The Norse Myths (as retold by Kevin Crossley-Holland)

[Alexander Vandala]

The Norse Myths

Retold by

Kevin Crossley-Holland

The Pantheon Fairy Tale & Folklore Library



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Copyright 1980 by Kevin Crossley-Holland
Printed in the U.S.A. Copyright 1980 by Random House, Inc.
Pantheon Books, New York

ISBN 0-394-50048-2 (hardcover)
ISBN 0-394-74846-8 (paperback)  

[Alexander Vandala]

1 - The Creation

BURNING INCE, BITING FLAME; that is how life began.

In the south is a realm called Muspell. That region flickers with dancing flames. It seethes and it shines. No one can endure it except those born into it. Black Surt is there; he sits on the furthest reach of that land, brandishing a flaming sword; he is already waiting for the end when he will rise and savage the gods and whelm the whole world with fire.

In the north is a realm called Niflheim. It is packed with ice and covered with vast sweeps of snow. In the heart of that region lies the spring Hvergelmir and that is the source of eleven rivers named the Elivagar: they are cool Svol and Gunnthra the defiant, Fjorm and bubbling Fimbulthul, fearsome Slid and storming Hrid, Sylg, Ylg, broad Vid and Leipt which streaks like lightning, and freezing Gjoll.

Between these realms there once stretched a huge and seeming emptiness; this was Ginnungagap. The rivers that sprang from Hvergelmir streamed into the void. The rivers that sprang from thickened and congealed like slag, and the rivers turned into ice. That venom also spat out drizzle - an unending dismal hagger that, as soon as it settled, turned into rime. So it went on untill all the northern part of Ginnungagap was heavy with layers of ice and hoar frost, a desolate place haunted by gusts and skuthers of wind.

Just as the northern part was frozen, the southern was molten and glowing, but the middle of Ginnungagap was mild as hanging air on a summer evening. There, the warm breath drifting north from Muspell met the rime of Niflheim; it touched it and played over it, and the ice began to thaw and drip. Life quickened in those drops, and they took the form of a giant. He was called Ymir.

Ymir was a frost giant; he was evil from the first. While he slept, he began to sweat. A man and woman grew out of the ooze under his left armpit, and one of his legs fathered a son on the other leg. Ymir was the forefather of all the frost giants, and they called him Aurgelmir.

As more of the ice in Ginnungagap melted, the fluid took the form of a cow. She was called Audumla. Ymir fed off the four rivers of milk that coursed from her teats, and Audumla fed off the ice itself. She licked the salty blocks and by the evening of the first day a man's hair had come out of the ice. Audumla licked more and by the evening of the second day a man's head had come. Audumla licked again and by the evening of the third day the whole man had come. His name was Buri.

Buri was tall and strong and good-looking. In time he had a son called Bor and Bor married a daughter of Bolthor, one of the frost giants. Her name was Bestla and she mothered three children, all of them sons. The first was Odin, the second was Vili, and the third was Ve.

All this was in the beginning, before there were waves of sand, the sea's cool waves, waving grass. There was no earth and no heaven above; only Muspell and Niflheim and, between them, Ginnungagap.

The three sons of Bor had no liking for Ymir and the growing gang of unruly, brutal frost giants; as time went on, they grew to hate them. At last they attacked Ymir and killed him. His wounds were like springs; so much blood streamed from them, and so fast, that the flood drowned all the frost giants except Bergelmir and his wife. They embarked in their boat – it was made out of a hollowed tree trunk – and rode on a tide of gore.

Odin and Vili and Ve hoisted the body of the dead frost giant on to their shoulders and carted it to the middle of Ginnungagap. That is where they made the world from his body. They shaped the earth from Ymir’s flesh and the mountains from his unbroken bones; from his teeth and jaws and the fragments of his shattered bones they made rocks and boulders and stones.

Odin and Vili and Ve used the welter of blood to make landlocked lakes and to make the sea. After they had formed the earth, they laid the rocking ocean in a ring right round it. And it is so wide that most men would dismiss the very idea crossing it.

Then the three brothers raised Ymir’s skull and made the sky from it and placed it so that its four corners reached the ends of the earth. They set a dwarf under each corner, and their names are East and West and North and South. Then Odin and Vili and Ve seized on the sparks and glowing embers from Muspell and called them sun and moon and stars; they put them high in Ginnungagap to light heaven above and earth below. In this way the brothers gave each star its proper place; some were fixed in the sky, others were free to follow paths appointed for them.

The earth was round and lay within the ring of the deep sea. Along the strand the sons of Bor marked out tracts of land and gave them to the frost giants and the rock giants; and there, in Jotumheim, the giants settled and remained. They were so hostile that the three brothers built an enclosure further inland around a vast area of the earth. They shaped it out of Ymir’s eyebrows, and called it Midgard. The sun warmed the stones in the earth there, and the ground was green with sprouting leeks. The sons of Bor used Ymir’s brains as well; they flung them up into the air and turned them into every cloud.

One day, Odin and Vili and Ve were striding along the frayed edge of the land, where the earth meets the sea. They came across two fallen trees with their roots ripped out of the ground; one was an ash, the other an elm. Then the sons of Bor raised them and made rom them the first man and woman. Odin breathed into them the spirit of life; Vili offered them sharp wits and feeling hearts; and Ve gave them the gifts of hearing and sight. The man was called Ask and the woman Embla and they were given Midgard to live in. All the families and nations and races of man are descended from them.

One of the giants living in Jotumheim, Narvi, had a daughter called Night who was as dark eyed, dark haired and swarthy as the rest of her family. She married three times. Her first husband was a man called Naglfari and their son was Aud; her second husband was Annar and their daughter was Earth; and her third husband was shining Delling who was related to the sons of Bor. Their son was Day and, like all his father’s side of the family, Day was radiant and fair of face.

Then Odin took Night and her son Day, sat them in horse-drawn chariots, and set them in the sky to ride round the world every two half-days. Night leads the way and her horse is frosty-maned Hrimfaxi. Day’s horse is Skinfaxi; he has a gleaming mane that lights up sky and earth alike.

A man called Mundilfari living in Midgard had two children and they were so beautiful that he called his son Moon and his daughter Sun; Sun married a man called Glen. Odin and his brothers and their offspring, the Aesir, were angered at such daring. They snatched away both children and placed them in the sky to guide the chariots of the sun and moon – the constellations made by the sons of Bor to light the world out of the sparks of Muspell.

Moon leads the way. He guides the moon on its path and decides when he will wax and wane. He does not travel alone, as you can see if you look into the sky; for moon in turn plucked two children from Midgard, Bil and Hjuki, whore father is Vidfinn. They were just walking away from the well Byrgir, carrying between them the water cask Soeg on the pole Simul, when Moon swooped down and carried them off.

Sun follows behind. One of her horses is called Arvak because he rises so early, and the other Alsvid because his immensely strong. The Aesir inserted iron-cold bellows under their shoulder-blades to keep them cool. Sun always seems to be in a great hurry, and that is because she is chased by Skoll, the wolf who is always snapping and growling close behind her. In the end he will catch her. And the wolf that races in front of Sun is called Hati; he is after Moon and will run him down in the end. Both wolves are the sons of an aged Giantess who lived in Iron Wood, east of Midgard.

After the sons of Bor had made the first man and woman, and set Night and Day, Moon and Sun in the sky, they remembered the maggots that had squirmed and swarmed in Ymir’s flesh and crawled out over the earth. Then they gave them wits and the shape of men, but they live under the hills and mountains in rocky chambers and grottoes and caverns. These man-like maggots are called dwarfs. Modsognir is their leader and his deputy is Durin.

So the earth was fashioned and filled with man and giants and dwarfs, surrounded by sea and covered by the sky. Then the sons of Bor built their own realm of Asgard – a mighty stronghold, a place of green plains and shining palaces high over Midgard. The two regions were linked by Bifrost, a flaming rainbow bridge; it was made of three colours with magic and great skill, and it is wonderfully strong. All the Aesir, the guardians of men, crossed over and settled in Asgard. Odin, Allfather, is the oldest and greatest of them all; there are twelve divine gods and twelve divine goddesses, and a great assembly of other Aesir. And this was the beginning of all that has happened, remembered or forgotten, in regions of the world.

And all that has happened, and all the regions of the world, lie under the branches of the ash Yggdrasill, greatest and best of trees. It soars over all that is; its three roots delve into Asgard and Jotumheim and Niflheim, and there is a spring under each. A hawk and eagle sit in it, a squirrel scurries up and down it, deer leap within it and nibble at it, it gives life to the unborn. The winds whirl round it and Yggdrasill croons or groans. Yggdrasill always was and is and will be.  

[Alexander Vandala]

2 – The War of the Aesir and Vanir

ODIN DID NOT EXTEND a friendly welcome to the witch Gullveig when she came to visit him. In his hall the High One and many other Aesir listened with loathing as she talked of nothing but her love of gold, her lust for gold. They thought that the worlds would be better off without her and angrily seized and tortured her; they riddled her body with spears.

Then the Aesir hurled Gullveig on to the fire in the middle of the hall. She was burned to death; but out of the flames she stepped whole and reborn. Three times the Aesir the Aesir burned Gullveig’s body and three times she lived again.

Then wherever she went, and she went everywhere, into every hall, Gullveig was given another name. The awed Aesir and their servants called her Heid, the gleaming one. She was a seer; she enchanted wands of wood; she went into trances and cast spells; she was mistress of evil magic, the delight of every evil woman.

When the Vanir heard how the Aesir had welcomed Gullveig, they were incensed as the Aesir had been by Gullveig’s gold lust; they swore vengeance and began to prepare for war. But there was nothing that escaped Odin when he sat in his high seat in Valaskjalf; the Aesir, too, sharpened their spears and polished their shields. Very soon the gods moved against each other and Odin cast his spear into the host of the Vanir. That was the beginning of the first war in the world.

At first the Vanir gained ground. They used spells and reduced the towering walls of Asgard to rubble. But the Aesir fought back and surged forward and caused no less damage in Vanaheim – the world of the Vanir. For a long time the battle raged to and fro, and the longer it lasted the clearer it became that neither side was likely to win.

Then the gods on both sides grew weary of war. Talk and truce seemed better then such turmoil. So leaders of the Aesir and Vanir met to discuss terms. They argued about the war’s origins and whether the Aesir alone where guilty of causing the was or whether both sides were entitled to tribute. The end of the discussion was that the Aesir and Vanir swore to live side by side in peace, and agreed to exchange leaders as proof of their intentions.

So two leading Vanir, Njord and his son Freyr, made their way to Asgard. Njord’s daughter, Freyja, journeyed with them, and so did Kvasir, wisest of the Vanir. The Aesir welcomed and accepted them, much as they disliked the fact that Freyr and Freyja were the children of Hjord by his own sister. They appointed Njord and Freyja as high priests to preside over sacrifices, and Freyja was consecrated a sacrificial priestess. She soon taught the Aesir all the witchcraft that was well known and in common use in Vanaheim.

For their part, the Aesir sent long-legged Honir and wise Mimir to live in Vanaheim. Honir was well built and handsome, a figure of substance. The Aesir thought he would make an enviable leader in war and peace alike. Mimir, like Kvasir, was held to be second to none in his understanding and wisdom.

The Vanir welcomed and accepted them. They at once appointed Honir to be one of their leaders, and Mimir stood at his right hand, always ready with shrewd advice. Together they were unfailing. When Honir was separated from Mimir, thought, things were rather different. Standing alone in a council or meeting, and asked for his opinion, Honir’s reply was always the same: ‘Well, let the others decide.’

The Vanir began to suspect that the Aesir had tricked them and that they had got very much the worse on the exchange of leaders. And soon their suspicion turned to outright anger and thoughts of revenge. They seized wise Mimir and threw him to the ground and hacked off his head. They told one of their messengers to take it back to those who had so thoughtfully sent it: Odin and the Aesir.

Odin took Mimir’s head and cradled it. He smeared it with herbs to preserve it, so that it would never decay. And then the High One sang charms over it and gave back to Mimir’s head the power of speech. So its wisdom became Odin’s wisdom – many truths unknown to any other being.  

[Alexander Vandala]

3 – The Building of Asgard’s Wall

LONG AFTER THE GOLDEN AGE, it was still very early in the cycle of time. And long after the war between the Aesir and the Vanir, the wall around Asgard that the Vanir had Razed with their battle-magic remained a ring of rubble, deserted, the home of eagles and ravens.

The gods were anxious that the wall should be rebuilt, so that Asgard would be safe from evil-doers, but none were eager to take the heavy burden of rebuilding on their own shoulders. This is how matters stood for some time until, one day, a solitary figure on horseback cantered over the trembling rainbow, and was stopped by the watchman Heimdall.

‘I’ve a plan to put to the gods,’ said the man.

‘You can tell it to me,’ said Heimdall warmly. He had felt curious as he watched this man approach from a hundred miles off, and smiled, showing his gold teeth.

‘I’ll tell all the gods if I tell at all,’ said the man from his saddle. ‘The goddesses also may be interested.’

Heimdall showed his teeth again in a less friendly manner and directed the man across the Plain of Ida to Gladsheim.

So the gods and goddesses gathered in Gladsheim. Their visitor tied up his stallion and stepped forward under the shining roof, to the middle of the hall. He was surrounded by Odin and the twelve leading gods, each sitting in his high place, and by a throng of gods and goddesses.

Odin eyed him piercingly. ‘We are all here at Heimdall’s bidding. What do you have to say?’

‘Only this,’ said the man. ‘I’ll rebuild your wall around Asgard.’

There was a stir in Gladsheim as the gods and goddesses realized there must be rather more to the builder then met the eye.

‘The wall will be much stronger and higher then before,’ said the builder. ‘So strong and high that it will be impregnable. Asgard will be secure against the rock giants and the frost giants even if they barge their way into Midgard.’

‘However,’ said Odin, aware that conditions would soon follow.

‘I’ll need eighteen months, ‘ said the builder. ‘Eighteen months from the day I begin.’

‘That may not be impossible,’ said Odin, the Alert One.

‘It is essential,’ said the builder.

‘And your price?’ asked Odin slowly.

‘I was coming to that,’ said the builder. ‘Freyja as my wife.’

The beautiful goddess sat bolt upright and as she moved the Necklace of the Brisings and her golden brooches and armbands and the gold thread in her clothing glittered and flashed. None but Odin could look directly at her, Freyja, fairest of goddesses, more beautiful even then Frigg and Nanna and Eir and Sif. And as she sat erect, the outraged gods all around her were shouting, or waving their arms, deriding the builder, dismissing the builder.

‘That’s impossible,’ shouted Odin. ‘Let that be an end to it.’

‘I’ll also be wanting the sun and the moon,’ said the builder. ‘Freyja, the sun and the moon: that’s my price.’

Loki’s voice rose out of the hubbub. ‘every idea has its own merits. Don’t dismiss it out of hand.’

All the gods and goddesses turned to look at the Sly One, the giant Farbauti’s son, and wondered what was passing through the maze of his mind.

‘We must give this plan thought,’ said Loki reasonably. ‘We owe our guest no less.’

So the builder was asked to leave Gladsheim while the gods and goddesses conferred. And when she saw that that gods were no longer ready to dismiss the idea out of hand but wanted to discuss it in earnest, Freyja began to weep tears of gold.

‘Don’t be so hasty,’ Loki said. ‘We could turn this plan to our own gain. Supposing we gave this man six months to build the wall…’

‘He could never build it in that time,’ said Heimdall.

‘Never,’ echoed many of the gods.

‘Exactly,’ said Loki.

Odin smiled.

‘So what would we lose by suggesting it?’ said Loki. ‘If the builder won’t agree, we lose nothing. If he dies agree, he’s bound to lose.’ Loki slapped his sides and rolled his eyes. ‘And we’ll have half our wall built, free and for nothing.’

Although the gods and goddesses were a little uneasy about taking Loki’s advice, they could see no way to fault the Trickster’s scheme. Indeed several of them wished they had thought of it themselves.

‘Six months!’ said Odin, when the builder had come back into Gladsheim. ‘If you build the wall within this time, you can have Freyja as your wife, and take the sun and moon too. Six months.’

The builder shook his head, but Odin continued, ‘Tomorrow is the first day of winter. You must agree that no one will come to help you. And if any part of the wall is still unfinished on the first day of summer, you forfeit your reward. Those are our terms, and there are none other.’

‘Impossible terms,’ said the builder, ’and you know it.’ He paused and gazed at Freyja. ‘But my longing,’ he said. ‘My longing…’ He gazed at Freyja again. ‘Then at least allow me the help of my stallion Svadilfari.’

‘Those are our terms,’ said Odin.

‘And those are mine,’ said the builder.

‘Odin, you’re too stubborn,’ protested Loki.

‘And there are none other,’ said Odin firmly.

‘What’s wrong with allowing him to use of his horse?’ shouted Loki. ‘How can it possibly affect the outcome? If we refuse, there’ll be no bargain, and we’ll have no part of the wall at all.’

In the end, Loki’s argument prevailed. It was agreed that the builder should begin work on the next morning and have the use of his horse. Odin swore oaths to this effect in front of many witnesses, and the builder also asked for safe conduct for as long as he worked on the wall. He said he was anxious in case Thor, who was away in the east fighting trolls at that time, should return home and fail to see matters in the way the other gods had done.



Long before Early Waker and All Swift set off on their journey across the sky, the builder started work. By the light of the new moon, he led Svadilfari down over a sweeping grassy shoulder and past a copse to a place where the bones of the hill were sticking out, chipped and twisted. There were huge hunks and chunks and boulders of rock there, stuff that looked as thought it would last as long as time itself. The builder brought with him a loosely meshed net which he harnessed to his stallion and spread out behind him. Then he began to heave and shove massive slabs on to the net. He gasped and grunted – amongst the gods only Thor could have matched his strength. After some time he had levered and piled up a great mound of rock behind Svadilfari. Then the builder gathered up the net ends in his horny hands, as though he were folding a sheet, and bellowed.

At once Svadilfari bowed his head. He dug his shoes into the earth and began to haul. Mustering his vast strength he dragged the whole quaking mound up the slope. And as day dawned, the builder and his stallion, guffing in the freezing air, brought their load up beside the old broken wall of Asgard.

When the gods and goddesses stirred from their halls, they were astonished and disturbed to see how much rock Svadilfari had hauled up the hill. They watched the mason smash the boulders, and shape them, and set them in place while Svadilfari rested in the shadow of the growing wall; and such was his strength, they began to think that the mason could only be some giant in disguise. But then the gods looked at the great circuit of broken wall that remained; they reassured each other that they had in any case got the best of the bargain.

Winter bared its teeth. Hraesvelg beat his wings and, outside Asgard, the cold wind whirled. The land was drenched by rainstorms and pelted with hailstones, then draped in snow.

The giant mason and his horse gritted their teeth and worked as the wall. Night after night Svadilfari ploughed the long furrow past the copse to and from the quarry. Day after day the mason went on building. And as the days grew longer, time for the mason, and for the gods, grew shorter.

Three days before the beginning of summer the mason had almost completed the circuit of well cut and well laid stone, a sturdy wall high and strong enough to keep any unwelcome visitor at bay. Only the gateway had still to be built. The gods and goddesses were no more able to keep away from the wall then moths from a flame. They stared at it for the hundredth time; they talked of nothing but the bargain.

Then Odin called a meeting in Gladsheim. The high hall was filled with anxious faces and fretful talk. Freyja was unable to stem her tears – the floor around her was flooded with gold.

Odin raised his spear and his voice over the assembly: ‘We must find a way out of this contract,’ he shouted. ‘Who suggested we should strike this bargain? How did we come to risk such an outcome: Freyja married to a brute of a giant? The sky raped of the sun and moon so that we shall have to grope about, robbed of light and warmth?’ Several gods and then every god looked at Loki, and Odin strode across the hall floor toward him. He took a firm grip on the Trickster’s shoulders.

‘How was I to know?’ protested Loki. ‘We all agreed.’

Odin tightened his grip and Loki winced.

‘We all agreed!’ yelled Loki.

‘Who suggested the mason should be allowed to have the use of his horse?’ Odin asked. ‘You got us into this trouble and you must get us out of it.’

There was a shout of agreement from all the gods.

‘Use the warp and weft of your mind, Loki. Weave some plan. Either the mason forfeits his wages or you forfeit your life.’ Odin squeezed Loki’s flesh and sinews until the Sly One, the Shape Changer, dropped to one knee. ‘We’ll take it all out on you, bit by bit.’

Loki saw that Odin and the other gods were in deadly earnest. ‘I swear,’ he said. ‘No matter what it costs me, I’ll see to it that the builder losses the wager.’



That evening the mason led Svadilfari down towards the quarry with a certain spring in his steps. It seemed to him as to the gods and goddesses that he would finish the wall within the agreed time, and win rewards rich not only in themselves but also in the sorrow their loss would bring to the gods. He sang a kind of tune, and small birds took shelter in the gloomy copse and listened to his song. Not only the birds. A young mare pricked up her ears and listened intently. Then, when Svadilfari and the mason drew close enough, she sprang out of the thicket. She kicked her heels in the air and, in the moonlight, her flanks simmered.

The mare pranced up to Svadilfari. She danced around him and whisked her tail and Svadilfari began to strain at the long rein by which the mason was leading him.

Then the mare whinnied invitingly and headed back towards the copse. Svadilfari started after her with such a thrust that he broke the rein. He galloped behind the mare into the copse, and the mason lumbered after Svadilfari, shouting and cursing.

All night the two horses gamboled, and all night the enraged mason tripped over roots and tree stumps in the half light. He hurled abuses, he chased shadows, and the light had begun to grow green in the east before Svadilfari returned to him.

So no stone was hauled from the quarry that night and the mason had to make do with the little left over from the day before. It was not nearly enough to build the first part of the gateway and he soon knew that he would no longer be able to complete his task in time.

Then the anger churned inside the mason erupted. He burst out of his disguise and stood before the watching gods and goddesses – a towering brute of a rock giant in a towering rage.

Now that the gods knew the builder was indeed a giant, they revoked their oaths about his safe conduct without a second thought, and sent for Thor.

‘A trick!’ shouted the rock giant. ’Tricked by a gang of gods! A brothel of goddesses!’

Those were the mason’s last words. Then Thor paid him his wages, and they were not the sun and the moon. A single blow from the hammer Mjollnir shattered the giant’s skull into a thousand fragments and dispatched him to the endless dark of Niflheim.

A number of months passed before Loki the Shape Changer was seen in Asgard again. And when he returned, ambling over Bifrost and blowing a raspberry at Haimdall as he passed Himinbjorg, he had a colt in tow. This horse was rather unusual in that he had eight legs. He was a grey and Loki called him Sleipnir.

When Odin saw Sleipnir, he admired the colt greatly.

‘Take him!’ said Loki. ‘I bore him and he’ll bear you. You’ll find he can outpace Golden and Joyous, Shining and Swift, Silver-maned and Sinewy, Gleaming and Hollow-hoofed, Gold Mane and Light Feet, and outrun whatever horses there are in Jotunheim. No horse will ever be able to keep up with him.’

Odin thanked Loki warmly, and welcomed him back to Asgard.

‘On this horse you can go wherever you want,’ said Loki. ‘He’ll gallop over the sea and through the air. What other horse could bear its rider down the long road to the land of the dead, and then bear him back to Asgard again?’

Odin thanked Loki a second time and looked at the Sly One very thoughtfully.