Þrymskviða. Compressed down, it goes like this: A Jotun steal Thor’s hammer Mjolnir and says he’ll only give it back if he’s given Freyja to marry, as she is the most beautiful goddess in all of existence. The gods argue over what to do for a while before Heimdall suggests they stick a bridal veil on Thor, says he’s Freyja, and pretend they’re giving Freyja (Thor) to the Jotun to marry so Thor can get close enough to the Jotun to steal Mjolnir back.
Now typically when people talk about this story, it’s with an element of disbelieving comedy. “Oh my god, who would believe Thor was a woman, let alone Freyja, the most beautiful goddess in the world?”
But I propose a different way to look at the story.
See, different cultures have different beauty standards. Modern western beauty standards may be a delicate hourglass supermodel, but that’s not always been the case. Greece, for instance, depicted Aphrodite like this:
Yeah. A Greek sculptor was told “sculpt the goddess of beauty” and they thought “alright, fat rolls, that’s where beauty is at, let’s do this”. And everybody else apparently agreed with them, because up went the statue. Beauty is a malleable concept is what I’m getting at.
Now this is where it becomes relevant that Freyja is not just the goddess of love, sex, and beauty. She’s also the goddess of war. And the righteous dead. Goddess of war in the same Viking warrior culture that gave us shield maidens, women who wielded seven fucking kilogram (15 lbs) shields in combat.
Sooooo … when the Norse storytellers said, “This is Freyja, goddess of war and the righteous dead, who rode giant murder cats into battle, she is the most beautiful goddess in the world”, I’m guessing they weren’t thinking of her as some willowy waif. No, I’m guessing they probably thought more along the lines of:
190 cm (6′3″), broad shoulders, built like a brick shithouse, with a jawline like whoa, and fully capable of murdering everything in her path.
Put in that context, the story of Thor dressing up as Freyja sounds less like a punchline about “how could anyone ever mistake Thor in a veil for Freyja?” and becomes more a case of “ohhhhhhhhhhh, no wonder all the gods thought this plan would work”.
It did, by the way. The plan totally worked.
it wasn’t thor’s figure that almost gave him away, it was his bad manners. he was snarfing down all the food and drink, and the jotun was like “hey i thought freyja was a LADY” and they had to explain it like well she was so psyched about the wedding that she hasn’t eaten for days.
at no point did the jotun add “also she’s fucking ripped wtf?” because yeah. of course she was. she was a war goddess.
Tell yes about that cow that licked someone into being?
OH MAN OH BOY OH MAN
Okay. Auðumla.
Before all things, there were only the planes of endless fire and endless ice. Where these met, the primal ice began to melt, and from the drops of meltwater sprang a child; Ymir, the first being, who was both male and female and who could reproduce asexually. Ymir had many sons and daughters. From the line of Ymir comes the giants.
Also from the melt sprang Auðumla, the great cow, who licked at the ice for nourishment. As she licked at the ice, Ymir suckled from her and grew. As
Auðumla licked at the ice, her licks uncovered Buri, the first of the Aesir.
Buri had a son named Bor. (The name of Buri’s wife has been lost, but we can assume that he either created Bor asexually or married one of Ymir’s daughters. As Buri is the god of creation, either may be true)
Bor married a giantess named Bestla, the daughter of the giant Bolthorn and granddaughter of Ymir.
They had a son in turn, who they named Odin. Odin Borsson, who with his brothers Vili and Ve slew Ymir to create the world. Odin, who would take on a thousand more names in time, including Allfather.
To clarify…
Auðumla licked the blocks of salt ice into the shape of a man, which then lived.
…what, nobody is going to turn that into a I lik the bred poem?
Don’t look at me, I suck at poetry. But… it just seems like the Universe would want it to happen.
Considering the fact that poetry is a highly honorable pursuit and poets are held in high esteem YES SOMEONE DO THE THING THE GODS WISH IT
my name is cow
and long ago
when I cam
from melted sno
i hav a thirst
so in a trice
i mak a man
i lik the ice
A SKALD EMERGES
Oh I’ll do you one better.
In Old Norse:
Ek heiti kýr ok þá er svǫng ek neyti tungu eins ok eldfǫng
And this is how The End is stopped. Not by the gods or goddesses, the other races than man, no. It is Tumblr. As a mass running after a now confused and tail tucking Fenrir, whining softly as the crowd chants “PUPPER! PUPPER! PUPPER!”
Better yet: Fenrir escapes his chains and lopes forward to destroy the earth, and is met by a crowd of people. An army, Fenrir thinks, and bares his teeth in a ferocious snarl and charges toward them.
They cheer.
Wait … cheer?
Fenrir slows, confused. He smells no fear, senses no rage. This is … a very strange army.
The first hand—weaponless!—reaches for him; he tenses, ready to tear the offending limb to shreds, and lets out a high little yippy whine when it pats him about the ears.
Immediately the noise is reproduced by some four or five of the nearest humans; he smells excitement; more hands are patting him.
It’s nice.
The humans crowd around him, patting him and scritching him and shuffling around to give others a chance. Voices coo, and make puppy noises, and someone catches just the right spot and he cocks his leg and scratches himself, drawing a multitude of oohs and ahhs and cheers and squees.
At some point, his hunger awakens at the scent of burnt flesh; a human has brought him what he later learns is a hot dog; he swallows it in one bite, to more cheering, and looks around hopefully for more.
It is not long before more is bought: steaks and Big Macs and bacon; it seems like much of the group has brought him a snack of some kind and was hoping for a chance to give it to him.
The End of the World is supposed to be at hand, but Fenrir does not care. His hunger sated, his battle-lust swept away by a tide of gently petting hands, he rolls over, careful not to crush his many companions, and takes a nap.
“Who’s a good boy?” they ask him, over and over.
Is this some psychological warfare, he wonders, designed to undermine his confidence and remind him that he is nothing more than a monster who needs to be chained?
“Who’s a good boy, huh, huh?” “Who’s my good boy?” “
And then one of them answers the question for him.
“You are!”
‘Me?’ he thinks. But if there was any doubt, she confirms it.
“You are, yes you are.”
Fenrir’s tongue hangs out of his mouth as he grins. ‘I’m a good boy!’
just moving along like everyone else 