”Just after they had lain down, they heard something that snorted and sniffed loudly. The boys listened car
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Forest Troll by Theodor Kittelen
”Just after they had lain down, they heard something that snorted and sniffed loudly. The boys listened carefully, trying to tell if it was animals or forest trolls they heard. But then they heard even louder sniffing and something said, ‘It smells like Christian blood here.’
Then they heard something stepping so heavily that the earth shook under it, and they knew the trolls were abroad.”
My first ever encounter with a troll was in the fairy tale written by Peter Christen Asbjørnsen and Jørgen Moe called The Three Billy Goats Gruff. ”Once upon a time there were three billy goats, who were to go up to the hillside to make themselves fat, and the name of all three was ‘Gruff.’
On the way up was a bridge over a cascading stream they had to cross; and under the bridge lived a great ugly troll, with eyes as big as saucers, and a nose as long as a poker.”
I wouldn’t be surprised if I’ve had that story read to me or by me somewhere in the range of five hundred times. That story indelibly formed an image for me of not only what a troll looked like, but also that trolls are grumpy.
This book reads more than a bit like an expanded doctoral thesis, but that is fine. It was a whimsical purchase, somewhat spurred by the wonderful John Bauer illustration on the cover and my lingering curiosity about trolls from my childhood that has never really been explored. ”The variety of possible meanings for the term troll in recent Scandinavian folk tradition was great. Texts recorded in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries display trolls as ordinary, large or small in stature, as fair and plain, enticing and stern, ordinary but misshapen, and one even as a cloudy wraith.” I can’t help but be curious about this cloudy wraith, but really it must be something else for trolls, in my fanciful opinion, must be large, ugly, dumb, and grumpy. A smart troll, now that would be a problem; a sharp-witted cloudy wraith of a troll would put me more in mind of a demon.
I laughed when John Lindow mentions that Shakespeare’s Taming of the Shrew actually translates as Taming of the Troll in Danish. I wonder how many Danish men have called their wives trolls and lived to tell the tale after their lovely, grumpy shrews battered their heads with cast iron skillets. In Scandinavian literature, trolls are predominantly female, which is surprising to me. Trolls represent ”disorder and darkness”, which for some reason those early Scandinavanian writers associated women with those characteristics, betraying a distinct lack of understanding of the fairer sex.
J. K. Rowling wrote an exciting troll scene in the Harry Potter universe. ”It was a horrible sight. Twelve feet tall, its skin was a dull granite grey, its great lumpy body like a boulder with its small head perched on top like a coconut. It had short legs, thick as tree trunks with flat, horny feet. The smell coming from it was incredible.” I think Rowling grew up with more of the same idea of a troll as I did.
”Dealing with trolls is always fraught with danger, and it is best to do as they say. Or to put it another way, the attitude towards trolls displayed in our recordings of the traditional rural culture is always ambivalent. Where there is help there may be harm, and where there is harm there may be help.” We are conditioned to think of ugly creatures as harmful creatures, even though literature is chock full of beautiful creatures who turn out to be demented demons, intent on stealing our souls or sucking our blood or feasting on our brains. Rarely does evil cooperate as to show us its real nature on the surface of its skin. We automatically think of ghosts as meaning us harm, but really aren’t we just startled by something we can’t quite comprehend and assume anything that foreign to our world has to have a disagreeable intent?
Maybe trolls just like their solitude and peace. They creep about at night, but maybe that is just to avoid people. They become disagreeable when noisy goats walk over their bridge while they are trying to snooze, much the same way I become irritable when teenagers returning late from a concert disturb my precious sleep in a hotel room. Maybe trolls are misunderstood. Lindow talks about how people, possible misshapen people like someone suffering from a humpback or a skin disease, might choose to live on the fringes of society. Maybe some of these troll stories are about human outliers. Maybe one of the first of these antisocial or shy people was named Troll. HA!
There is a terrific Norwegian movie called Trollhunter, directed by André Øvredal, that shouldn’t be missed by those who find trolls fascinating. I also really enjoyed this strange, unnerving book called Troll: a Love Story by Johanna Sinasalo, which still lingers like an unsettling encounter in the dark hallways of my mind.
I intended this to be an introduction to my pursuit of troll understanding, and it worked well for the task. With the many attacks I’ve withstood of Goodreads, Facebook, and Twitter Trolls, who all seem to share the same ugly personality characteristics, It is good for me to remember that trolls used to be mystical creatures deserving of a bit of pity before their name was hijacked to describe jackasses intent on spreading mayhem and pessimism.
”The Norse myths are the myths of a chilly place, with long, long winter nights and endless summer days, myths of a people who did not entirely trust ”The Norse myths are the myths of a chilly place, with long, long winter nights and endless summer days, myths of a people who did not entirely trust or even like their gods, although they respected and feared them. As best we can tell, the gods of Asgard came from Germany, spread into Scandinavia, and then out into the parts of the world dominated by the Vikings…. In English, the gods have left their names in our days of the week. You can find Tyr the one-handed (Odin’s son), Odin, Thor and Frig, the queen of the gods, in respectively, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday.”
Christianity very nearly drove the old gods of the Northmen from the face of the Earth. There was something so tangible about the pagan gods. They had personalities, fallacies, and a sense of humor that didn’t always bode well for their human worshippers. If we learned that Loki, in particular, had taken an interest in our troubles, we felt more trepidation than relief. His cunning intelligence was more often used for creating mayhem than it was providing solutions to dire problems. He was the gasoline that turned a smoldering, warm, ash heap into a raging forest fire.
Loki made enemies of everyone, which was why he had to live in a house with four doors facing each direction. He was the instigator of much of the troubles the gods found themselves facing, but he was also the one who always brilliantly conceived a plan that saved them from those troubles. Was Loki more of an asset or a liability? You will have to decide that for yourself. I do know that finding out he was not on the side of the gods in the final battle, Ragnarok, made me tremble with concern for the gods.
Who didn’t want Thor on their side? He wasn’t the brightness bulb in a chandelier, but once he entered a fight, one side breathed a sigh of relief, and the other side started fleeing for their lives. His magic belt, Megingjord, doubled his strength, but it was his hammer, Mjollnir, that made Giants, Trolls, and other gods tremble. The great, recently departed, Stan Lee mined the Old Norse tales heavily for his writing. These Norse gods were superheroes long before the term ever existed.
What would we give up to have all the wisdom of the world? Odin gave up an eye. He even plucked it from his head with his own fingers. He was the god of the gods and, according to legend, the father of us all. ”Because he was the father of the gods, and because he breathed the breath of life into our grandparents’ grandparents’ grandparents. Whether we are gods or mortals, Odin is the father of us all.”
How about this for creepy? The Death Ship, Naglfar, was made from the untrimmed fingernails of the dead. A friend of mine was once moved into a different office where he worked. He kept finding fingernail clippings in drawers, in between stacks of paper, under the desk legs, wedged behind the computer speakers, snagged in the carpet fibers. Every time he would clean a new section of his office, he would find piles of fingernail clippings to sweep up. This was all very creepy for him, but when I told him that the man those clippings belonged to had recently died, he nearly came out of his skin. Suddenly, those annoying nail clippings became eerie reminders of mortality.
Speaking of mortality: ”When the gods felt age beginning to touch them, to frost their hair or ache their joints, then they would go to Idunn. She would open her box and allow the god or goddess to eat a single apple. As they ate it, their youth and power would return to them. Without Idunn’s apples, the gods would scarcely be gods…” I don’t know about the rest of you, but I could use a bite of those Golden Apples. I’m not even greedy; just a nibble would be great.
Even the mighty Thor could be temporarily flummoxed. ”There was a giantess in the kitchen, cutting up onions as big as boulders and cabbages the size of boats. Thor could not help staring: the old woman had nine hundred heads, each head uglier and more terrifying than the last. He took a step backward.” If you were fighting a monster like this, where would you start and where would you end?
The stories that Neil Gaiman gathered together here were based on what little was left of the pagan stories of the Norse gods. Fortunately, a 13th century Icelandic saga writer named Snorri Sturluson recorded these tales in his book Prose Edda. Neil Gaiman retold them with his entertaining and illuminating prose. Check out the life of Snorri Sturluson when you get the chance. He might have written about heroes of old, but his life was equally fascinating to read about.
What stories we have were the tip of the iceberg of the stories that were originally told. Wouldn’t it be great if more of them were found? The Norse gods were mere shadows of what they were in the past.
This was a wonderful introduction to Norse Mythology. If you know very little about the old gods, this would be a great place to start. If you have some idea of the Norse legends, you would certainly benefit from reading them in Gaiman’s engaging style. I even found myself chuckling at several points...that Loki kills me every time.
“‘I read some book about brains,’ she said. ‘My roommate had it and she kept waving it around. It was like, ***Now a celebrated TV series on Starz.***
“‘I read some book about brains,’ she said. ‘My roommate had it and she kept waving it around. It was like, how five thousand years ago the lobes of the brain fused and before that people thought when the right lobe of the brain said anything it was the voice of some god telling them what to do. It’s just brains.’
‘I like my theory better,’ said Shadow.
‘What’s your theory?’
‘That back then people used to run into the gods from time to time.’”
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Shadow Moon is played by Ricky Whittle. Excellent casting.
There are few experiences that will teach someone more about himself better than going to prison. It is a microcosm. It is like shoving the world into a shoebox. There are rules, not prison rules, but prisoner rules, and you better get them figured out in a hurry. It is one of the few places remaining where people really have to interact and deal with other people. Inmates learn how to cooperate, or really bad things happen.
Plenty of bad things happen anyway.
Time keeps traveling at a normal rate outside, but inside the box, this minute is the same as the last minute, and when a person emerges from prison, it is like being dropped into a different world because his brain is still shackled in place, in whatever decade he first went into prison. A person spends a lot of time with himself in lockup. They become either a better version of themselves or a horrible twisted version of who they were supposed to be.
Shadow lost his temper and lost three years. He came out of prison probably a better person than who he was going to be. He learned to ignore the bullshit and focus on what was most important...living.
The universe is not done fucking with Shadow, not by a long shot. Prison is just the beginning, the burnishing of his character. He barely has made footprints in the dusty highway of his new life when he meets a god. Like it would with any of us, it takes a while for him to really believe he has met a god. This supposed god doesn’t glow or have a thunderous voice. He is abnormal, but in a kooky uncle sort of way, who besides being weird also happens to be a con man. He is frankly...kind...of...annoying.
Gods have fallen on hard times in America.
This god needs Shadow to work for him.
“The land is vast. Soon enough, our people abandoned us, remembered us only as creatures of the old land, as things that had not come with them to the new. Our true believers passed on, or stopped believing, and we were left, lost and scared and dispossessed, to get by on what little smidgens of worship or belief we could find. And to get by as best we could.”
Christianity commits deicide. The whole convert or die thing sort of makes pagans and what would be considered alternative religion types to quickly reevaluate their level of faith in the old gods. It is easier, after all, to focus on one god than figuring out the pantheon of gods they were trying to please before the first bedraggled priest washed up on the shores of their community. Christianity simplified faith. This left all the old gods, used to receiving tasty animal sacrifices, fresh fruits, virgins, bereft of not only sustenance but also...love.
We brought these gods to America with us and then abandoned them.
The new gods who are putting the final nail in their celestial coffins are the new deities, such as internet, media, and cell phones. They hurl insults like these: “You-you’re a fucking illuminated gothic black-letter manuscript. You couldn’t be hypertext if you tried. I’m…I’m synaptic, while, while you’re synoptic…” It is hard to be insulted by a compliment, isn’t it? These new gods are even starting to chip away at the strong foothold that Christianity has on the minds of the American people. If he doesn’t watch out, JC is going to be bumming rides from truckers on the interstate and hoping for the kindness of his former people, eyes focused like zombies on the screens before them, for a handout.
Not to mention the fact that Shadow has televisions asking him, ”Do you want to see Lucy’s tits?”
I’d explain that, but it is more fun for you to find out for yourself.
Needless to say, things are dire.
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Ian McShane plays Mr. Wednesday, brilliantly of course.
Shadow’s boss, Mr. Wednesday, you can probably figure out who he is, decides it is time to wipe the new kids off the block (a version of Titan vs Olympian) and seize the power the old gods so passively let slide through their fingers. Shadow is caught right in the damn middle of it. He is Odysseus in the midst of the Trojan War.
Shadow naturally asks himself, why me?
When Neil Gaiman first submitted this book for publication, his editor/publisher suggested that he cut 12,000 words out of the manuscript. If you are having deja vu feelings of The Stand by Stephen King, you are on the right fright frequency. Gaiman won a plethora of awards for American Gods, so how can you argue that the cuts weren’t a good idea? The thing is, those orphaned 12,000 words were still whispering to Gaiman, and when the decision was made to put out a tenth anniversary edition, he decided it was time to put the kids back with their parents. I would highly suggest reading the 10th anniversary edition. I do not feel the book is bloated. All the scenes are relevant to the larger arc of the plot. I would be nervous to lose the experience of reading any part of this book.
I was skeptical when I began reading this book. Gaiman introduces these gods from different cultures and does not exactly explain who any of them are, or at times he is even being cagey with their names. He is expecting a certain sophistication from his readers that is not only refreshing, but startlingly bold. I thought, in the beginning, that he has the Stephen King magic figured out with the easy accessibility of the writing and enough interesting factoids to make people feel like they are learning something as they work their way through the plot. He has those things, but he doesn’t just let us dog paddle on the surface of the water. He snags our ankles and thrusts us deeper beneath the waves to where things get dark, and we have no choice but to examine ourselves in the context of this story.
And what a pleasant surprise it has been.
”Fiction allows us to slide into these other heads, these other places, and look out through other eyes. And then in the tale we stop before we die, or we die vicariously and unharmed, and in the world beyond the tale we turn the page or close the book, and we resume our lives.”
”The one who saw the abyss I will make the land know; Of him who knew all, let me tell the whole story ...in the same way...
Is there a king like him any”The one who saw the abyss I will make the land know; Of him who knew all, let me tell the whole story ...in the same way...
Is there a king like him anywhere? Who like Gilgamesh can boast, ‘I am the king!’
From the day of his birth Gilgamesh was called by name.”
An exorcist priest named Sin-Leqi-Unninni is famous for being the scribe who recorded the best preserved version of the Epic of Gilgamesh. He lived in Mesopotamia between 1300-11oo BC. His name translates roughly as The Moon God is One Who Accepts my Prayers. The poem is thought to have existed as much as a 1000 years before Sin-Leqi-Unninni transcribed this version, which would make this story over 4000 years old.
It is remarkable that we have these clay tablets at all. We have pieces of the story in other forms, and any translator who takes on the task of looking with fresh eyes at these cuneiform shapes relies heavily on the other scattered pieces to fill in the gaps of the missing sections of clay or the parts that have been rubbed into obscurity.
Here is an example of what is readable out of the severely damaged tablet V column VI:
”... ...road… ...a second time… ...threw down… ...Enkidu They cut off the head of Humbaba.”
It makes me think of when I was a kid watching a show, and the TV signal would start going on the fritz. The picture would start flipping and turning to static (probably a passing low flying UFO). I would be banging on the set (because that always helps) and frantically wiggling the ears until the rabbit is squawking. I’d get pieces of sound with distorted dialogue. Finally, the signal would be reacquired just in time for me to hear,
“That was amazing, Magnum.”
Fortunately, John Gardner and John Maier were able to resurrect the missing pieces from other sources, and they share that with us so we can see what we probably missed. It would have been wonderful to read how Sin-Leqi-Unninni would have interpreted that particular dynamic scene of Gilgamesh and Enkidu subduing Humbaba. One can only hope that more Gilgamesh pieces are still out there to be discovered and maybe, even possibly, another copy of this particular translation.
When I think of Gilgamesh, I also think of Beowulf. Both are epic, larger than life heroes whom I frequently, in my youth, mixed up. It wasn’t until I was at college, taking literature courses, that I managed to pry the two apart into two separate beings.
Gilgamesh VS Beowulf
Who would win? Well, Gilgamesh is two thirds celestial being and only one third human. When Enkidu is created as a counter balance to him by the Gods, it really isn’t a contest. Despite Enkidu being a powerful and great warrior, he is no match for Gilgamesh, so I’d have to say my head proclaims Gilgamesh would win against Beowulf, but my heart is always going to be with Beowulf.
Enkidu is raised by wolves, well basically the whole wildlife kingdom, and when it is time for him to give Gilgamesh his comeuppance, they decide the best way to bring Enkidu into the arms of civilization is to tempt him with the charms of a woman.
Here he is, courtesan; get ready to embrace him. Open your legs, show him your beauty. Do not hold back, take his wind away. Seeing you, he will come near. Strip off your clothes so he can mount you. Make him know, this-man-as-he-was, what a woman is. His beasts who grew up in his wilderness will turn from him. He will press his body over your wildness.”
And man, did it ever work. It is like mainlining the poor bastard with some pure China White. He is hooked. ”Six days and seven nights Enkidu attacked, fucked the priestess.” Though this might resemble a honeymoon, never leave the hotel type situation, I doubt it was quite the same.
Enkido and Gilgamesh, after their property destroying epic battle, became best friends. Inseparable until death parts them. They kill the Bull of Heaven after the beast is sent for by the scorned goddess Ishtar.
You see, Gilgamesh turns her down.
”Which of your lovers have you loved forever? Which of your little shepherds has continued to please you? Come, let me name your lovers for you,”
which is actually very astute of Gilgamesh, who is really better known as a love them and leave them type. There is, in fact, a lot of grumbling about his Middle Ages type insistence that he has firsties with any new bride in the kingdom. I guess the rat bastard aristocracy of the Medieval period had read a copy of Gilgamesh, or maybe we can assume that men with absolute power have always been the same.
There must be a price paid for killing the Bull of Heaven, and the Gods are not going to strike down their golden boy, Gilgamesh, so that leaves his best friend, Enkido, to be the fall guy. When you are on an away mission with Gilgamesh, you always wear the red shirt.
The grief that Gilgamesh feels is actually poignant.
”Six days and seven nights I wept over him. until a worm fell out of his nose. Then I was afraid.”
I really think that maybe Gilgamesh hopes the gods will take pity on him and listen to his lamentations and restore life to Enkidu, but my rule has always been, when a worm falls out of a loved one’s nose, it is time to bury him or run like hell because Uncle Ted has just joined the Walking Dead.
Gilgamesh travels to the underworld looking for his friend. I love this line: ”His face was like that of one who travels a long road.” I can see his mental and physical pain etched into the lines of his face.
There is a long digression in the story while Sin-Leqi-Unninni relates THE FLOOD story, starring Utnapishtim as Noah. The rest of the starring characters, that would be us sinners, are drowned. We are merely bobbing nuisances in the water, as a backdrop to Utnapishtim’s celebratory high 5s with the giraffes, gorillas, and gazelles.
Though nonsensical for Sin-Leqi-Unninni to shove Gilgamesh off center stage, it is actually very interesting to read.
”When he orders bread at night, he (Shamash) will rain down wheat, enter the boat and close the gate.”
My family raises a lot of wheat, so the whole image of raining down wheat to feed Utnapishtim and his family is something I have never heard of in connection with the Noah version, but I really like the visual of wheat cascading from heaven to fill up the deck of the boat.
On his journey, Gilgamesh finds a weed that will restore his vigor and youthfulness. He wants to take it back to Uruk and share it with others. I’m already thinking to myself, gobble it down man, save some for others, but gobble yours now.
Well, then a snake shows up, and …
This is a blast to read. The notes that Gardner and Maier provide are invaluable to help me better understand the story, so don’t just read Gilgamesh, allow yourself to be immersed in the whole experience. I would read the text from the tablet and then read the notes to find some, not so subtle, changes occurring to my own interpretation of the meaning. Use these experts to heighten not only your knowledge but also your overall enjoyment of reading one of the oldest known stories in existence.
I keep pondering the unexpected death of John Gardner in 1982. He died in a tragic motorcycle accident at the tender age of 49, before this book was published. I couldn’t help thinking of him because the notes are infused with his charismatic personality and his boyish enthusiasm. He had been drinking but was below the legal limit at the time. John Maier feels that he was overworked from too many projects and too little sleep. I first encountered Gardner when I read his wonderful, slender volume Grendel (1971), which I really need to reread so I can write a review for it. I didn’t know that he was already dead at the time that I read Grendel, but when I did find it out later, I felt that temporary displacement of learning bad news as if it had just happened. RIP John Gardner. May you be able to complete your tasks in the next life.
A Russian oligarch, with an unsavory past (are there any other kind?), has assembled a group of international chefs for a night of feasting
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A Russian oligarch, with an unsavory past (are there any other kind?), has assembled a group of international chefs for a night of feasting. Before the oligarch lets them go, he challenges them to play the samurai game of 100 candles. Each chef needs to tell a story featuring demons, ghosts, or revealing other teeth chattering, inspiring, supernatural beings, whose names you do not speak above a soft whisper.
The theme of these stories, of course, revolves around food and revenge, which for those who have followed Anthony Bourdain’s career know he speaks of with reverence often. I might even speculate that some of these tales give Anthony a chance to enact some literary revenge on some particularly nasty individuals he had the misfortune of meeting in his food service days. Only Anthony would know the true targets of his Hungry Ghost revenge, but hopefully, when he saw the proofs of this graphic novel, he chuckled over the eviscerated bodies of some old enemies.
The last correspondence between Anthony Bourdain and his collaborator, Joel Rose, was the dedication for the book.
“This book is dedicated to the memory and enduring allure of EC Comics and their pre-Comics Code masterworks: The Haunt of Fear, the Vault of Horror, and Tales from the Crypt (nee The Crypt of Terror), and their master storytellers: The Old Witch, the Vault Keeper, and the Crypt Keeper. May resting in peace not be an option.”
When I was in my heyday of comic book reading, from about age 10-14, I didn’t even know those wonderful horror comic books existed. They didn’t show up on the shelves of my comic book dealer, who also doubled as the biggest drug dealer in the area, commonly called a pharmacist. He had superhero comics by the wheelbarrow load, Archie comics (isn’t Riverdale, by the way, proving to be so much fun?), and fortunately for me, Weird Western Tales, where I was first introduced to Jonah Hex. Unfortunately, EC Comics shuttered their doors long before I was reading comics, so in the late 1970s I would have had to be very fortunate to run across them. It wasn’t until I was in college and working in the used book industry that I ran across a batch of these old horror comics. I took them home and binged them. I was really impressed with the level of writing and the true terror they were able to inspire in me. I wish I had bought them instead of returning them to the shelves of the bookstore, where they disappeared in the blink of an eye into the greedy hands of wild eyed collectors, who were flinging money at us while trying to hide the boners inspired by their unexpected discovery of a goldmine of comics.
I’m not exaggerating.
Interestingly enough, Joel Rose mentions the influence that Lafcadio Hearn’s book Kwaidan: Japanese Ghost Stories had on the writing of this graphic novel, along with several other books he mentions in the Stirring the Pot essay in the back of the book. I’ve had Lafcadio Hearn on my radar for years, and now with a gentle nudge from Anthony, I’m going to make sure his book on Japanese ghost stories queues up in my reading list this year.
As a bonus, Anthony includes five Bourdain recipes with explicit instructions on how to make these mouth watering dishes in your own kitchen.
Who doesn’t need a splash of Food Noir Horror in their reading schedule, especially with a splash of that acerbic Bourdain wit which frequently had me muttering to myself...I see you Anthony, with your red rimmed eyes and mischievous grin?
”Gunnar got ready to ride to the Thing, and before he left he spoke to Hallgerd: ‘Behave yourself while I’m away and don’t show your bad temper where ”Gunnar got ready to ride to the Thing, and before he left he spoke to Hallgerd: ‘Behave yourself while I’m away and don’t show your bad temper where my friends are concerned.’
‘The trolls take your friend,’ she said.
Gunnar rode to the Thing and saw that it was no good talking to her.”
The events of Njal’s Saga took place between 960 and 1020 in Icelandic society and were written about in the thirteenth century. What was so unexpected for me was to discover, in such an ancient culture, the power that women had in, what I assumed was, a patriarchal society. Before I started reading Icelandic sagas, I had the image in my mind of the stereotypical, he-man, Viking Icelander, who ruled his home with an iron fist. That was not the case at all.
Hallgerd was famous to scholars of the sagas because she was such a diabolical character. She took any slight against her honor very seriously, meddled in others affairs without fear of impunity, manipulated, connived, and ultimately cost seven men their lives in a feud with Bergthora, the wife of Gunnar’s friend Njal. There was an inordinate amount of goading by women of their husbands in the sagas to push men into conflicts to defend family honor. The women, for the most part, did not really come off that well. They were depicted as shallow, petty, and quite willing to start an all out blood war over some perceived insult, even if the slight was unintended.
If a man did raise his hand to his wife, he risked having her burly male relatives appearing on his threshold to give him an attitude adjustment.
Most disagreements between men, some of them caused by women, were settled at a gathering called Althing. Men would get together and discuss who did what to whom and how much compensation was expected to be paid to make up for the loss of a life or of property. Again, surprisingly more civilized than anything I would have expected. Because of the alliances between people, either through blood or marriage or friendship, blood feuds were taken seriously. If things were not settled amicably between families, all of Iceland could find themselves in a civil war.
In these sagas, there were several moments when things became very precarious. As Hallgerd and Bergthora sparred with one another and convinced either their relatives or men who worked for their husbands to kill someone from the other family, the possibility of a savage blood feud erupting became precariously plausible. If not for the peaceable nature of their husbands, even more lives would have been lost as these women conducted their own bloody chess match where the pawns were men’s lives. Njal and Gunnar kept passing the same bag of silver back and forth as compensation for the deaths of their kinsmen to keep the peace.
Njal was considered one of the wisest men in Iceland, but though many came to him for consul, including Gunnar, his own sons frequently avoided asking him for advice, which eventually led to disaster. ”’I’m not in their planning’ said Njal, ‘but I am seldom left out when their plans are good.’”
Gunnar was level headed and anticipated problems before they actually materialized, but found himself often unable to stop the consequences. He was so mild mannered, but once his ire was raised he could become a fierce and formidable warrior. I really grew to appreciate his character as his story was told.
Throughout the sagas were foreshadowings or prophecies of what the future would hold. When Thorvald, son of Osvif, decided to marry Hallgerd, yes that Hallgerd, the future wife of Gunnar, his father couldn’t help but feel the match would be a costly one for his son. ”’Her laughter doesn’t seem as good to me as it does to you,’ said Osvif, ‘and the proof of this will come later.’”
Indeed, it did.
Hallgerd had a couple of marriages before Gunnar and was known for being difficult to get along with, but she was beautiful, and men continued to be dazzled by her appearance and thought they could handle her conniving and manipulations.
Despite the very civilized manner with which compensation was handled in this society, there were still plenty of points in the saga where bloody conflict broke out, and there was much lopping of hands, arms, legs, and heads off. Skulls were split. Torsos were skewered. Scars were made. One of my favorites was when:
”’This is the first time I have laughed since you killed Thrain.’
Skarphedin said, ‘Then here’s something to remember him by.’ (Terminatoresque)
He took from his purse one of the molars he had hacked out of Thrain and threw it at Gunnar’s eye [different Gunnar from the main character] and knocked it out onto his cheek. Gunnar then fell off the roof.”
Or how about this encounter with THE Gunnar.
”Gunnar saw a red tunic at the window and he made a thrust with his halberd and hit Thorgrim in the waist. The Norwegian lost his grip on his shield, his feet slipped and he fell off the roof and then walked to where Gizur and the others were sitting on the ground.
Gizur looked at him and spoke: ‘Well is Gunnar at home?’
Thorgrim answered, ‘Find that out for yourselves, but I’ve found out one thing--that his halberd’s at home.’
Then he fell down dead.”
I’ve heard that some people find these sagas tough to read. Within a few pages, I found a rhythm with the way the stories were told and within a few chapters I was caught up in the lives of Gunnar and Njal. The introduction was a great prep for reading the sagas and provided me with insights that helped me enjoy my reading even more. There were many creatively described, bloodthirsty moments as well as some detailed legal proceedings that confirmed for me the importance of laws to balance the scales between the strongest and the weakest. This Icelandic culture around 1000 AD was a society trying to evolve away from their bloody, barbaric past and move toward a civilisation where every life was precious, and the arts could be appreciated as much as the glitter of a sharp sword blade.
”It was true what Hermes said. Every moment mortals died, by shipwreck and sword, by wild beasts and wild men, by illness, neglect, and age. It was th”It was true what Hermes said. Every moment mortals died, by shipwreck and sword, by wild beasts and wild men, by illness, neglect, and age. It was their fate, as Prometheus had told me, the story that they all shared. No matter how vivid they were in life, no matter how brilliant, no matter the wonders they made, they came to dust and smoke. Meanwhile every petty and useless god would go on sucking down the bright air until the stars went dark.”
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Sculpture by Nicolas-Sébastien Adam in the Louvre.
Meeting Prometheus in chains, very briefly, before he was taken to the mountain side to begin his punishment had a profound impact on Circe. He had given man fire, and in the process had angered the Gods. He was condemned by Zeus to have an eagle rip his liver from his body each day and eat it over and over again for all eternity. Mortals paid attention to the Gods more when they experienced more suffering. Fire reduced their offerings to the Gods. One might say that fire made them need the Gods less.
Gods are fickle, childish creatures in need of constant reassurance.
Circe was a daughter of Helios. ”At my father’s feet, the whole world was made of gold. The light came from everywhere at once, his yellow skin, his lambent eyes, the bronze flashing of his hair. His flesh was hot as a brazier, and I pressed as close as he would let me, like a lizard to noonday rocks. My aunt had said that some of the lesser gods could scarcely bear to look at him, but I was his daughter and blood, and I stared at his face so long that when I looked away it was pressed upon my vision still, glowing from the floor, the shining walls and inlaid tables, even my own skin.”
She was the oldest daughter of the nymph Perse, and she was quickly followed by three siblings. When Zeus discovered they were all witches, he ordered Helios to slake his lust elsewhere. Maybe that was when Helios started turning himself into a bull and fucking his herd of precious cows. I’m not sure if that was bestiality or if it deserved some new moniker to describe such perversity.
Circe could never win the approval of her father because she was simply not as beautiful as she should be. Her voice was too thin, like a mortals, and her chin was too sharply made. When I looked at a picture of the Roosevelt family with all those attractive features, broad shoulders, and waspish waists, Eleanor Roosevelt stood out. She was Circe amongst all that beauty. In a normal family, attractive attributes could be noticed about Eleanor, but standing in the midst of the Roosevelts she was a flower with too few petals.
Circe’s siblings and cousins made her life a godly hell. They lived forever, and spite and vindictiveness were the slings and arrows of idle hands. She was lonely and made more lonely by the fact that no God would marry her, and mortals were simply not good enough for the daughter of Helios.
She was discovering that she had powers. The very witchcraft that made the Gods shift uneasily in their thrones. She could transform an iris into a rose or a bee into a mouse. Then she met the mortal fisherman Glaucos. What she does to him confirmed all the fears that the Olympians had trembled over before. Her powers were a wellspring not yet beginning to geyser.
Oh, and she turned the bitchy Scylla into a more representative version of herself.
*Shudder*.
Circe was banished to the island of Aiaia.
*Sigh*. Perpetually misunderstood.
I liked the way Madeline Miller tied in Circe’s encounter with Prometheus, who sacrificed eternal torment for humanity, and what would turn out to be her lifetime fascination with mortals. Chicks dig scars, and Circe was no exception. After growing up with Gods whose skin, despite what hazards are encountered, remained unblemished, those scars on mortals were fascinating to her because they told the story of their lives in every livid slash and puncture. They might have worn their scars on their skin, but Circe bore hers on her soul. She wanted to help mortals, but found that usually when she tried to help, she made things worse. Not that there weren’t bobbles in her relationship with mortals. After all, she did spend many years turning them into pigs, but then she was only bringing to light the least attractive part of their inner selves.
She may have loved the mortal Odysseus the most, which brought her into conflict with: ”She struck the room, tall and straight and sudden-white, a talon of lightning in the midnight sky. Her horse-hair helmet brushed the ceiling. Her mirror armor threw off sparks. The spear in her hand was long and thin, its keen edge limned in firelight. She was burning certainty, and before her all the shuffling and strained dross of the world must shrink away. Zeus’ bright and favorite child, Athena.”
Odysseus might have been the cleverest man of his generation, but Circe would have had to be even more clever as she harnessed what power she had to outwit a God that wished to have Odysseus at all cost, but also wished to bring harm to Circe’s son, as well.
A wonderful, reimagining of an ancient tale that was deftly brought to life by the assured, clear, precise writing style of a gifted writer and researcher. Don’t tarry any longer. Experience the pleasure of epic triumph and tragedy spun in the threads of Daedalus’s loom and wrapped in the magic that only Circe could conjure.
”He was a marvel, shaft after shaft flying from him, spears that he wrenched easily from broken bodies on the ground to toss at new targets. Again and”He was a marvel, shaft after shaft flying from him, spears that he wrenched easily from broken bodies on the ground to toss at new targets. Again and again I saw his wrist twist, exposing its pale underside, those flute-like bones thrusting elegantly forward. My spear sagged forgotten to the ground as I watched. I could not even see the ugliness of the deaths anymore, the brains, the shattered bones that later I would wash from my skin and hair. All I saw was his beauty, his singing limbs, the quick flickering of his feet.”
Madeline Miller studied Latin and Ancient Greek from Brown University and even more interestingly studied at the Yale School of Drama, specializing in adapting classical tales for a modern audience. I ignored this book when it first came out because I had read The Iliad twice and plan to read it many more times if the Gods grant me enough time to do so. A reimagining of Homer’s words? There is enough debate over translations of the original source documentation without adding in additional controversy over Miller’s interpretation of events.
Or so I thought.
After all, aren’t these books designed for a “modern audience” who will never even attempt to read Homer? I am not the target audience, as there is very little modern about me. I have ancient book dust permanently lodged in my lungs. I cough, and the air is redolent with the scent of decaying leather and the intoxicating smell of the slightly hallucinatory book fungi. Miller is doing good work, though, bringing Homer to life for a new generation. Her books are not for me.
Or so I thought.
When her book Galatea came out, I barely even flinched. A mild flickering of interest, but I was up to my eyeballs in books to read so I easily dissuaded myself from giving it much thought. Deciding to read Galatea would also mean that I would need to read Song of Achilles first because I do believe that books by serious authors build upon one another. I wasn’t taking Miller serious...yet. Part of my resistance came from the fact that I’m not a big fan of Achilles. He might have been ”The Greatest Warrior of his Generation,” but I didn’t find him very heroic. Now Hector, poor doomed Hector, to me he was the hero of The Iliad. I didn’t really want to read a book glorifying Achilles and how effortless it was for him to kill a hundred Trojans in one lazy, bloody afternoon.
I fully expected Miller to fade back into the woodwork of academia, but then this year she published Circe. With one raised Nadalesque eyebrow, I thought to myself, now Circe is someone I don’t know nearly enough about. The five star reviews started raining down on me like thunderbolts from the fingers of Zeus. Cupid shot a quiver full of arrows at me, piercing me in numerous appendages until I looked like Saint Sebastian. If I could have gotten my hands on that pink tinted, chubby, precocious toddler, I’d have turned him over my knee and paddled him with his own bow. Really, I must confess that my new found love for Achilles, Patroclus, Briseis, Chiron, Odysseus, and even Madeline Miller herself could be the result of those love poison tipped arrows. Regardless, does it matter the reason why?
Even in an addled state, there is no way I would ever confuse great writing for poorly conceived writing. As I was reading through my notes and savoring favorite passages again, now that Cupid’s fog has cleared from my mind, I must say Miller is a wonderful, lyrical writer.
It all begins with a rape. The Greek Gods want to reward Peleus for being such a good subject and decide that he should be given a sea nymph named Thetis as his bride. ”It was considered their highest honor. After all, what mortal would not want to bed a goddess and sire a son from her? Divine blood purified our muddy race, bred heroes from dust and clay. And this goddess brought a greater promise still: the Fates had foretold that her son would far surpass his father. Peleus’ line would be assured. But, like all the gods’ gifts, there was an edge to it; the goddess herself was unwilling.”
The Gods whisper in his ear. Don’t even bother trying to woo her with kelp flowers, Aquaoir Ocean aged wine, or shrimp cocktail. The Greek Gods, being rampant assaulters of unsuspecting, pink cheeked, mortal maidens, have no compunction about advocating rape. Jump her on the beach, take her, and make her thine!
The Greek Islands are lousy with half Gods. You will meet many of them in the course of this story. Achilles is the greatest of them all. Greater than Hercules. His chosen companion is Patroclus, the disgraced and banished son of a king, an odd choice in many eyes as the closest friend of the greatest warrior. Patroclus is, after all, rather unremarkable at...well...everything. It doesn’t matter, though, because Achilles is good enough at everything for the both of them.
Thetis is rather annoyed at his choice. She doesn’t feel that Patroclus is good enough to spend so much time with her son. Her favorite greeting for Patroclus is: ”You will be dead soon enough.” With Patroclus being the narrator of this story, it is rather poor judgement on her part. Any quest I’ve been on I have always plied the narrator with honeyed wine and the most succulent figs in the hope that I would be rewarded in the prose and poetry of his/her telling of the tale.
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Achilles and Patroclus by Barry J.C. Purves
Homer skates around the closeness between Achilles and Patroclus, although much can be read between the lines. There is also the possibility that some homophobic Christian hundreds of years later made some deft corrections to the original, obscuring any overt reference to a homosexual relationship. Homer may have been blind, but his ears must have heard the rustling of the reed mats whether he was an “eye” witness to the Trojan War or an interpreter of events many years later. Madeline Miller wades into the sweaty bedsheet truth of the matter, and yes, the Greatest Warrior to ever live is light in his sandals.
Miller puts flesh on these ancient bones, Gods and mortals alike, and brings a freshness to one of our most venerated stories. Though I resisted, it turns out that Madeline Miller was writing these books for me. She has also given me a burning desire to read The Iliad again while her interpretation is still imprinted so deeply in my mind. I have a feeling my reading experience will be deepened and her observations will glow like phosphorus between the lines.
”The year 1066 was a convulsive and fateful year for the destiny of England and western Europe. It was the year that brought together in violent and m”The year 1066 was a convulsive and fateful year for the destiny of England and western Europe. It was the year that brought together in violent and mortal conflict the three greatest military leaders in Europe of their day---Harald of Norway, Harold of England, and William of Normandy; three powerful and ambitious men who had fought their way to authority in their respective countries and who now, in three weeks of terrible bloodshed in the autumn of 1066, were to fight to the death for the greatest prize of all: the throne of England.”
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Harold II, a detail from the Bayeux Tapestry.
As fascinating as those men of destiny are, the Icelandic writer of this tale, Snorri Sturluson, proves almost as fascinating.
”He was a man of astonishing contradictions: a man who fought and schemed all his life to become the most powerful chieftain in Iceland, yet who still found time to write some of the greatest masterpieces in Icelandic literature; a greedy, covetous man who was nonetheless capable of great generosity; a patriot so fascinated by the royal court of Norway that he could harbour secret thoughts of treason; a farmer who wanted to be an aristocrat, a prose-writer who wanted to be a poet, a scholar who cared more about owning property; a worldly, cultivated man who loved all the good things of life---wealth, women, wine, good company---yet who died a squalid, tragic death in the cellar of his own home.”
Those he had opposed send men with swords to his house, and five of them trap him in his cellar and run him through and through again. A loss to literature for sure, but in some ways a fitting end for a man who wrote about so many other great men of Norwegian history meeting a similar end at the point of sword or by the swoop of a battle axe. Snorri might have become so ensnared in his stories that he fell right in the middle of them.
This saga is of Harald Sigurdsson and his quest for power. He fights the Danes on numerous occasions. He thinks he has as much right to the Danish throne as he does to the one in Norway.
"Svein and Harald battled The two great war-leaders, Shieldless, shunning armour, Called for thrust and parry; Armies were locked in battle, Stones and arrows were flying, Sword-blades were dyed crimson; All around, doomed warriors Fell before the onslaught.”
He fights his own people.
”Einer of the flailing sword Will drive me from this country Unless I first persuade him To kiss my thin-lipped axe.”
He battles omens and creatures insidious.
”The ogress flaunts her crimson Shield as battle approaches; The troll-woman sees clearly The doom awaiting Harald. With greedy mouth she rends The flesh of fallen warriors; WIth frenzied hand she stains The wolf’s jaws crimson--- Wolf’s jaws red with blood.”
I’m a modern man, and I’ve got to say reading about this hideous creature raises the hair on the back of my neck and sends shivers down my spine, enough to curl my toes.
This of course all leads up to the famous battle at Stamford Bridge in England. Sensing an opportunity to take the throne of England, Harald of Norway decides to invade in that year of English invasions, 1066. Harald Godwinsson, or Harold II if you are English, has barely warmed the seat of his newly acquired throne when he has to lead an army into battle against those burly, bloodthirsty Northmen.”The closer the army came, the greater it grew, and their glittering weapons sparkled like a field of broken ice.”
The interesting thing about all of this is that most of us don’t know who Harald Sigurdsson is, but one could speculate if he had decided to delay his invasion by a few weeks, we may have known him as Harold the Conqueror, King of England. As it is, Harold II dispatches Harald and his army in a bloody battle that weakens the forces of Harold II. The English army then has to turn around in 19 days and fight William of Normandy at the Battle of Hastings.
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William of Normandy raising his helmet to show his troops he is still alive. Bayeux Tapestry.
What are the chances that King Harald of Norway and William of Normandy would decide to invade England in the same month?
I can remember, when I was about 12 years old, riding in the pickup with my Grandpa Harold Ives and mentioning to him that he was named after an English King. He looked at me like I had rocks rattling around in my head instead of little gray cells. Even if I couldn’t convince him, I knew it was true.
Needless to say, I will be reading and reviewing more Icelandic sagas in the very near future. In a time when few were educated, the Icelandic people considered knowledge essential to life. If they had not believed so, many of these sagas would have never made the transition from oral history to written history. ”The Icelanders...take great pleasure in learning and recording the history of all peoples, and they consider it just as meritorious to describe the exploits of others as to perform them themselves.”
”Now Sigurd rode away. His ornamented shield was plated with red gold and emblazoned with a dragon. Its top half was dark brown and its bottom half li”Now Sigurd rode away. His ornamented shield was plated with red gold and emblazoned with a dragon. Its top half was dark brown and its bottom half light red, and his helmet, saddle, and buffcoat were all marked in this way. He wore a mail coat of gold and all his weapons were ornamented with gold. In this way the dragon was illustrated on all of his arms, so that when he was seen, all who had heard the story would recognize him as the one who had killed the great dragon called Fafnir by the Vaerings.”
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Move over, St. George. Step aside, St. Michae. And save some of that ale and meat, Beowulf. For there is another dragon slayer in town, and his name is Sigurd. Most of us have heard of these other dragon slayers, but few have heard of Sigurd. Maybe more of us has heard of him by his German name Siegfried, from the tales of the Nibelungenlied. Some people might know the name of this hero from the composer Richard Wagner who drew from both the Icelandic and German sagas for inspiration while creating his grand musical dramas. Unless you are from one of the cold Nordic countries, you probably have not had much of an opportunity to hear about the exploits of the warrior Sigurd.
Sigurd is descended from the Volsung family, and let me tell you, this is one crazy, brutal, blood to the shoulder kind of family. Any perceived slight is a cause for violence; odds such as 10 to 1 or 100 to 1 are never calculated. More men just means more skulls to crack, more arms to lob off, and more spleens to split. A Volsung sword once unsheathed is a weapon that will not be put away without blood dripping from the tip.
A lot of these old sagas would be lost, except for the diligent interest and meticulous work shown by Icelandic writers. ”It is not by chance that in Scandinavia so much of the narrative material about the Volsungs was preserved in Iceland. Fortunately for posterity, writing became popular among the Icelanders in the thirteenth century, when interest in old tales was still strong. Almost all the Old Norse narrative material that has survived---whether myth, legend, saga, history, or poetry---is found in Icelandic manuscripts, which form the largest existing vernacular literature of the medieval West.”
After reading that, my mind just kind of goes KABLOOEY.
The tiny, sparsely populated, volcanic churning, bitter cold country of Iceland is where the Northern oral traditions were best preserved? Still to this day, Icelanders are intense readers who have a wonderful reading tradition that is a part of their Christmas holiday. It is no surprise that they are one of the most literate countries in the world. ”The Nordic countries dominated the top of the charts, with Finland in first place and Norway in second, and Iceland, Denmark and Sweden rounding out the top five. Switzerland followed in sixth, with the US in seventh, Canada in 11th, France in 12th and the UK in 17th place.”
”Sigmund had a much smaller force. A fierce battle commenced, and, although Sigmund was old, he fought hard and was always at the front of his men. Neither shield nor mail coat could withstand him, and again and again that day he went through the ranks of his enemies, and no one could foresee how it would end between them. Many a spear and arrow was cast in the air. Sigmund’s spaewomen (female spirits), however, shielded him so well that he remained unscathed, and no one could count how many men fell before him. Both his arms were bloody to the shoulder.”
You thought I was kidding about the bloody to the shoulder thing, didn’t you?
Sigmund has many rather bizarre encounters in his lifetime, including this French snogging action with a she-wolf. ”She licked his face all over with her tongue and then reached her tongue into his mouth. He did not lose his composure and bit into the wolf’s tongue. She jerked and pulled back hard, thrusting her feet against the trunk so that is split apart.”
Patooey...wolf slobbers!!
Behind all of these circumstances is that shifty, one-eyed bastard Odin who appears out of the mist to offer his “help” and then disappears into the mouth of the chaos he has left behind him.
There are numerous Lady Macbeth characters sprinkled throughout this saga. Women who are more ambitious and, in many ways, more vicious than their men. They goad their husbands/lovers into rash, usually violent actions. It goes well beyond Eve tempting Adam with an apple, as war or revenge are the usual objective. There is also a healthy dose of betrayal, jealousy, incest, sorcery, gore, greed, unrequited love, fratricide, and filicide. One shudder worthy moment was a mother serving a father wine in the skulls of his sons.
There are stories in this saga that would make Quentin Tarantino turn a paler shade of white.
Michael Ridpath’s intriguing Icelandic mystery Where the Shadows Lie turned me onto The Saga of the Volsungs which, now that I’ve read that story, has encouraged me to pursue even more ancient tales, such as Njal’s Saga, The Saga of Grettir the Strong, Egil’s Saga, The Vinland Sagas, The Nibelungenlied, The Saga of King Hrolf Kraki, and The Sagas of Ragnar Lodbrok. These will, of course, lead to more sagas, and as I gain a working knowledge of these tales, my enjoyment of them will continue to grow as well.
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