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Viking Legends and Norse Mythology
Volume 1: The Underworld and the Afterlife
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Copyright
All Rights Reserved
Copyright © 2017 Mark David Version 1.04 published May 2017
The right of Mark David to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by him with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser. Front cover photo: Copyright - by Mark David. THIS IS A BOOK PREVIEW – ONLY THE INTRODUCTION TO EACH CHAPTER IS INCLUDED TO PROVIDE AN OVERVIEW OF PUBLICATION CONTENT
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Viking Legends & Norse Mythology
Volume 1: The Underworld and the Afterlife
Viking Legends & Norse Mythology is an Elementa Mundi series on elementamundi.com↵. Go to the series homepage to learn more about the books in the Viking Norse Series↵.
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Foreword Cattle die and kinsmen die, thyself too soon must die, but one thing never, I ween, will die, the doom on each one dead. – Hávamál 76
This is a new series using eTEXT that offers a no-holds barred panorama look at the myths, legends and historical references of the Nordic Past. A source book, since the chapters provide a wealth of detail, no matter what the interest or subject matter, a new series of its kind that offers more than the mythology as we know it concerning Odin and Thor. This is as much about the historical basis for legends, as the tales and sagas, beliefs and customs of the People who came to be called the Vikings, a people whose belief and understanding of the world was as accomplished as their warrior status and bravery in the battlefield. Volume by volume, I will chart the many different facets of the Norse, from the influences that inspired J.R.R: Tolkien, to the use of runes. The purpose of this publication is to both provide resources for further explanation, while bringing the world of the Norse alive in the imagination. Whether your interest is mythical, legend, historical or fantasy, There is something just so captivating about the Norse. From J.R.R. Tolkien to television series like Vikings, the ideas, beliefs, concepts of fate, existence, the understanding of the world has captivated our imagination. We know the Norse through the mythology of giants, gods, men, dwarves and elves. But this is only the popular perception. What lies behind is something much deeper than myths and stories. Legends based on Kings, warriors turning a brave face to fate in times of hardship, turmoil and struggle. This is the first book of a personal journey into the past, bringing Nordic sources alive, telling the tales and showing the places I have come across in the telling of my own tales. This is my own narrative, based on my interest and preferences, and it is not intended that this series or each title is comprehensive. The series is being developed to provide as wide an understanding as I can
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make to present a resource and source book for anyone, researcher, author, reader, fantasy universe developer, gamer or historian alike. I hope readers find the material that has been selectively developed as fascinating and interesting as I do. Much use has been made of original sources, many quotes presented, and Wikipedia. Wikipedia has been used to inform the understanding of the many different subjects presented in this publication, and more importantly, used as a resource, being linked to so readers are able to access the continuous ‘collective works in progress.’ I weave together my understandings with those of others, providing links in the text to Wikipedia articles. Best wishes to all, peace and good cheer, Mark David
A word about eTEXT In the 21st century as in the 8th and 9th, nothing ever stands still. Wikipedia is a wonderful resource, as are online libraries of the world’s historical texts, but there are no narratives linking different articles together. This book is one such narrative, drawing on many other publications and online digital resources such as the ones available to us from Project Gutenberg and Sacred Texts online. In the Norse universe, nothing is straight, nothing is linear and nothing is ever really done. Similarly, this publication is not necessarily a linear ‘from A-to-B’ read. It can be, but is intended to be ‘open’, in the respect that it can be accessed in any order by theme. This publication is published as an eTEXT book (more than just an eBook) intended for the mobile-digital audience using the benefits of hyperlinking. In the text, hyperlinks are used to take the reader to sources. Wikipedia and the elementamundi.com↵ site is used to support original research, providing more information and graphical-visual content. eTEXT digital resource link with the world’s online resources and every effort is and will be made to keep these links up-to-date and relevant. By clicking on the footnote number, it will take you direct to the notes at the end of the publication. Clicking on the note in the notes, will take you back to where the footnote is seen in the text, back to where you left off.
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eTEXT Symbols: The following types of links are provided: ↵ The enter symbol, denotes an online link – a page or resource linking with an Wikipedia entry for example. While all hyperlinks are shown in a toned text color, only the enter symbol is used to denote a link provided more detailed information online. Example: [Link text↵] ➹ Links to an occasional online picture archive - the arrow is placed before the link, indicated a new target of interest is next. Example: [➹Picture link] ᚠ The rune symbol links to an online saga or text archive. Most of these are placed at the references section, where links connect with online saga archives. Example: [Link publicationᚠ] If you spot a typo or if a link is inactive, please contact me using the online contact form↵ to let me know, or mail me↵.
Signup: The reader has never had a better choice of publications to choose from than today. Every effort is made to make sure this series is the best in its class. If you want learn of the other titles of the series before and as they are released, or to hear of future series (A series on Ancient Egypt is also being planned) updates, new resources, or to receive news or special offers then it is highly recommended to sign-up for the elements newsletter. I will not send a newsletter more than once a month.
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Introduction Vafthruthnir spake: “Of the runes of the gods and the giants’ race The truth indeed can I tell, (For to every world have I won;) To nine worlds came I, to Niflhel beneath, The home where dead men dwell.” – Vafthrudnismal 43 Odin Rides to Hel (1908) by W. G. Collingwood.
Death, if it was to be feared, was captured in legend and such legends were a very real part of the collective existence of the Norse people. This is not just a voyage into myth, into the past or history, but also one within our own global modern culture. In the writing of my fiction, I’ve been increasingly drawn to the entire concept of ‘a Nordic death’. Death and the afterlife really sparked my imagination. Wanting to know more about places I had never heard of before I wanted something very different than a Christian, Jewish or Islamic view of the world. For the Norse and the Vikings, the concept of the afterlife was very close to life as much as life was always close to death. Much that is written here has arisen from source material gathered over the years, part of my quest to write ‘The Lord Of The Rings in the real world’, to envisage and realize a hard-boiled world as anything from fantasy. In this first volume, The Underworld and the Afterlife, I examine the key myths: legends like the living undead, the Draugar, the destinations in the afterlife. I weave threads linking sagas to beliefs, eye witness reports to legends, covering Scandinavian, Northern Germanic and Anglo-Saxon Norse sources, amidst the backdrop of Viking and pre-Viking folk superstition.
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In Viking times, burial sites of ancestor worship often featured the device of the boat carrying the dead to the halls of Valhalla. Of this we can only speculate, since the sagas that have come down to us, mostly from Icelandic sources, are only fragmentary. Scholars do not have any answers to the question whether the dead would remain for some time in the grave and later depart for the realm of the dead, what the purpose of the grave goods was, or if ‘the ship in the barrow’ was to transport the deceased to the realm of the dead. With these legends in mind, I have spent a lot of time working on ideas that somehow, juxtaposes a ‘discovery of truth and morality’ with older, darker deeds. At times, it has felt as if the past has been brought to life, reborn out of the ragged bedrock and black lakes of the middle-Swedish lands. Places where belief and identity could be dragged into the light of a modern day revealing the past – not so much as ‘tales’ – but as a reawakening of age-old customs. Such customs are revealed through the brutality of people who remain hidden, leaving the deeds to speak for themselves, and the beliefs that lay behind them. The simple truth is, the Norse people were driven by their beliefs, they conditioned what they thought and what they did. For the Norse, the concept of the afterlife was a very real part of the lives of people for whom superstition was a way of life. For example, in the Landnámbók, the tradition is described where the dead pass into the mountains. This was a world that had fostered places and creatures within landscapes that were the embodiment of the seasons, of darkness – and light, of cold and isolation. Nothing is more apt for conveying the mythical power of the ancestor as the grave, often described as an abode for the dead, and a source for the rites of old and the Scandinavian tradition of putting out food and beer on the mound has survived into modern times. This tradition in particular is a reminder of just how ancestor worship draws powerful ties to legend and belief, both so common during the days of the Vikings and back farther in time, to the legends and cult of the Ancestor from the Dark Ages, as told by such heralds of old as the Danish scribe Saxo Grammaticus. The tales are many, and in many of the tales, if the dead were taken care of, they would in return protect the homestead and its people, as well as provide for its fertility. If not, they would return and take the bodies of the living as the living undead. In the following chapters I will look at these and many more aspects of the living, the dead, the underworld and the afterlife.
“The folk of the Weders fashioned there on the headland a barrow broad and high, by ocean-farers far descried: in ten days' time their toil had raised it, the
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battle-brave's beacon. Round brands of the pyre a wall they built, the worthiest ever that wit could prompt in their wisest men. They placed in the barrow that precious booty, the rounds and the rings they had reft erewhile, hardy heroes, from hoard in cave, trusting the ground with treasure of earls, gold in the earth, where ever it lies useless to men as of yore it was.� – Beowulf XLIII
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1: The Two Hels
Halls, Eddas and Deities Bloody he was | on his breast before, At the father of magic | he howled from afar; Forward rode Othin, | the earth resounded Till the house so high | of Hel he reached. – Baldrs Draumar
Introduction For the ancient Scandinavians, death was part of life: In many ways, it was a society based on a system of belief concerning the dead and the gods who ruled the realms between which man passed in life and death. For the late iron-age people of Scandinavia – well before, in fact Viking times – the folk of the land believed each tree, each rock had a spirit attached to it and that when dead, life passed back to the land from where it came from. These beliefs only died with Christianization and continued reputedly until as late as the 18th century. In this section, and the ones that follow it, I explore different aspects of life, death and the Norse afterlife, exploring beliefs, superstitions, relating the deeds of heroes and gods, related to the body of body that each day, is added to the net. I hope there is something here for everyone, and where it has been possible, I have provided notes and links to original sources so this publication becomes itself an evolving database of stories, sources of inspiration as well as online sources for going deeper. I kickoff with Helheim, the realm of the dead for all those who were not warriors.
A World of Gods and Places The Norse mythological world was not one populated alone by gods as supreme
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beings. On the contrary, the gods always a fine line between existence and doom forever facing the onslaught of the giants. It was the giant Vafthrudnir who explained how he had gained his occult knowledge by visiting ‘the nine worlds’. One of the most important and best-known books of Nordic Tales are the works known as ‘The Edda↵’ by the Middle-Age Icelandic historian Snorri Sturluson↵ (called Snorri). Written in the 13th century in Iceland and compiled from earlier traditional sources building on the oral tradition of the Norse, ‘the Edda’ is a collective work consists of two books: the collection of poems called the Poetic Edda, and stories called the Prose Edda. Both deal with the creation and destruction of the world. According to the first of the tales in the Prose Edda called Gylfaginning, the topography of the Norse afterlife and underworld existed long before the creation of the earth1. This contains a series of large rooms or worlds, the deepest and darkest being the ninth. The ninth world, the last, is the place for the dead. “Evil men go to Hel and thence down to the Misty Hel; that is down in the ninth world” – Gylfaginning 3 In the Prose Edda, the wolf-hound Garmr makes an appearance in Odin’s ride to the place called Hel, being the guardian Odin encounters guarding the gates to Hel as he continues down the road and approaches the ‘high hall of Hel.’ There he proceeds to the grave of the völva near the eastern doors where the descriptions of Hel end.
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2: Mist and Darkness
Discussing Chaos, Mist & Darkness All righteous men shall live and be with him (All-father) where it is called Gimle, or Vingolf – Prose Edda, 31
“LONG, long ago, before the earth was made, there was no sea and sky or night and day. All that there was, was vast and unending. A Land of Mist stretching away on one side of a bottomless gulf, on the other side of which lay a Land of Fire. The gulf was called the Ginungagap, the Land of Mist Niflheim, and here eternal winter reigned with fog and snow and darkness that wrapped the dreary land about like a shroud. From the heart of Niflheim there flowed a dark, tumultuous river, and as it rushed down into the chasm at its edge, the waters met the cold blasts that swept up from below, and great mountains of ice were formed on the side of the gulf over which the chill fogs gathered and the bitter winds blew.2” – Emilie Baker
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3: The Draugar
From Barrow Wights to Dwellers “The barrow he entered, sought the cup, and discovered soon that some one of mortals had searched his treasure, his lordly gold. The guardian waited ill-enduring till evening came; boiling with wrath was the barrow's keeper.” – Beowulf XXXII
Introduction In early Viking age, many people needed to seek refuge in safer havens, preferring to make the journey across the North Sea instead of remaining uncertainty in the wake of blood feuds and a fight for the right to live a free and independent life. The Norse of the age took with them the stories of their fathers and their forefathers, ancient stories that had only ever been told were at some stage, committed to parchment, and so began in Iceland the task of taking a corpus – or body of oral literature and commit it to letters, recording the legends and deeds of old for time immemorial. In particular, it is the beliefs of old I want to bring alive, and some of these beliefs can still be glimpsed today in those sagas left to us, words transcribed into books. Books providing inspiration for fantasy; fantasy feeding fiction. Delve a little deeper and a whole world awaits discovery.
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4: The Saga of Hromund Gripsson
A Tale with a Draugar Day passed, and dusk fell, and it grew dark in the barrow. Then the draug went to wrestle with Hromund, but he cast down his cauldron... “Do not complain about it, although the game grows coarse and I have wounded your throat, so that now I shall tear you apart still alive.’’
Hrómundar saga Gripssonar The saga of Romund Gripsson↵ is a saga legend from Iceland, the original of which has been lost. Content has been preserved in the Hrómundr Gripsson, known as the Griplur, composed in the first half of the 14th century. In this saga, we meet the draug in more detail than any other saga. The original was composed by Hrólfr of Skálmarnes and was recited by him at a wedding in 1119, so the legend goes back at least until the 10th century, and probably is a lot older than that. “Hrolf of Skalmarnes told a saga about Hrongvid the Viking and about Olaf King of Warriors, and breaking into Thrain’s burial mound, and Hromund Gripsson—and many verses along with it. King Sverrir found this saga amusing, and he called such “lying sagas” the most entertaining. And yet men are able to reckon their ancestry from Hromund Gripsson. Hrolf himself had put this saga together.” – Thorgils saga ok Hafliða
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Rómund (‘Hrómundr’ the original name I have made phonetic as ‘Rómund’) was serving the Danish king Óláf, a great King of Warriors (called Óláfr Liðsmannakonung) where Hrómund battles with the berserker↵ Hröngvið, as well as the undead witch-king Thrain (Þráinn), a draugr who had been a former king of Gaul, Valland. The Story Thrain had killed 420 men, including the Swedish king Semingr, with his enchanted sword Mistletoe (called Mistilteinn)3. Rómund enters a barrow and there he sees, “a great ugly man sitting in a chair, blue-skinned and stout, all clad in gold, so that it glittered.” This is the draugr Thrain. Rómund fights with the draugr and wins, burning his body and taking Mistletoe the magic sword. This corresponds with the saga described in Thorgils saga ok Hafliða, from which the quote above is taken. However, Rómund is slandered to the Danish King Olaf and forced to leave his service, only to returns to fight the two kings of Sweden, both named Haldingr or Haddingr, who had invaded Olaf’s realm. It is not believed that this tale is a historic account of real events. According to Landnámabók↵, Rómundr Gripsson was the paternal great-grandfather of Ingolfr Arnarson, the first settler in Iceland. This means that he would have lived in Norway in the first half of the 8th century, and it’s not impossible that stories about an ancestor who did exist were handed down by his Icelandic descendants and the tale grew in the telling. The name Haldingr is related to the Old Germanic Hazdingōz, meaning the ‘longhairs’. These kings may therefore, have been related to older sources with links to men of older royal dynasties such as the men who sported long hair as a mark of dignity, the ‘longhaired Merovingians’ of Clovis. The enemies had with them their champion called Helgi Haddingjaskati aided in battle by his lover called Kára’s magic. During the battle, Kára flies overhead in the shape of a swan, with some relation to being a Valkyrie. Her magical singing causes Helgi’s enemies to forget to defend themselves, and Helgi is able to kill all eight of Rómundr’s brothers. When Rómundr arrives, Helgi accidentally cuts off the swan’s leg as he swings his sword, and is no longer protected by Kára’s magic. Rómundr kills Helgi but is severely wounded. His rival at Olaf’s court, a warrior called Vali steals Mistletoe before Rómundr kills him as well. After finding the magic sword, Rómund slays Haldingr.
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Historical Background Olaf I of Denmark (Danish: Oluf I Hunger) (c. 1050–1095), was king of Denmark following his brother Canute IV starting from 1086. He was a natural son of king Sweyn Estridson and married Ingegard, princess of Norway, the daughter of Harald Hardrade↵. This makes the use of Olaf an overlay to an older tale.
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5: Warrior, Fire & Barrow
Blood Eagles to Burial Rites “Long while this branch of Odin’s stem Was the stout prop of Norway’s realm; Long while King Olaf with just pride Ruled over Westfold far and wide. At length by cruel gout oppressed, The good King Olaf sank to rest: His body now lies under ground, Buried at Geirstad, in the mound.” – Ynglinga Saga 54: Of King Olaf’s Death
Introduction Ever since the Bronze Age, Northern Europe has been a site of monumental burials, the noble and worthy honored with mounds built around a central stone setting protecting the body and possessions for the afterlife:
“The barrow he entered, sought the cup, and discovered soon that some one of mortals had searched his treasure, his lordly gold. The guardian waited illenduring till evening came; boiling with wrath was the barrow’s keeper, and fain with flame the foe to pay for the dear cup’s loss. Now day was fled as the worm had wished. By its wall no more was it glad to bide, but burning flew folded in flame: a fearful beginning for sons of the soil; and soon it came, in the doom of their lord, to a dreadful end.” – Beowulf XXXII
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“Such wealth of gold, booty from barrow, can burden with pride each human wight: let him hide it who will!” – Beowulf XXXVIII
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6: Sacrifice & Death Rites
The Blót and Ship Burial I know that I hung on a windy tree, nine long nights, wounded with a spear, dedicated to Odin, myself to myself, on that tree of which no man knows, from where its roots run – Hávamál 137
Introduction Yggdrasil↵ is the name of the The Tree of Life, or World Tree in Nordic Mythology. In stanza 137 of the poem Hávamál↵, Odin describes how he once sacrificed himself to himself by hanging on a tree. This is not Ragnarok, but Odin’s sacrifice to receive divine knowledge, quite different to the sacrifice of the gods to the world in the final confrontation with the giants. This is described in wonderful detail by Emilie Kip Baker writing in 1914 in the last chapter of her book Stories From Northern Myths, entitled ‘The Twilight Of the Gods’:4 “Odin knew, however, that the time was almost at hand when the end of all things would come; and while gods and men rejoiced in the universal happiness, Odin’s face was full of sadness. He had given to the earth and to Asgard a brief respite from trouble by chaining the wicked Loki to the rock, but he felt that the day of reckoning was near.” The Blót
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It was at such places as the mounds of the hauger, or hörgr that a ceremony called the blót was conducted, usually in the form of a sacrificial feast. The verb blóta meant “to worship with sacrifice”, or “to strengthen”. The sacrifice usually consisted of animals, in particular pigs and horses. Traditionally, the meat was boiled in large cooking pits with heated stones, either indoors or outdoors. The blood was considered to contain special powers and it was sprinkled on the statues of the gods, on the walls and on the participants themselves. It was a sacred moment when the people gathered around the steaming cauldrons to have a meal together with the gods or the Elves. The drink that was passed around was blessed and sacred as well and it was passed from participant to participant. The drink was usually beer or mead but among the nobility it could be imported wine. The old prayer was til árs ok friðar, “for a good year and frith (peace)”. They asked for fertility, good health, a good life and peace and harmony between the people and the powers. The autumn blót was performed in the middle of October (about four weeks after the autumn equinox), the Winter Nights, indicating the beginning of winter. The great midwinter blót, or Yule, took place in the middle of January. Freyr was the most important god at the Midwinter and autumn blót, and Christmas ham (the pig was for Freyr) is still a main Christmas course in most of Scandinavia, served often with a spinach sauce. The Summer blót was undertaken in the middle of April (about four weeks after the spring equinox) and it was given to Odin, drinking to victory in war. With the onset of Christianity, such old customs were banished, but they continued, remote locations being used more frequently explaining the importance of remote sites like the one at Trollkyrka featured in the chapter on mystical locations. The German medieval chronicler Adam of Bremen↵ has described how it was done at the Temple at Uppsala at Old Uppsala in Sweden, in 1070: “Thor was the most powerful god and ruled over thunder and lightning, wind and rain, sunshine and crops. He sat in the centre with a hammer (Mjolnir) in his hand, and on each side were Odin, the god of war, in full armour and Frey, the god of peace and love, attributed with an enormous erect phallus. All the pagan gods have their priests who offer them the people’s sacrifices. If there is disease or famine, they sacrifice to Thor, if war to Odin and if weddings to Frey.”5 Every ninth year there is a blót of nine days, a common feast for everyone in
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Sweden. Then they sacrifice nine males of each species, even men, and the bodies are hung from the branches of a grove near the temple. No one is exempt from this blรณt and everyone sends gifts to the shrine, even the kings. Those who are Christian have to pay a fee not to take part in the blรณt.
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7: Destinations for the Dead
Ride to Hel, Valhalla & Ydelir Lo there do I see my Father. Lo there do I see my Mother and my Sisters and my Brothers. Lo there do I see the line of my people, back to the beginning. Lo, they do call to me; They bid me take my place among them In the Halls of Valhalla Where the brave May live forever! – Prayer to Valhalla from the film, The 13th Warrior
Introduction Not all warriors go to Valhalla, and we see in the rich female-warrior, or shieldmaiden↵ form of Brynhildr, someone who goes to Hel. Perhaps because she had crossed a ‘line of deeds’ that enabled the warrior to pass to Valhalla is unclear, since her love, Sigurd, also passed to Hel with her. The figure of Brynhildr is believed to originate from the story of the Spanish-Visigothic↵ princess Brunhilda of Austrasia↵, subsequently getting into an epic conflict with the Merovingians,6 an intriguing story well worth the read (use the ‘Brunhilds of Austrasia’ link to read on Wikipedia). Ever with grief and all too long Are men and women born in the world; But yet we shall live our lives together,
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Sigurth and I. Sink down, Giantess! – Helreið Brynhildar↵ (Bryndhildr’s ride to Hel) In Norse legends, Brynhildr’s story is romanticized and goes like this: She killed Sigurd’s three-year-old son, and then she willed herself to die. When his funeral pyre was aflame, she threw herself upon it – and she burned with him so they passed on together to the realm of Hel. After she is burned, Brynhildr↵ enters the realm of Hel and here she meets ‘a giantess of the rock’. ‘Thou shalt not pass’ she is told, a line we know from the Lord Of The Rings. As Gandalf stands in the middle of the bridge of the deep facing the Balrog at the climax of ‘The Fellowship Of The Ring’. “After Brynhild’s death two piles were made, one for Sigurd, which was the first burnt; but Brynhild was burnt afterwards, and she was in a chariot, which was hung with precious tapestry; so that it was said that Brynhild drove in a chariot on the way to Hel, and passed through a place in which a giantess dwelt.7” – The Prose Edda She tells the Giantess she Hlymdalir of the Helm “Hild the helmed in Hlymdalir they named me of old” and battled in the realm of the Goths (Skatalund) for the young brother of Oda the Goth and killed an old Hialmgunnar who went to Hel. 7. The monarch bold, the swan-robes bore Of the sisters eight, beneath an oak; Twelve winters I was, if know thou wilt, When oaths I yielded, the king so young. Next I let, the leader of Goths, Hjalmgunnar the old, go down to hel, And victory brought, to Autha’s brother; For this was Othin’s, anger mighty.8 Brynhildr and Sigurd Hlymdalir is called ‘Tumult-Dale’, used with reference to the home of the Valkyries), so this actually makes her both a Valkyrie in human form and an interesting example of the honor of the shield-maiden. She was deceived into
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marrying Gunnar and not the one she loved, the warrior Sigurd (Sigurðr) who had been given a magical potion that made him forget his love for her. Brynhildr is upset not only for the loss of Sigurd but also for the treachery involved. As her male warrior counterparts, the shield-maiden prefers to do things in a straightforward forthright fashion with honesty and bravery. She gains her vengeance but in the course of doing so she is herself killed, as is Sigurd and Sigurd’s son (by Gudrun). By killing the child, she demonstrates an understanding of feud and filial responsibility; if he lived, the boy would grow up to take vengeance on Brynhildr’s family.9 The lay of Brynhild is really a love story, and one we know well from Wagner’s ‘Ring’ cycle and the High-Germanic epic poem Nibelungenlied, The Song of the Nibelungs. Ending with 13. Ever with grief, and all too long Are men and women, born in the world; As an anecdote, according to the Völsunga saga, Brynhildr bore Sigurd’s daughter, Aslaug↵, who later married Ragnar Lothbrok↵, the Viking warrior we know from the TV series Vikings.
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8: Mystical Locations
Rites, Times & Places Vafthruthnir spake: “Of the runes of the gods and the giants’ race The truth indeed can I tell, (For to every world have I won;) To nine worlds came I, to Niflhel beneath, The home where dead men dwell.” – ‘Odin Rides to Hel’ (1908) by W. G. Collingwood. Vafthrudnismal 43
Visiting the places of the dead Why are tombs so fascinating? I recall taking photographs in the Weissensee Jewish cemetery in the old East Berlin, researching locations for The Elements scenes in Berlin. Here I found the resting places of an old family forgotten, the tombs forlorn and crumbling to dust as time takes over leaving memories to the past. I just find this kind of setting so wonderfully interesting. As the details of plot were still being worked out, it was the memory of the place itself and the connection to the people who come to commemorate the dead that made the most impression. Places like Helgafell ‘holy mountain’ create that same kind of resonance. The online site by James Burkhalter documenting the place and history of Halgafjell is deeply resonant, in his words: “As is customary for the practitioners of many religions, the Vikings performed rituals designed to appease the Gods.”
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Eyrbyggja Sagaᚠ outlines several Pagan customs. For instance, when 25-yearold Thorstein’s wife, Thora, gave birth to a son, she sprinkled him with water. This custom may have been the Pagan version of the Christian baptism ritual. At the beginning of the saga, when Thorolf establishes Helgafell as sacred ground, he outlines the layout of the main temple and the rituals that the temple priest was required to perform. He refers to The Saga of the Ere-Dwellers: “He set up for himself a great house at Templewick which he called Templestead. There he let build a temple, and a mighty house it was. There was a door in the side-wall and nearer to one end thereof. Within the door stood the pillars of the high-seat, and nails were therein; they were called the Gods’ nails.” Temples and Practices It was not uncommon for pagan temples to be abandoned as such pagan practices came to an inevitable end, the structures that had been erected by such men as Thorolf of Iceland to turn to rot, some to be pulled down and replaced by Christian churches. What is left are the rites, the ceremonies and the acts committed that fade from the lives of those who once inhabited such places: “To that temple must all men pay toll, and be bound to follow the temple-priest in all farings even as now are the thingmen of chiefs. But the chief must uphold the temple at his own charges, so that it should not go to waste, and hold therein feasts of sacrifice.” One such example is used in The Elements, directly related to a place I visited a few years back in 2014. In the Prologue to The Elements, Hörgrlund is the name of a legendary town associated with pagan ritual in the prologue. I invented the name by combining the word hörgr (hörgar) – a type of altar or cult site, possibly consisting of a heap of stones out in the open10 – with the name lund, which means a copse or small wood. This was the original pagan site of a church that had witnessed a macabre history. While the place-names and older history borrowed from legends and places such as Helgafell, the church itself was based on a real place, with a real history and a large degree of legend - based around the Tived and lake Unden area close to the Tiveden national park in Sweden.
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9: Beliefs of the Norse
Legend Origins Cattle die, kindred die, Every man is mortal: But the good name never dies Of one who has done well – Havamal, stanza 76
“I can say truly [about] the secrets from the Jötnar and all the gods, because I have come [traveling] over each world. I came [traveling over each of] the nine worlds, [even to the remotest places in each one], [even] before Niflhel below [where people] from Hel die.11” – Vafþrúðnismál 43
Ancestor Worship Ancestor worship was an element in pre-Christian Scandinavian culture. The ancestors were of great importance for the self-image of the family and people believed that they were still able to influence the life of their descendants from the land of the dead. Contact with them was seen as crucial to the well-being of the family. If they were treated in the ritually correct way, they could give their blessings to the living and secure their happiness and prosperity. Conversely, the dead could haunt the living and bring bad fortune if the rituals were not followed. However, it is not clear whether the ancestors were seen as divine forces themselves or as connected to other death-related forces like elves. The status of the dead determined the shape of the tomb and the burial mounds were seen as the abode of the dead. They were places of special power which also influenced the objects inside them. The evidence of prehistoric openings in mounds may thus not indicate looting but the local community’s
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efforts to retrieve holy objects from the grave, or to insert offerings. Since the excavation of a mound was a time- and labour-consuming task which could not have happened unnoticed, religious historian Gro Steinsland↾ and others find it unlikely that the lootings of graves were common, even in prehistoric times. There are also several mythological tales and legends about retrieval of objects from burial mounds and an account in Ynglingasaga↾ of offerings to Freyr continuing through openings in his burial mound at Gamla Uppsala. The connection between the living and the dead was maintained through rituals connected to the burial place like sacrifice of objects, food and drink. Even a blacksmith who had died has been recovered with all of ➚his tools, and unlike burial tradition, this person was cremated showing that fire- and earthbased traditions existed side-by-side into the Viking era. Usually the graves were placed close to the dwelling of the family and the ancestors were regarding as protecting the house and its inhabitants against bad luck and bestowing fertility. Thus ancestor worship was of crucial importance to survival and there are signs that it continued up until modern times in isolated areas. Ancestor worship was also an element in feasts, where memorial toasts to the deceased were part of the ritual.
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10: The Saga of the Ere-Dwellers
An Icelandic Saga at Helgafell Thereafter they espied the land and found on the outermost point of a ness north of the bay that Thor was come a-land with the pillars.
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The Elements
Signup Sign-up for The Elements newsletter and be informed of the forthcoming releases in the Viking Legends & Norse Mythology Source Book (or go to the sign-up button on the sidebar on Elements homepage on Elementamundi.com).
About The Elements 7 elements 7 deceptions 7 revelations This publications features much of the research used to develop the epic Elements series – a high-concept mystery thriller series set in the timeframe of the 20th century with the depth and breadth of vision of epic fantasy. In the quest for truth, to discover that truth will mean struggling to understand the lives and actions of the past. To reveal that truth means to remove it from the shadows of those who would not be found, those who would not enlighten, caught up in the tide of fate and time. To survive that truth will mean challenging the game masters who want to keep the mysteries just the way they are. The Elements is an exploration of time, belief and fate. This is based on archaeological discovery and esoteric doctrine is the common thread linking different people at different times together, linked by chance, circumstance, ideas and actions. The central underlying premise that ‘reality’ is not absolute. Reality as ‘actions-in-time’ is multi-threaded and determined by those who have gone before us, our actions partly determining our present as we ourselves define the conditions for the future. The series is notable for the depth of research through history, with two parallel timelines progressing from 1917 to the end of the second world war alternating against the fiction-contemporary timeline 1986-1989 at the eve of the end of the cold war.
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Each theme is interpreted figuratively and literally, each book becoming an exploration of setting and plot set against each particular thematic background. Perception and understanding of the whole can only emerge as elements are combined, revealing through their combination the hidden battle of soon-to-beredundant masters no one really knows anything about. The use of the elements as a thematic concept becomes more literal as the series unfolds. The result is a series starting from humble beginnings, growing into a multilayered epic. This prologue is that humble beginning, starting with a crime, opening into a labyrinthine mystery tour that’s often kept me up late at night constructing it. So in the infamous words of J.R.R. Tolkien, ‘the tale grew in the telling’ – now encompassing at least twelve books being planned for publication and serialization 2017-2022.
Elementa Mundi - The Elements Universe To provide more insight into The Elements universe the new dedicated Elements universe site Elementamundi.com will feature: > Gateways to different products, including serializations expanding the storylines, timeline books portraying the discoveries in the past affecting the protagonists in the ‘present’ near the end of the Cold War and illustrated multimedia books. > A lexicon featuring people and events. > Timelines illustrating the deeds of the past that have combined to influence the present. > Locations with extensive photographic resource being developed to illustrate the vast and expanding Elements backstory. > Photographic archives mentioned in the books. More resources will be added to develop this Viking-Norse series.
The Prologue
PROLOGUE TO THE ELEMENTS Everyone has a secret
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Everyone has a secret The beginning of The Elements epic opens amidst the dark forests of Sweden, where no one really is, who they say they are. Something strange has been going on at for a very, very long time... Ten years in the making, the prologue to the epic Elements series involves a notorious wilderness with a macabre past; a reconstructed Viking church by the shore of a Swedish lake. And a painting, a lost masterpiece framed in runic inscriptions without an owner – all connected with a crime that was never meant to be solved and a shadowy figure from the past – archaeologist Karl Oskar Eklund... Why has Thomas Denisen been mutilated Viking-fashion in the middle of the Tiveden national park? What is the runic painting discovered in his car? And who is the girl Ulrika hitchhiking in the rain? When Hasse Almquist, a detective with a tarnished reputation is brought in to investigate a murder at an ancient site of pagan worship, Troll Church Hill, little can he know nothing is at it seems. The site of a macabre crime where Danish art gallery owner Thomas Denisen has been discovered dead, his eyes removed and nails hammered through his feet, the hallowed pagan ground in the middle of the Swedish Tiveden National Park draws troublesome connections to a remote and disturbing past. The detective begins his investigation by linking the apparently ritual killing to four unsolved serial murders from the 1970’s. His enquiries take him to the remote Gotfrid’s Homestead, temporary home to the remaining members of the group visiting from Copenhagen the deceased victim had been a part of. Each of them guard a hidden secret involving the painting found in the back of the victim’s car – and the reasons for their involvement. This complicates his investigation and weakens his chances of solving the crime and how it is related to the unsolved murders of the past. Attempting to piece together a complex and fragmented picture linking motives to murders involving pagan practices, Almquist takes the decision to isolate the suspects from the outside world. Thus is the stage set for a journey into the past, catalyzing a sequence of events with consequences for revealing the identity of the killer and the crimes of the past. The detective will accept too
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late, that he has himself been a contributing factor to the murder, opening Pandora’s Box and all that lies within. With deadly forces already in motion, the investigators and suspects alike will both become a part of each others fate, unwilling participants in a greater and much darker universe than the one they thought they inhabited.
Labyrinth Trilogy
et lux in tenebris lucet et tenebrae eam non conprehenderunt The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it. The Gospel Of John Verse 5, Chapter I
The Labyrinth trilogy is a three-part examination of the Ancient Egyptian element darkness, Tenebris. Learn about what’s in store on elementamundi.com. Part 1: Naked Ground. It is the summer of 1986 in Copenhagen, and Angelica is thrown in at the deep end, an analyst working for MI6 expected to play the role of Mata Hari in a world where no one really knows what the game is really about. Something really strange is going on at Lethragard... Summer 1986: Lethragard, Denmark, the site of the legendary seat of old kings, a site excavated during WWII by Swedish archaeologist Karl Oskar Eklund. A body is found in a Danish bog in the grounds of a residence of aristocracy wearing the uniform of the SS, mutilated with the Viking blood-eagle. Soon afterwards, a member of the Danish resistance cell called the Nightingales is
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murdered by the same method used during wartime liquidation operations. With possible connections with ongoing operations, British MI6 send analyst Angelica Lux to Copenhagen to investigate. What at first seems like an investigation into a past psychopathic killer, becomes a journey into liquidation actions of those who fought on both sides during the war. Questioning the true motives of her superiors, she becomes irrevocably involved in a labyrinthine network of past deeds and hidden agendas – where her quest for the hidden truth leads her into dark places and darker deeds. As her investigation takes her deeper into the past, Angelica begins the task of finding the truth, meeting survivors of the resistance group and compiling tapes on their past deeds while the last remaining Nightingales are still left around to tell their tale. When the nature of the truth becomes more and more illusive, Angelica is left isolated, struggling to understand the true nature of her involvement, forced to overcome fear while navigating the delicate balance between morality, reason and a Count with a taste for fast drugs and faster women. Suspecting the Lethragard Estate’s past involvement is being covered up, Angelica turns to her only allies – the archaeological staff left to maintain the increasingly empty shell of a bogus excavation. When she realizes the only common denominator is a name, the one name that has not been mentioned in her brief – the Swedish archaeologist Karl Oskar Eklund, murdered four years previously, Angelica begins her journey into the underworld that is the Labyrinth. Naked Ground is an evocative book, rich in detail, taking the reader into a journey of discovery, with repercussions no one can predict, least for all those caught in the tide of events they have become an inextricable part of. Labyrinth Parts 2 & 3 continues Angelica Lux’s investigation into why the Nightingales are being systematically eliminated. Suspecting the reasons have more to do with hidden agendas from the underworld of the Secret Intelligence Service than revenge killings, her quest for the truth takes her deeper and deeper into the actions and motives in the past. For Angelica, her trials have barely begun as she beings to piece together the puzzle of the past and why Karl Oskar Eklund was murdered. Little can she know, that her investigation will have repercussions for herself and everyone who is a part of her investigation. Not least, the remaining survivors of the Nightingales and the secrets they are determined to bear with them to the grave.
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Her only way to uncover the truth lies buried in the secret events four years previously in 1982 the same year as the murder of Eklund – and the defection of Soviet KGB agent Alexander Zherdev.
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* PREVIEW END *
This is not the end...
1
Gylfaginning 4. The Gylfaginning deals with the creation and destruction of the world of the Norse gods, and many other aspects of Norse mythology. The second part of the Prose Edda is called the Skáldskaparmál↵ and the third Háttatal↵. 2 (Baker 1914:1) 3 In the Gesta Danorum by Saxo Grammaticus, Mistletoe is the weapon used to kill Baldr↵. 4 (Baker 1914: 266) 5 The History of the Archbishops of Hamburg-Bremen, trans. Francis Joseph Tschan, 1959 6 Who married Frankish Merovingian↵ king Sigebert I↵, a grandson of Clovis I↵ in 567 AD. 7 Brynhild’s Hel-Rideᚠ on Project Gutenberg. (The Eddas). 8 See web archive of original Northvegr site. 9 Wikipedia on ‘shieldmaiden’. Accessed 26.04.2017. 10 Opposed to a ‘roofed hall’ that was called the hof (temple). 11 Vafþrúðnismál 43