Marvel made Thor, Odin and Loki movie stars, but a thousand years earlier they were already the biggest names in the North. For Viking-age Scandinavians these gods offered courage, hope, and a good story, and their myths carried moral lessons too.
Thor, the Most Popular God
Thor was the most widely loved god in the Viking world. The 11th-century chronicler Adam of Bremen says he ruled thunder, lightning, wind, rain, fair weather, and the crops, which made him a farmer’s god as much as a warrior’s. He was dependable, a guardian of order, and the protector of gods and humans against the giants of Jötunheim. He swung the hammer Mjölnir and rode a chariot pulled by the goats Tanngnjost and Tanngrisnir. People wore little hammer pendants to claim his protection.
Odin, the Allfather
Odin was the Allfather, chief of the gods, and a relentless seeker of wisdom. He gave an eye for a drink from Mimir’s well and hung nine nights on the world-tree Yggdrasil to win the runes. He was also unpredictable, a god of war, poetry, and death, and kings and warrior elites favored him over ordinary farmers. He went by many names. Warriors hoped that if they fell in battle, the Valkyries would carry them to Valhalla, Odin’s great hall, to feast and fight until Ragnarök.
Loki, the Trickster Between Thor and Odin
Loki is the son of a giant, yet he lives among the gods in Asgard; in the poem Lokasenna, he reminds Odin that the two once mixed their blood as sworn brothers, and Odin gives him a seat. So in the myths Loki is not Thor’s adopted brother, as he is in the Marvel films. Instead, he is Odin’s sworn brother, and Thor’s companion on several journeys into giant country. He lies, schemes, and plays gods against giants, and the gods put up with him because his cunning keeps getting them out of the trouble it got them into.
It was Loki who cut off the goddess Sif’s hair, then bet his own head against the dwarf brothers Brokk and Eitri that they couldn’t out-craft another set of dwarves. The result was Mjölnir. Loki was a shape-shifter who could even change sex: as a mare he gave birth to Sleipnir, Odin’s eight-legged horse. With the giantess Angrboða he fathered Hel, the world-serpent Jörmungandr, and the wolf Fenrir. And it was Loki who engineered the death of Baldur.
Keep reading: more Thor and Loki stories, from Thor and Loki Go to Utgard to Loki, Thor, and the Giant Geirrod.
Beyond Thor, Odin, and Loki
Thor, Odin, and Loki are only three of many. The Norse were polytheists, and their myths are full of gods and goddesses we’ve barely touched on here. The Aesir, Vanir, and Jötnar each have their own story. Much of what we know was written down by Christians centuries after the Viking age, so the religion is only partly understood today. At Asgard Alaska we want to keep these stories alive through storytelling and hands-on experience. The museum is not open yet. We are raising the Land Fund to buy the site, Phase 1 of our Roadmap. Your gifts help make that possible.
Sources
- National Museum of Denmark, The Viking gods
- Encyclopedia Britannica, Loki
- Snorri Sturluson, The Prose Edda, translated by Arthur Gilchrist Brodeur (1916), Wikisource
- The Poetic Edda, “Lokasenna” (stanza 9), translated by Henry Adams Bellows (1923), Wikisource
- Adam of Bremen, History of the Archbishops of Hamburg-Bremen, Book IV, chapter 26 (c. 1075), translated by Francis J. Tschan (1959), Internet Archive
