The marriage of Njord & Skadi

The Gods were celebrating. Idun had returned to the hall and the giant Thjazi had been slain. This called for a great feast and celebration. There was mead and meat, cake and balloons. Well…maybe not balloons, but you get the idea.

Thor was on his 11th horn of mead when the doors to the hall burst open, and in stormed a giantess, armed to the teeth with as many weapons as she could carry. It was Skadi, come to seek revenge for the death of her father, Thjazi.

Thor was up and ready, mjolnir in hand. But Loki stood between them.
‘Skadi. Beautiful, young Skadi. Come, have a drink with us. Join the party’ said Loki.

‘Why would I do that?’ Asked Skadi ‘You killed my father’

‘Yes, that was a..er, misunderstanding. We have a gift….GIFTS for you though’

‘Gifts? For me? No one ever gives Skadi gifts.

Odin stepped forward, holding out his hands, open palmed, revealing Thjazi’s eyes. He cast them into the sky, where they became two stars, forever shining in the night sky. ‘Your father will forever be looking down, and watching over you.’

Next up several attempts were made by a number of the gods to make Skadi laugh, but she looked much less than impressed. That was until Loki grabbed a rope, tied one end to a goat and the other end to his, erm… manhood. What followed was one of the most painful games of tug of war that anyone has ever witnessed. Loki screamed and howled as he pulled and pulled until finally, he landed in Skadi’s lap.
Skadi snorted, then sniggered, before falling onto the floor in fits of laughter.

‘Right’ said Odin. ‘One last gift. You can marry one God, of your choosing’.

‘I choose Baldur then’ said Skadi

‘Not so fast, Skadi. I wasn’t finished. A God of your choosing – but you must pick by his feet alone’.

This will be easy thought Skadi, I can easily choose Baldur and his beautiful feet. ‘Fine’ she said.

The Gods all hid behind a curtain, with just their feet visible along the bottom.

One set of legs stood out from the rest. Beautiful, manly, muscular legs. ‘It’s him, my beautiful Baldur’ cried Skadi.

But it wasn’t. It was the sea god Njord.

‘You tricked me!’ cried Skadi

‘Be wise with yours words Skadi. You wouldn’t want your marriage to get off on the wrong FOOT’ laughed Loki.
And so it was that Skadi the giantess married Njord, god of the sea. 

They lived for a while at Skadi’s home in the mountains. A place named Thrymhelm. But Njord could not stand the long, cold, dark nights. Most of all he loathed the sounds of the wolves howling in the night. And besides he missed his home beside the sea.

And so they moved to Noatun, Njords home beside the sea. But Skadi hated the cries of the seas birds, the warm, sunny weather and longed for her home in the mountains.

Eventually they agreed to disagree and went their separate ways.

The first story...

This is a story of fire, and ice. I’ve embellished it a bit, but that’s my right.

Before the world is here, before grass, or sand, or cool waves, there is only fire, and ice, and the gap.

When the fire meets the ice in the middle of the gap, great rivers grow, roofed with frost, and deep in the folds of the frost, the giant Ymir sleeps. He is the first of his kind, and the best. The first cow comes to lick him free, and then he uses the sweat, and the hair, and the dead skin from his armpits, to create his own offspring, and they become the race of giants.

But the first cow keeps on licking. She licks at the frost until she finds somebody else, the god Buri, the first of his kind and the best. Buri makes his own offspring with his wife, and for a while the race of gods and the race of giants live in peace.

One of Buri’s grandsons, the one they call Odin, sees Ymir, and lifts his spear to aim it at the giant’s heart.

“This will be a good game,” he thinks, throwing it, piercing the giant through.
Odin’s brother Villi sees this game.

“This looks fun,” he thinks, and hooks a noose around the giant’s neck, choking out his last breath.

Odin’s brother Ve sees this game.

“This looks fun,” he thinks, as he hacks at the giant’s throat with his knife and lets him bleed.

But the giant does not stop bleeding. He bleeds and bleeds until everything, the fire, the ice, and the gap, are all filled, until the first gods and the first giants and the first cow are all drowning, drowning and sinking in the sticky red tide, save for those few who can hide in the hollow of an old tree. Odin, Villi, and Ve, work quickly, turning Ymir’s cold bones to rock, shaping his dead flesh into new land, trapping the briny flood so it becomes the ocean. They take his skull, and shake it; his brains become the clouds. The blue in his eyes becomes the blue of the sky, and the gods rule over this world and call it their own. The race of giants are pushed out to the edges of this place, out to the dark corners, where they become the wild things- avalanches, floods, forest fires and plagues- ancient and terrible.

Odin goes for a walk, admiring the grass, and the sand, and the cool waves, using some of the giant’s eyebrows to add a few finishing touches to hedges and trees, when he sees two pieces of driftwood on a beach.
‘This will be a good game,’ he thinks. He calls over his brother Lothar. “Lothar,” he says, “do these bits of wood look like people to you?”

Lothar looks down at them. “No. They look like bits of wood. But you always were rather strange.”

“Are you sure? Look again, will you?”

So Lothar, losing patience, picks up the pieces of driftwood and blows on them both. With his breath he gives them skin instead of bark, and the forms of a man and a woman. He tosses them back on the sand. “There,” he says, “now they look like people.”

Odin calls his brother Hoenir over. “Hoenir! Look what Lothar has done. I bet you couldn’t turn wood into people.”

Hoenir shrugs.  “They’re not people, they just look like people. Any idiot with a chisel can make wood look like people.” He picks them up, and blows on them, and with his breath he gives them spirits – joy, laughter, and peace. He shrugs again, satisfied, and places them back on the sand.

Odin smirks. “That’s good,” he says, “but perhaps a little dull.” Before the others can stop him he picks up the pieces of driftwood and coughs, hacking, wheezing into their mouths, filling them with rage, madness, poetry, while the gods look on in horror.

Odin holds up a finger.

“Wait.”

He breathes on them again. With his breath he gives them breath of their own. With his breath he gives them speech. With his breath he gives them stories.

They become Ask and Embla, and they are the first of their kind, and the best.
The gods give Sunna the sun in a chariot to pull across the sky, so that the new race of men might know what time it is. The gods give Mani the moon in a chariot to pull across the sky, so that the new race of men might know what day it is.

But out in the edges of the world, in a dark corner called the Ironwood, where the bark on the trees is rust, and the soil on the ground is soot, a giantess sits brooding.  She takes her two sons, and turns them into wolves, and they are the first of their kind and the best.
She raises up her son Hati, and says “Run. Run after the moon until you catch him, run until you swallow him, so that all the months of men shall be ended.”

She raises up her son Skoll and says “Run. Run after the sun until you catch her, run until you swallow her, so that all the days of men shall be ended.”

But it’s taking  them a little longer to catch up than they expected; they are still there, the chasing wolves, running over the land shaped from Ymirs’ corpse,  through the sky shaped from his skull, until they reach and devour their prey, until the world is gone and nothing is left but fire, and ice, and the gap.

Save, of course, for those that hide, in the hollow of an old tree…

Written by Emma Brooks

The Kidnap of Idun

Odin, Loki and Hoenir had been travelling for some weeks. The area of mountains they were in was particularly scarce of anything to eat, so the gods were hungry.

One afternoon they happened upon a herd of Oxen.

‘Ah. Finally’ said Odin ‘I didn’t think we could go much farther without food’

So they got to work slaughtering the animal. Odin made quick work of it, and by the time he was done Loki had lit a fire.

Several hours later the meat still had not cooked. The Gods were confused.

They noticed a large eagle perched in a nearby tree staring intently at them.

‘It is I, who prevents your meat from cooking. Let me have my fill and I will release the spell that prevents its cooking’

Hoenir was angry ‘who are you, that thinks you can mess with us in this manor? Very well, as you leave us no choice, take what you must’

The eagle flew down and pulled off all the finest cuts of meat.

At this Loki flew into a rage, picked up a large branch and swung at the bird. But the eagle was so enormous it caught the branch in its talons and dragged Loki up into the sky. What Loki hadn’t realised is the bird was none other than the giant Thjazi.

By the time they were up in the clouds Loki was really not happy, he begged and pleaded with the eagle to take him back down.

‘Very well’ said Thjazi ‘but on one condition’.

‘anything’ cried Loki ‘just please put me down.’

‘OK’ said the eagle ‘Bring me Idun, and her magical fruits that keep the Gods looking so youthful.’

After some time, the Gods completed their journey back to Asgard and Loki paid a visit to Idun.

‘Idun, I have news’ called Loki ‘Beyond the walls of Asgard we found trees covered in the most wonderful fruits. You should come at once to see them, I think they may be even better than yours. It’s probably best that you bring yours along, so that we can compare them.’

And so Idun followed Loki to the woods where she was snatched up by Thjazi, the giant and flown to Thrymheim, the icy mountain region he called home.

It didn’t take long for the Gods to notice that Idun was missing. Their hair was quickly greying and their skin was becoming wrinkled.

The last person that anyone saw with Idun was Loki and it didn’t take many threats for him to come clean about where she was.

‘Trickster! You will return Idun to us safely, by nightfall’ shouted Odin ‘if you fail in this task, you will leave me no choice but to sentence you to death’.

Loki borrowed Freya’s hawk feathers and flew to Thrymheim. It happened that Thjazi was out fishing when he arrived, so he turned Idun into a nut, picked her up in his talons and flew her home.

When Thjazi returned home and noticed Idun was missing, he flew after Loki in his eagle form. Just as Loki was almost back to Asgard he turned around and spotted Thjazi right behind him.

But the other gods had noticed too. They had built a huge pile of wood around their home and, as Loki flew over it, the Gods set fire to it. Thjazi had no time to notice and flew straight into the flames and was engulfed immediately.

Idun was home safe and that was the end of the giant Thjazi.

Thors wedding

Thor’s hammer was lost. Well, when I say lost, I mean Loki had ‘misplaced’ it - with a giant.

In order to get it back, Loki promised the giant Thrym that he would give him the beautiful Freya’s hand in marriage.

‘She’ll never agree to that’ said Thor, as Loki explained his plan.

‘She won’t need to’ replied Loki ‘put on this dress….and this lipstick’

And that’s how Thor ends up married to Thrym, spending the reception of the wedding eating all the food and drinking all the mead. I’d like to say they lived happily ever after, but, well, there was still the issue of Thor’s ‘misplaced’ hammer.

Thrym was looking concerned. ‘Freya really does eat and drink a lot!’

‘It’s fine’ said Loki. Freya has been sooo sick with nerves over marrying you, she hasn’t eaten all week!’

‘Of course!’ Said Thrym ‘That makes sense. I am rather handsome. Are her eyes usually that red?’

Er...no It’s just, well. Erm…. she hasn’t been able to sleep with all the preparations for the wedding.

Ah yes, of course!

Listen Thrym, I can call you Thrym, can’t I? We are friends after all? What Freja really wants to see - as YOUR wife, is something really special. Maybe a rarity, a jewel, a certain ...mjolnir?’

‘Well, of course. Anything for my darling’ said Thrym.

And this is how Thor got within range of his hammer. And that's all he needed. Swiftly he drew the mighty mjolnir upwards, striking Thrym cleanly on the chin. Before bringing it down, crushing his skull.

He looked around the room at the Wedding guests and grinned. ‘who’s next?’