Norse Mythology is a little complicated...
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 2 พ.ย. 2024
- All my recommended resources for learning about Norse Mythology, down below!
(Not affiliate links because I forgot to discolse that in the video and I aint gonna take chances.)
Thanks to Adam B from Ludohistory for helping me with my research. Check out his channel!
/ @ludohistory
And also his (much more thorough) video on studying Norse Mythology:
• How To Study Norse Myt...
Books:
*All of these texts are available with other translations for free on the Viking Society Web Publications website. But if you enjoy physical books like me, these are available too!
The Poetic Edda: www.amazon.com...
The Prose Edda: www.amazon.com...
Norse Mythology by Neil Gaiman: www.amazon.com...
Websites:
Norse Mythology for Smart People (See disclaimer in video): norse-mytholog...
Jackson Crawford: / jacksoncrawford
Viking Society Web Publications (FREE translations of Prose and Poetic Eddas!): vsnrweb-publica...
#NorseMythology
One huge resource I forgot to mention was Adam B from Ludohistory, who helped me a ton with my research. He made a much more thorough video on how to study Norse Mythology. Please check it out! th-cam.com/video/TQF93cbRO4Y/w-d-xo.html
P
Modern "Scholars" are obviously Christian so there is another conflict of interest. I'm so glad my ancestors were sensible enough to write our Vadic culture down and give us the correct interpretation before western Christian scholars who wanted to covert us to Christianity and Islam willfully distorted it in their academic papers where 0 Hindus have any input on the topics then later converted western Hindus entered made critiques of these interpretations funny that the lousy information reaches the mainstream while the sensible is willfully suppressed.
I’m Swedish and I just realised that I’ve probably learned this stuff in the most classic way possible. I just grew up here and heard these stories and was told about the gods by tons of different people and sources and stuff. Like I read a lot of books in the library about it but I also just like heard stories in school and from my parents friends and stuff
As a Dane I learned about it early, I didn’t read that many book on the subjects it’s just something you know here.
Ew Sweden
@@SonOfSparda03 Agreed
Tjena svenske broder
@@SonOfSparda03 I agree. Though I’m from Stockholm and the rest of the country is pretty nice, this place just sucks
Funny enough, some Aesir were much pretty giant. Like… *cough* Thor *cough* … the giant killer, and who’s mother, grandmother, and great grand father were all giants 💀 Seriously. Family turmoil in Norse mythology isn’t as ridiculously convoluted as it is in Greek mythology, but it’s still ridiculous.
"Giant" is a somewhat inappropriate translation of Jötnar/Þurs. They aren't actually bigger than the gods or regular people and most of the gods are at least half jotunn.
@@meginna8354 I’m aware.
Jotnar, not giants, Giants is something entirely different.
@@Lupinemancer87 I’m aware. Giants is just easier to say.
Then we Titans, Demons, Daemons.
Another complicated set of terms.
This is probably what I’m going to use this to give people before I give them a full summary of everything I know about Norse Mythology
Well dwarves were ugly little buggers that live underground and forged various magical things for the gods and got up to mischief, they were probably a bit more like what we think to be goblins though not necessarily green. While elves were generally invisible nature spirits, kind of like gods and one of the nine worlds belonged to them which was called Alfheim, these would be a bit like the Maiar in Lord of the Rings or what we think of as Angels (Christian influence). Freyr became the ruler of the elf realm/Alfheim or may have actually been an elf.
Good points. But I'd say the lines are still pretty blurry. Snorri sometimes (but not always) uses the term "dark elf" to describe characters that otherwise sound like dwarves. Of course, he was a few generations removed from pagan tradition, but I think it's a telling sign that the two creatures were often mixed up with each other.
I personally think "elf" and "dwarf" were originally just generic terms for any non-divine magical creatures. And over time people started to attach distinctive traits to each of them, but differing opinions lead to there sometimes being one version of a story with elves, and another version with dwarves. And Snorri might've come up with the term "dark elf" to reconcile conflicting attestations.
But that's all just personal speculation.
@@JakeDoubleyoo 'In Norse mythology, Dökkálfar ("Dark Elves")[a] and Ljósálfar ("Light Elves")[b] are two contrasting types of elves; the dark elves dwell within the earth and have a dark complexion, while the light elves live in Álfheimr, and are "fairer than the sun to look at".'
It kind of looks to me like they're the same magical being but ones lives the light and the heavens and other lives in the dark underground. So they could be loosely compared to angels and demons in Christian mythology though the light elves aren't purely Holy and the dark elves aren't really evil, they're a bit more like regular people. You could possibly also compare them to elves and orcs in Tolkiens Middle Earth as they were originally the same race of magical being as well.
The green was definitely added later, isn't that purely a product of games workshop and their copycats (Blizzard entertainment)?
@@JakeDoubleyoo One common mis misconception I have seen is to try and compare elves and dwarves with demons or minor gods. It is more correct (to an extent) to call them "nature spirits", "forest spirits", "earth spirits". By looking at them in that light it makes sense to see the dwarves as "dark" (as in "covered in dirt") and the elves as bright or even green.
I recommend the book "Elves, wights and trolls" from Kjeldurf Gundarson; at list the part where he describes the folk creatures, because the last part of the book (where he give some "magical recipies" to ward them off) is... imaginative, to say the list.
@@JakeDoubleyoo hay your videos are funny and at the same time true teaching
I go and stay in the woods often and twice I’ve had items go missing and there is no way that I lost them one item was a metal spit for cooking and I hung it on a tree and in the morning gone
This is why you must have to give offerings
Lol
I’m Swedish and my mom told me ALOT about Norse mythology. I also read a lot when I was a little kid.(I should not have read these stories when I was a child around 3-5 but now as a teenager I have gone back to the story’s of my childhood and learnt what I had forgotten so many years ago.
as a dane i have always been trigered by the word giant, because it isnt called giant in danish but jætte, but there is no word for jætte in english
big jætte which in swedish is jätte in english means giant.
Same with Kami from Japan. They are often described as demi-gods or demons. But they really are something.... Different something in between
@@user-zk5uj3wh5h Oh that's a very fun etymological quirk, I've never thought about that! The words aren't necessarily connected though, coincidental similarities in words like that do happen.
@@ThePLAYER1888 Aren´t they just sacred spirits? Like Gaia, Uranus and those things that were overall nature?
There are also daemons which is part of Ancient Greek mythology. They aren't gods, nor "demons" they are not demigods either. They are beings that are not human but some other being with powers.
There are also the Milesians, the djinns, etc..
Neil Gaiman's Norse Mythology was amazing! I'm pretty well-versed in Norse myths & was enthralled as though I was hearing them for the 1st time. One of my all time favorite authors
D'Aulaire's Book of Norse Myths is also very good. I have the audio book of Neil Gaiman's collection
I remember a book I had with Norse stories where it was written kind of as a prequel to the bible. As in after ragnarök 2 humans survived and that was Adam and Eve.
Yes that’s part of the reason why Ragnorok became popular, it wasn’t as big of a deal in the original mythology (still there though, obviously), because Christian writers liked the idea of monotheism.
The idea that reading / writing makes you educated is relatively recent.
In the past scholars were recognizing for memorizing whole books and poems.
Even today, plenty of people do not read books and yet they are rich, famous, etc.
Tbh there are many terrible books & many incredible books, but most are just bearable.
If you read a single book a year with some quality reading you are in for a lot more knowledge than a guy that read 100 critical gender theory books
Hey jake, I like thick Thor. Also I'm writing a book on Norse Mythology and your videos have been really helpful, don't worry I'm mainly citing the Prose Edda for it but your videos do a good job of summarizing stuff. Thanks :)
Glad to see a like minded person
Interesting note: While the Old Gods was replaced by the White Christ, coming with his sword of justice and army of angels to perish the giants. The belief of Alfir, dwergi, turs, jøtun, vætti, rå, etc never died out. Those beliefs has in certain parts never disappeared.
While I myself doesn't really believe in them, I'm not really sure that they care. And you don't want to cross them. They are not to be trifled with. Believing in them or not. We still put out food to them at midvinter. Just in case.
Reminds me of fairies in Ireland.
Pretty cool things to know. Honestly thought Egyptian mythology was the hardest to give order but looks like Norse is pretty hard too. Wanna read those books.
From my understanding, the Egyptians wrote a lot. The problem is that very little of it were straightforward retellings of stories. So we have to piece their mythology together through offhand references and artwork.
@@JakeDoubleyoo yeah and all the gods that fuse tofheter cause Egyptians where passing threw revolts and separations really confuse me.
The best way to experience norse mythology is getting high AF and binge-reading all of stories about loki doing some kinky shit
Try Indian mythology next, its great.
The two epics - Ramayana and Mahabharata tell great stories.
MYTHOLOGY?YOU MENTIONED 2 ITIHASAS WHICH TRANSLATES TO HISTORIES
@@VSM101 yes but its about myths
If you ever decide to look at something else as well, would love to see slavic mythology. Might be just bad at search, but never seen it properly told in any source. Also.. Avian mermaids
I have a project in social studies and you’re vids are helping so much because I choose Norse mythology
I have a book that breaks it down by story. Also Greek but it seems to be geared into Roman terminology like Jupiter. But it makes note it’s both.
What’s the book called?
I would like to see you go more in depth into Loki's children.
Okay, but thicc Thor RULES! Finally some actual accurate depictions of strong and not dehydrated men like in Hollywood.
+
okay.
@@ProjektTaku Great! Chubby men are absolutely adorable! (◍•ᴗ•◍)
@@LittleFoxInTheBox yeah, I guess.
The closest thing i would compare dark elves to in dnd would be deep gnomes and based on their description maybe…fairies like Tinkerbell or something for light elves? Except a little bigger. Then perhaps the vanir had the pointed ears and thats how you could tell them apart from the Aesir.
Halló halló from iceland id just like to say that this was pretty accurate compared to a lot of other peoples retellings so good job👍
I love this channel now, just super interesting.
Whee, hej! As a scholar (in the making) I can tell you that most scholars (+ those in the making) I know are very sceptical of Snorri, BUT he‘s definitely not a garbage source since well, we don‘t have that much more xD We just need to take this source as what it is: Stuff from a hella rich christian guy written centuries after Christianization. But for that, he‘s a good source :D
the thing I find most confusing about norse mythology is how it is stated that midgard was created from Ymir's corpse, but at the same time they have a mother earth divinity like the greek Gaea called Jord who is the personification of Earth, so you're now asking yourself if the planet is Jord or Ymir's corpse
Seeming contradictions like this can mainly be chalked up to the fact that, like I said, there was no universal belief system among the Old Norse people, so things are gonna vary a lot depending on the place and time. And then you have Snorri who tried really hard to present all the conflicting information he had as part of one cohesive universe.
@@JakeDoubleyoo It's interesting to compare this to how it went down with the Greeks. The Greeks (and Romans) had plenty of time before Christianity came along to get their myths at least reasonably organized, and, even though they didn't have a standardized scripture as such, they smoothed down a lot of the rougher edges to make an at least fairly coherent narrative of their myths (although there were still plenty of contradictory things visible if you looked too closely at the grand edifice). The big problem, as you point out here, is that the Norse didn't have that luxury.
this really helps me a lot with my reading. thank you!!
This needs a comeback
So currently I'm reading a translation of the prose edda and I don't know why but when I read the part that the gods are just Trojan heroes I laughed a bit because Loki is apparently Odysseus according to sturlison
It seems fitting
Thick Thor is pretty cool
the shrek puzzle part was way funnier than it should have been lol
The similar thing happened to Finland is there do they have deities like Ukko lost before a book. Fun fact Norse mythology Inspired by a lot by the Sämi.
As a pagan I love your channel((: I love the funny interpretation of greek and norse mythology its pretty accurate and entertaining ((:
Where you born a pagan or converted?
@@Ch-ew9tm Well most people convert to paganism either from Some form of Christianity or from Agnostic/Atheists, however with Paganism growing in the USA and abroad being on of the fastest growing religions in Europe, more people will likely be raised pagan.
@@aliasalone5823 the thing about tha tissue it is still small and paganism is an umbrella term that can even include shamanism from native American, Siberia, Polynesian and Mongolian shamanism so individual pagan groups are small except for norse being I believe the largest with maybe 1 million because eif it was larger it would start to encroach on schism and most of the others ar ein the hundred thousands, the other issue is neopaganism only relly became a thing in the 80s and given the norse ties to white supremacy, a small small group but still not a good look, and the constant treatment the myths get in popculture it will likely stay where either is and if people start getting raised pagan they will likly drop it in highschool at a higher rate than Christianity does in the US. The other thing is that the 4 largest religions are securely massive and the 5th is schism at 25 million and surpassing tha tis something paganism is not set up to do and it vary well may last a couple centuries but given how ruthless people are with christanity, paganism will not stand up to that level of attack and will likly parish as it once did before. Sorry to be a downer but that is what will happen mostly likely because if the 4 largest are losing steam then paganism will likely come down with them. Long term wise it seems that it's too decided as when people say pagan they are often one of the group and most are not mixing all of them toghther because that would be redundancy and if you then start picking myths to choose it stops being a large religion and instead a buffet.
So long as you know the characters, you can make it up.
True, but there is a meaningful difference between the versions of Norse Mythology that we make up for fun, and the versions that were (and still are) part of people's religion.
I make dumb cartoons about mythology, but I don't want people to think that the way I present these stories reflects the actual beliefs of the Old Norse people. That's why I make these vlogs, to direct people towards proper research material.
Yeah, Snorri wanted to preserve Norse poetic traditions.... aaaaaand, since he was basically in the pay of Haakon IV of Norway (at least until they fell out at the end), wanted to emphasize the ties between Iceland and Norway to further his and Haakon's scheme of the annexation of Iceland by Norway (which occurred only a couple of decades after his death). Snorri was at heart more politician than poet.
0:28 - "*especially* for Norse mythology"
Slavic religion where we literally know only names of some gods crying in the corner
Actually I am a Hindu and in Hinduism there are actually around 20 *big ol’ books* to understand the religion.
But not that much Abrahamic religions have just 3 or 1 books
It's better to call Hinduism "religions" than "religion"
20? I don't think there are that few.
Oh me good nobady cares
D'Aulaire's Book of Norse Myths is also a good overview
Thanks, Jake, I have subscribed to Jackson Crawford’s channel.
Realized his left eye had a sad "smiley" in it and now can't unsee it.......
In my view our old gods were storytellers more than writers.
That is why the world is one big story - The life tree is Denmark, Norway and Sweden. Denmark being the trunk with it´s roots deep into Europe and No + Se the crown. There are frost people from frost land - Jortunheim and there are Jætter from the burning sun. These are in view Russians as frost people and Africans as those of the burning sun.
Look up the skaldic project. It has awesome sources of old Norse writings.
I think it is fair to say that the Giants were like the Titans in Roman and Greek religion. It is weird almost all religions classify Gods in two or more categories, often the less accepted category being made of older / parent gods. In Christianity, it seems the point was to make a synthesis, God Father + God Son, but maybe I don't know much about theology to say that, yet maybe that is the reason why Christianity was more accepted overall, as it integrated both archetypes of gods.
Yet another great video!
can’t believe he didn’t mention our beloved uncle rick 😔
"The message of salvation is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us it is the power of God" 1 Corinthians 1:18
Nobody cares.
arent the aiser technically just jotun but a few generations later?
The terms "Aesir" "Vanir" and "Jotunn" are basically just groups you can join into or leave. Not different species.
Many Aesir gods have Jotunn parents, and Jotunn women who marry Aesir or Vanir gods usually drop their Jotunn status and join their husband's clan.
Thicccccc Thorrrrrrrrrr
As a point of order, conflating the Vikings with the Norse in general is a direct result of Hitler's attempts at nationalizing Germans under false historical contexts. The Vikings were a relatively small subgroup of the Norse, and were specifically those that went raiding. The majority did not raid, and thus were not Vikings.
Wait, so how is Neils book different from the actual mythology???
He just adds some small details here and there. Mostly to explain things left ambiguous in the sources, or to just make it a more compelling narrative.
@@JakeDoubleyoo oh l see, thanks
left a like because I do indeed like fat thor
Strange to read the prologue for the prose edda as it's written in the mindset of someone from rome or around the mediterranean, the south of the world(africa) being too hot that it burns everything and the north(northern europe and germania) being so cold so that grass doesn't grow and people can't live there, which is funny considering Snorri was icelandic.
1:53 it's actually only one of them, they're just keeping the identity a secret.
Thicc Thorr supremacy.
the queston of why so much use of the number 9 in Norse mythology has the same answer as the question why do we see the number 40 so much in Christianity?
I liked Kevin Hollands Norse Mythology also
Jake you are doing a great job. But…
We just found the very place where the Edda myths started. Showing that the most that been taught about North myths are just good speculations.
Do you really want to know how it came to be you are most welcome to contact me.
Questions?
Uhh, can you elaborate on that? That's a pretty huge claim.
What did you manage to find?
I...LOVE Thicc Thor
Most of this kind of applies to Abrahamic religions too though. I mean, the God of the Old Testament is all over the place frankly, the gospel accounts in the new testament don't even agree with each other, and there were other books that weren't canonized, etc. Islam I know less about, but like Christianity, it's sort of a retcon, where they wanna pick up the authority and tradition of the older religion, but at the same time take the liberty to begin to write what God "actually" meant.
is that a pull up bar
in the backround
Yes, but these poems existed far before they were written. There is linguistic evidence to suggest that these poems that Snorri has documented have remained unchanged for hundreds of years. Dr. Jackson Crawford is an Old Norse specialist and has a video explaining this phenomenon.
Can we get an F in the chat for my boy, Bjorn
Thor is like the cool alcoholic Uncle
I like thicc thor
Wait wait wait so according to Snorri Loki was really Odysseus now how does that work
It’s sad when you think about it all of that knowledge gone over the centuries and what we have is just some pieces of it
this was great
Hey, could you explain norse mythology in God of war
"they don't have a bible" uh buddy, ever heard of rick riordan?
That’s like relying on tarot cards to get the right answer on the SAT.
Thick Thor needs chest hair… WOOF!
i like thicc thor
maybe you know this by now but there is no "Scandinavian culture" scandinavian only refers to the geographic location of denmark sveden and norway, an annoyingly common mistake people make
Thick thor is cool
What about the Finnish mythology?
To be fair, a lot of Mythology is a bit strange, and it only gets worse when people believe wrong things about Myth, such as the classic "Giant" misconception about the Jotnar that so many people seem to think is real. The Jotnar were no such thing they were something different. Could some of them be large? Yes, but others were animals while othere were troll-like. Just because they had a variety of appearences doesn't somehow make them all "giants" that is one of the biggest misconceptions about Norse Myth and as a huge fan of Mythology, it irritates me that people keep believing that.
Ofc, when all is said and done, the old mythologies are way more fascinating then christianity, cuz it is probably the most evil and disgusting mythology humanity has come up with, and the fact that some people today are still following it even when it's the cause of so much evil, war and genocide, disgusts me.
we boost that norse algorithm
Jake is really cute 😊
Thicc Thor
wait, you arent Damien Haas
How do you feel about christianity ? Do you believe its true or not ?
I wrote a research paper about Odin and shamanism.
*It was not fun.*
👍
I like thicc Thor
all you need to know about Norse Myths can be learned from Marvel Comics
i like thic thor
I love thicc Thor
תורה
ᛁᛏᛅ
You should do hindu mythology
0:10 *CONVENIENTLY?* ... CONTAINING EVERYTHING WE NEED TO KNOW?*
Well, yes. But also no.
But it's much better than other beliefs
@@NotChinmayi Not, really.
Nose mythology is the Digimon of mythology.
Kenningar; everything in Norse mythology is metaphorical. The gods are things that we observed as humans, things we experienced through meditation and being close to nature. Every god or goddess is a metaphor, even there interactions with eachother have a deeper meaning. There, not that complicated. People try to look at Norse paganism through the lens of Christianity and that is impossible
I'm just leaving a comment cause I like thick thor
I will leave a comment and say: I like thicc Thor
I always cringe when people try to argue Snorries Norse isn't the real Norse bcs for the record Norse mythology is actually Germanic mythology and by the time of Snorri it was traded out for the one true Christianity so by that time his works were fragmented to the point where he didn't know what stories there were so now accept these or not there is no cannon
Praise Marduk
@@EgoKenwho is marduk
@@mikayelalikhanyan1587 Babylonian deity.
Heads up, the connection between Norse gods and Troy isn't 100% BS. There's a suggestion that the original Germanic tribe during the BC time may have came from that region. It's not as far fetched and not worth getting written off.
thought there was a roach on your ear💀
2:08 To be fair to the Norse, it's the same with the Bible. 🤣 You'll get contradictions to something that's been said just a single chapter before.
✝ Christian Influence™ ✝
Noice
*sees chart
Oh, really? Judaism is that low on the list? I thought it was up there with Christianity and Islam. Interesting.
0:25 "picking up the scatered bits and pieces they left behind" hmm, that's pretty much the bible to lol