Thor as C. S. Lewis fell in love with him. Arthur Rackham illustration from The Rhinegold and the Valkyrie, 1910.
A disagreement arose today, on a Facebook page where I participate, about modern heathenism – particularly the adoption of the old Norse gods by modern people, most of whom were raised Christian. I’m reluctant to argue these things in public, but here – just between you and me – I’ll share my thoughts.
I first encountered Thor in the pages of some kind of anthology in an elementary school classroom. I found a story called “How Thor Lost His Hammer,” read it, and found it a lot of fun. When the teacher called for volunteers to read a story to the class, I volunteered to read that one. But I told my fellow students that Thor was a Greek god, because the Greek ones were the only small “g” gods I’d ever heard of.
Later I discovered that Thor and company were in fact the gods of the Norse, my ancestors. I borrowed Padraic Colum’s The Children of Odin from the library and was fascinated (Willy Pogany’s excellent stylized illustrations didn’t hurt). As the years passed, my interest expanded to include the whole Viking world, and (as C. S. Lewis said) “I reveled in my Nibelungs.”
I’m one of those who believe that Norse mythology beats Classical mythology like a rug. I’ll grant that, simply because of longevity, the Greek and Roman gods informed more – and greater – works of art. But in themselves the Mediterranean gods are kind of second (or third) rate. They start out interestingly enough, with Chronos eating his children and the wars with the Titans, but then the gods just settle down to meddling in mortal affairs and catering dei ex machina.
The Norse gods, on the other hand, have a story arc. Their myths actually improve as they go along, until in the end they achieve the level of the tragic and the epic. Ragnarok, the fall of the gods, is one of the most romantic themes in the world. Richard Wagner, in spite of his many personal sins, recognized this and did it something like justice. Wagner’s music swept the young C. S. Lewis away and inspired his creativity and (eventually) his Christian faith.
Which is one reason I’m dismayed by modern heathenism. We’d gotten to the point where Christians could really enjoy the Norse myths, and then people came along taking it seriously, forcing us to choose sides in something that was settled for our ancestors a thousand years ago.
Much as I love Odin and Thor, they don’t meet my practical needs as gods. No doubt modern heathens, sentimental in the modern way, have worked some idea of mercy into their theology. But that mercy doesn’t come from the original source materials. It has to be added.
Odin is untrustworthy, bloody, and cruel. He’s a Nietzchean, delighting in power.
Thor is a friendlier sort. He’s the kind of god you could have a beer with. But he’s not terribly bright, and he doesn’t do nuances.
The old Norse religion is an R. Lee Ermy religion – where Jesus says, “Come to Me, all ye who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest,” the Norse gods say, “Oh, you got a booboo? You want mommy to kiss it and make it better? LISTEN UP, MAGGOT! Life is tough! Dung happens! Suck it up and get over it, or at least have the self-respect to die with a sword in your hand!”
I play a tough guy as a Viking reenactor. But I’m not really tough. I need a God who can sympathize with my weakness and pain.
I especially need a God who forgives my sins.
The problem, IMHO, is that Christians have lost touch with their story as the people of God and substituted cold doctrine and metaphysics. Few see Christianity as a rooted story of a chosen people and a God who acts in history to judge and to save. Instead they see mostly cheap therapy on the one hand and judgmental theologizing on the other. I think this is what entrances modern pagan types. They want mystery and history and story. Of course, they soon want to bend it to multiculturalism and progressivism and what not … /rant
BTW, I love myths and mythology of all sorts and have a small library of mythology for younger audiences (and a stack for “adults” as well). Read the Children of Odin on my Kindle and loved it.
Lars, I find myself looking at neo-pagans adopting Norse gods and wondering if they have actually any grasp of mythology or archaelogy. Odin… I am sure his conduct mirrored/was drawn from the class that he was the dominant god for – the ruling class/nobility. Not mister nice guy, and certainly not toward the social class that in reality most of the short-lived humans of the time belonged to (and who he would consider most modern ‘neo-norse’ pagans belonging. They’d be thralls, expected to serve, and be allowed to live as their reward.) Only Loki and occasionally Thor (with a sort of careless kindness) ever showed ordinary folk any consideration – which is the inverse of Christianity. Odin – Tough, treacherous, cruel, totally intolerant… yeah not big on women or thralls having any rights, let alone smiling on femisism and gay relationships. I think we can safely conclude that average Norse pagan would have the modern imitators blood-eagled or hanging as a sacrifice before you could say Ragnarok.
Lars, I think there is another point you missed, at least somewhat:
I especially need a God who forgives my sins.
The Norse gods are a trade off. On one hand, they have drill sergeant level sympathy. On the other hand, they classify a lot less behaviors as sins. Christianity, by giving people Jesus as the perfect model for behavior, created a standard that we literally cannot live up to.
BTW, God has been known to show drill sergeant levels of sympathy too. Jeremiah 12:5 (“If you have raced with men on foot and they have worn you out, how can you compete with horses? If you stumble in safe country, how will you manage in the thickets by the Jordan?).
Dave, I entirely agree. My current work in progress involves a real Viking traveling in time to the near future, and expresses some of those very ideas.
Ori, point taken. But the God of Israel runs the gamut, as any good God should. I want a God who sympathizes, but also one who’ll kick butt when butts need kicking. As for increasing sins (an issue St. Paul actually addressed), it can be seen as a kind of generosity. For the Christian, the Ten Commandments are not only proscriptions. They’re promises. “Some day I will be the kind of person who doesn’t do those things.”
Lars, good point. But I wonder if the Norse pantheon truly didn’t cater to the human need for mercy, or if we didn’t hear about the gods that were worshiped by women and weak men because they were women and weak men, and therefore unimportant.
You should check out John C. Wright’s “Twilight of the Gods” which is, if memory serves, a set of three longish short stories. It wonderfully captures the strengths and limitations of the Norse worldview.
Lars, I look forward to reading it. It has to be … interesting as the mores of Viking era meant the culture would have been more alien than say that of the Taliban today (because even in some tent in a desert somewhere, the mores of modern Western civilization are known to exist. To you Viking many of the concepts we accept as normal would make little or no sense. ‘What do you mean ‘human rights’?) Ori, the Norse pantheon also undoubtably included many ‘small gods’ in various forms, locally worshiped and propriated, for their support. For me the principal difference between Christian and Norse Pagan comes from the Judaic concept of a ‘good’ God. The other gods just were – and were both ‘good’ and ‘evil’ rather like a very powerful person rather than a force of good for creation. I was reading about the early Christian church, and it would appear to me that it succeeded where the existant religion had little appeal to the the hearts and minds of the peasantry, who often had had little benefit from the religion of their masters. Of course the bits they liked and were part of remained.It’s also (to my mind anyway) fascinating that early Christianity undoubtably spread at least in part because to a Greek community who were heavily invested Judaism — but could not become Jews — it offered access to many of the same rituals and a far more codified set of mores. Viewed in the context of the time, old testament history shows the Jews to be more merciful than their peers, less arbitary, and yet tough enough to compete (rather like Lars’s story – if they’d been people of 21st century mores, their neighbors would have obliterated them, as it was they did better than them, disproportionately to their size. They had lots of imitators who borrowed from them, including Islam.
Yes. For me, one of the key stories of the Torah is Genesis 18. Abraham haggles with God, in the name of justice which is as binding on God as on man.
I think Greek could convert to Judaism by the 1st century. However, it was a painful process for men, and the laws were onerous for everybody. Still, I am not sure that explains the success of Christianity. The martyrdom opportunities it afforded were a lot worse that having your foreskin cut off and keeping Kosher.
This conversation reminds me of one reason I find Lars’s books so interesting. Whereas modern academia assumes an anti-supernatural presupposition that requires them to view the Norse gods as mythological inventions, Lars portrays them as demons – fallen spirits with a limited ability to interact with the physical realm. Thus he is able to add a great depth to his depictions of the transitory period of the late viking age along with the ongoing spiritual warfare encountered by all generations.