Myths of the Norsemen

Students of Icelandic literature agree that the Norse deities stand out as rude and as massive as the Scandinavian mountains. They exhibit "a spirit of victory, superior to brute force, superior to mere matter, a spirit that fights and overcomes." "The Norsemen have given their gods a noble, upright, great spirit, and placed them upon a high level that is all their own." "It is a greatness not of mere body and gigantic bulk, but a rude greatness of soul."

It was in the infancy of thought gazing upon a universe filled with divinity, and believing heartily with all sincerity that a large-hearted people reached out in the dark towards ideals which were better than they knew. But, Ragnarok was to undo their gods because they had stumbled from their higher standards.

The weighty words of William Morris regarding the Volsunga Saga may also be fitly quoted as an introduction to this collection of "Myths of the Norsemen": "This is the great story of the North, which should be to all our race what the Tale of Troy was to the Greeks-to all our race first, and afterwards, when the change of the world has made our race nothing more than a name of what has been-a story too-then should it be to those that come after us no less than the Tale of Troy has been to us."

We have to thank a curious phenomenon for the preservation of so much of the old lore as we still possess. While modern and foreign influences were changing the Norse language, it remained practically unaltered in Iceland. And so here it is, re-presented for you to discover as it was writ over a thousand years ago.