Posts tonen met het label Odin. Alle posts tonen
Posts tonen met het label Odin. Alle posts tonen

woensdag 18 juni 2014

My idea for a story to get an important English/Norse myth into the TV series Vikings

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emil_Doepler
When I was doing research on Excalibur I found a fantastic Norse myth about Odin and a sword in the heart of a mighty oak.

I started thinking about the series of Vikings who are full of Odin mythology. What if the writers of Vikings the series actually use that myth how would it look like?

Would Athelstan get challenged to get that sword out the heart of the oak? Or should we give Rollo that shot after he invaded France together with Ragnar.

Fact is we know there was a King called Athelstan. Rollo the Walker or Rollo the Viking became the duke of Normandy.

In one of the articles I read note that I am not sure if it is true. That Arthur wasn’t English at all. (1) But used to live in France. So if the series would go that far we could have our own tale of the Excalibur.

We also know that King Athelstan drove the Vikings out of England. He conquered the last Vikings in York. The Vikings settled in Scotland and with the scots they battled with King Athelstan after a while the battle of Hastings was a fact.

Rollo or Athelstan could be living the Arthurian tales.
We could make this legend work in the series. It is not yet told in one of the Vikings episodes.


maandag 16 juni 2014

Viking mythology Trees


http://www.germanicmythology.com/original/cosmology3.html
When a friend of mine posted about his first blog about trees in fantasy fiction I couldn’t resist it to talk about it either but in the way the Vikings did.

The tree of life Viking

The Vikings had a tree of life called Yggdrasil also known as a world tree in Norse mythology and is translated as Odin’s Horse or Odin’s Gallows. It was the connection between nine worlds. It is an ash tree and therefore considered as holy. Symbolic creatures lived there like a dragon an eagle and stags. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yggdrasil
If we talk about making the trees in the world of the Vikings it was the hairs of Ymir who made trees. http://www.pitt.edu/~dash/creation.html

Other trees

Barnstokkr: in the great hall of King Völsung.
Donar’s Oak: also known as Thor’s oak.
Glasir: placed outside the doors of Valhalla (Golden)
Irminsul: there is discussion about this tree for over more then hundred years but named after Odin.
Læraðr: known as betrayal.  Related to Yggdrasil because Odin took his life and hung himself at the tree of life.
Mímameiðr: stretched over every land
Sacred tree of Upsalla: stood in the temple of Upsalla.

They all refer to the tree of life. Different myths are told about those trees.
Go and find it out:

Which of them are used in the tv series of Vikings?

Yggdrasil, Glasir and the Sacred tree of Upsalla.