MEPX
Chapter 4 of 10All chapters
  1. 1What myths are
  2. 2Greek mythology
  3. 3Roman mythology
  4. 4Norse mythology
  5. 5Egyptian mythology
  6. 6Mesopotamian myth
  7. 7Myths of Asia
  8. 8Africa, the Americas and Oceania
  9. 9Patterns across cultures
  10. 10Myth in the modern world

Chapter 4 of 10

Norse mythology

A world with an ending.

The gods

Odin, Thor, Freyja, Frigg and the ambiguous Loki inhabit a cosmos structured around the world tree Yggdrasil and bounded by Ragnarok.

  • Main sources are the Poetic and Prose Eddas, written in Christian Iceland.
  • Valhalla receives some of the slain; other halls receive others.

Tone

Fate is fixed and known, and the gods face it anyway. That acceptance is the distinctive note of the tradition.