morning everybody springs up afresh, including the goats, ready to partake in the new day's pleasures, just like the day before, and the one before that, and so on.

It may not be the ideal place for someone not quite so rambunctious, but it does beat harps, I think ...

this may seem a little picky, but it should be "unshriven" sin--not "unshrived".

otherwise, it's is synchronously timely article for me. my mentor of Anglo-Saxon also recommends the Patricia Terry translation: Poems of the Elder Edda, University of Pennsylvania Press. It also is a quite good bringing over of the head-rime rhythms and simpler kennings.

to expatiate a bit: the heroic virtues of the Norse ancestral part of our culture are becoming again relevant as that true child of Loki resident in our White House brings us ever closer to Ragnarok. if it is ineed Nothingness that awaits us--let us act as though such is an injustice...and men will remember after that we acted with bravery in the face of insuperable odds--right now it does look as though the mattress-death awaits the boomer generation...

Kristin Undset also won the Nobel Prize for Literature in, i think it was, 1928 for Kristin Lavransdattir.

that true child of Loki resident in our White House

Loki was beautiful and clever. Sure, he got the gods in plenty of trouble, but he usually helped them get out of that same trouble afterwards. For instance, when Thor had to pretend to be Froya to get his hammer back from Trym, Loki got in drag to be his bridesmaid. (Trymskvida)

FINLAND is the Land of the Midnight Sun, baby; and while the Eddas are cool, the Kalevala rules. Jos haluasit naytaa jotain oikein hyvaa, menaa Suomeen Talvissa, noin Joulua; Suomi on parempi!

Thank you for recommending the great books of Sigrid Undset, especially her lesser-known "The Master of Hestviken", which is almost like the bleakest fairy-tale ever written. No other writer has as effectively evoked the medieval world in all it's beauty and brutality. Just the individual titles of the tetralogy -- "The Axe", "The Snake Pit", "In The Wilderness", "The Son Avenger" -- give you an idea of how intense this is. Undset definitely has a Catholic fetish for suffering; she's a Romantic is the truest sense. The story at the beginning of "The Axe", of how Olav and Ingunn are transformed in the course of a single summer day from brother and sister into passionate lovers, is so achingly beautiful and sexy... it makes their long, slow descent into Hell that much sadder. She's a brilliant writer, but definitely not for anyone who isn't willing to face the darkness.

The Eddas are not sagas. And it's misleading to say they were "written in Iceland, not Norway." They were written down in the form that has reached us in Iceland, but they were oral tradition in Norway before that.

This is the first I've heard that it was rabbits gnawing the roots of the world tree. Maybe the killer rabbit in 'Monty Python and the Holy Grail' is one of their number.

Beautifully written! So nice to see the Eddas appreciated and talked of with such fondness. And, draped around with the obvious care for Norway, what a moving column...

This piece is one of the worst things I have ever read on "Salon." …personal, no doubt, as my favorite authors are Norwegian.

From the Edda to postmodernism beautiful Norway has a rich literary history, including Undset. It's too bad the writer excludes even a cursory introduction to this vast wealth.

The creepy sensualism of hiring a nude model for a private reading is nothing to brag about either. Ick.

"Recently, I hired an artist's model to pose as the seeress in "Voluspá" (about which more momentarily), and as she lay there nude before me she began to recite from that ancient poem."

Imagine this written about a visit to an african or asian country for the purpose of "reading" their folk myths/sagas on location. The outcry! Racism! Orientalism! Sexism! And these outcries would have been justified. But with Scandinavia it's alright? No it´s not. May I remind you that ours is - and was also in those times long ago - some of the most gender equal societies on earth. Strong women, not naked muses, is the nordic way. So let me quote Havamal on you Mr Stanley, sorry, Vollman:

Fänad dör. Fränder dör. Själv dör likaledes. Ett vet jag som aldrig dör. Dom över död man.

Perhaps you can ask your nude model for a translation. Hint: it's about honour. The verse form is Ljodahattr, also frequent in the Edda.