Monday 16 April 2012

N – Norse Gods


So, which is your favourite set of Gods?  Do you prefer your Roman Gods of pizza and poor foundations?  Or maybe you prefer the Greeks idea of Gods for loincloths and the sea?  Perhaps you prefer the animal-headed insanity of the Egyptian Gods?  Well, I’m here to argue in favour of the Norse.

Norse paganism is stocked to the gills with Gods and Godesses, many of whom had sex with each other and were capable of despicable acts of cruelty.  Allow me to present my favourites, in the form of a top five list.

5)  Frigg

Frigg makes the list mainly due to her name.  Despite being a slang term for female masturbation, Frigg is pretty cool.  Fridays are named after her, which as we know, is the best day of the week. 

Frigg is the wife of Odin and the mother of Baldr.  Being the badass mother that she is, she instilled Baldr with the gift of invulnerability, which he promptly abused by inviting people to try and kill him.  Annoyed that her son was taking this for granted, she told Loki of his one weakness, allowing him to kill Baldr.  Friggin’ hell!

4)  Thor

We’re all aware of Thor, the hammer-wielding maniac of Asgard.  Often seen laying the smackdown on people with lightning bolts, Thor has been popular since the Roman era, but the endearing hammer symbol has endured through the ages.  He’s even had his own starring role in a blockbuster movie, the first appearance of a God on the silver screen since Bruce Almighty.

Unfortunately, after some rudimentary research, it turns out that Thor is a massive racist.  The swastika symbol is often attributed to Thor’s strength, and has been seen since the 9th century.  Not cool Thor, not cool.

3)  Baldr

Baldr was Odin’s son, who is primarily known for his death.  Pretty rock and roll or what?  Baldr used to dream of his own death (probably because he was off his tits on some recreational drugs), so his mum made him immortal to try and stop his dreams from becoming a reality.  So, with Baldr’s newfound immortality, what did he do with this wonderful gift?  He became a professional stunt man for the Gods, inviting people to sling stones and spears at him all day long.  That’s pretty awesome, but the fact that he went running to mummy over a bad dream in the first place is pretty wet, and why I can’t place Baldr any higher on the list.  Plus, he has a weakness to mistletoe, meaning he probably won’t be up for any festive snuggles.

Odin!  Yay!

2)  Odin

Odin is basically the God of all Gods, the ruler of Asgard.  He fathered many little Gods (including Baldr and Thor), and is generally considered to be main inspiration behind Father Christmas.  He’s basically the world’s best father!  Also, he has a beard that could make men cream themselves with envy, winning Movember every year since it began.  Tolkien based Gandalf on Odin, so that’s enough reason to include him on the list, but there is one other who can beat Odin to the top spot...

1) Loki

The God of mischief and mayhem, Loki is the original badass.  His DNA is so awesome that he fathered a wolf and a snake, then, not content with all that, he turned himself into a mare and gave birth to an eight-legged horse!  That’s right ladies, this man knows the pain of child birth!  In fact, it’s not even child birth; it’s horse birth!

Loki is a shapeshifter with a penchant for being deliciously evil.  Turning himself into an old lady, he tricks Frigg into revealing the weakness of Baldr’s invincibility (that’s mistletoe, in case you weren’t paying attention), then constructs a spear made entirely from mistletoe, and tricks someone else into throwing it Baldr.  Now that’s a plan even Skeletor would be jealous of!

And there you have it, more than enough reasons for you to enjoy Norse mythology.  If you’re feeling pumped by all this Norsey goodness, I suggest that you use your Internet to do some further reading into the subject.  Preferably whilst playing Led Zeppelin’s Immigrant Song.



EDIT:  It has also come to my attention that some people's comments have not been appearing on here.  I can only apologise and blame Blogger for flagging them as Spam.  I'll try and keep better tabs on this in future.

28 comments:

  1. I've decided to go as Odin to a fancy dress party next month, but I couldn't find anyone to dress as my elves. Aside from that, I'd make a horribly puny, beardless Odin, so I'm hoping people will understand the irony rather than people telling me I ought to hit the testosterone and steroids and come back next year.

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    1. That's like the time I went to a fancy dress party as a murderer. I only murdered three people, but the police seemed to think that wasn't OK to do it "in character".

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  2. Very informative. And just the fact that Tolkein based so much of LOTR on Norse mythology puts it pretty high in my book. Plus you add crazy vikings and swedish girls to the mix; what's not to love?

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    1. It's a shame the vikings aren't around any more, but they live on through the etymology of the English language. Did you know that words ending in "ill" such as skill, till and obviously ill, are all viking words?

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  3. Thor was a massive racist!?! I KNEW it! You can't have all that blonde hair and not be not racist.

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    1. Does that mean Britney Spears is a racist too?

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  4. I must concur, Norse pantheon smokes all others. Well, right up to the point of that rainbow bridge. That's fairly My Little Pony and Carebears of them...

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    1. To be fair though, rainbows are rather beautiful.

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  5. I'm partial to Greek Gods but Zeppelin rocks my face off every time11

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    1. The prospect of getting my Led out tends to sway my opinion somewhat.

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  6. Odin's probably my favorite of the bunch, but then again I was a Final Fantasy dork back in the 90s. Also, a lot of my comments often get flagged as spam, which I can't understand, since I haven't even advertised my super special mega penis enlarger in at least 2 weeks.

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    1. Yes but it's a fortnight later, and I STILL haven't received that enlarger!

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  7. "...make men cream themselves with envy."

    Rip roaringly (though according to Google, that isn't a word, meh!) funny as always Addman.

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    1. Really? I'm surprised by it's non-wordiness (which should also be a word). Thanks.

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  8. Ugh... I can't contain the nerdgasm... uuuggGGGHHHH! I USED TO ALWAYS BE THE NORSE GODS IN AGE OF MYTHOLOGY! *phew* I'm sorry. Great post! You just made education fun again!

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    1. I have considered being a teacher, but then I remembered my penchant for infanticide and decided that it probably wouldn't be the best match.

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  9. I have a certain lingering fondness for the celtic ones, who had most of the same concerns, plus endless waves of invasions and repopulation to deal with.

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    1. You can't go much further back than that without resorting to paganism. I'll have to do a little more reading up on Celtic ones.

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  10. The Norse Gods are quite cool but Thor with a swastika? are the Norse Gods the master race Hitler spoke of? Geepers I better do more research! To the internet!

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    1. I believe the swastika was adopted as a symbol of power due to it's significance in relation to Thor.

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  11. Great post, I love anything to do with mythological gods, it doesn't matter which set of gods, I find them all interesting! :)

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    1. Same here. I find nearly all dead religions to be fascinating, which is a little odd considering that I'm the ultimate atheist.

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  12. You forgot to mention IKEA the God of Flat Pack and missing Allen keys

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    1. This comment has been removed by the author.

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    2. Of course, how could I forget? I also missed off Netto, the God of bargains and spoiled goods.

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  13. I was getting angry when I thought that you were not going to include Loki on this list, and then I saw that he is right where he belongs. He was my first crush. There's just something about a man with a crooked smile.

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    1. Crooked smiles? You should come to Britain. You'll be in hog's heaven here.

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  14. You forgot my favorite...Freyja---Goddess of love! Great blogg, Zeppelin is one of my favorites :)

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