17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Imitation Norse, December 20, 2004
Beware this book.
It is apparently written for older children, but is based much on unidentified sources or the author's own imagination, and is filled with careless, factual errors.
Guerber often refers vaguely and randomly to "some mythologists", "old Northmen", "ancient Northern nations", "Northern races", "the Scandinavians", "some authorities", "some accounts" as sources, only once actually mentioning Snorri Sturluson under the odd misspelling "Snorro - Sturleson". She presents unsourced desciptions and information found in no extant medieval texts. A typical example, one of many, concerns Ægir:
"He was supposed to occasion and quiet the great tempests which swept over the deep, and was generally represented as a gaunt old man, with long white beard and hair, and clawlike fingers ever clutching convulsively, as though he longed to have all things within his grasp. Whenever he appeared above the waves, it was only to pursue and overturn vessels, and to greedily drag them to the bottom of the sea, a vocation in which he was thought to take fiendish delight."
The writing is good and makes Ægir come alive. But every detail is modern invention, whether invented by Guerber or some literary source from which Guerber took it without attribution. Guerber continues with more bogus information that Ægir married his sister. Such passages abound. This might be reasonable in a work which presented itself as a retelling and reworking of Norse mythology (yet even retellings for younger children mostly stick closer to the originals). Who "supposed" Ægir to be as Guerber presents him? What does "generally represented" mean when no representation of Ægir has ever been found? Ægir was "thought to take fiendish delight" by whom? The very passages which are least traditional are often those which Guerber most decorates with wordings that falsely suggest the information comes from extant medieval sources.
Here can be found many other unathentic details: that Bragi was son of Odin by Gunnlod, that the god Uller married Skadi, that Loki's first wife was Glut, and so much more. That last bit of information arises from Victorian scholarly speculation that Loki and the fire-giant Logi may have originally been the same. But the Loki and Logi are quite separate in surviving mythological texts. The name Glut provided by Guerber is not even Norse, but is the modern German word ''glut'' 'glow', presumably coming to Guerber via some contemporary German source as a possible translation of ''Glöđ'', the genuine Old Norse wife of Hálogi or Logi (not of Loki) in Thorsteins saga Víkingssonar.
Amusingly, though Guerber does not baulk at retelling accounts of incest, she yet turns almost every male/female liason into a wedding.
The tales themselves, when Geurber does not intrude explanations, are well enough told as tales. The writing generally has a convincing and scholarly feel to it, which makes it easy for the reader to be taken in by it, knowing no better. If all you want is a good read, and do not care that large portions of this account of Norse mythology are not taken from Norse mythology and that many interpretations presented baldly as fact are either disputed or generally deprecated, then you will find nothing wrong here. But though the majority of individual statements are true enough in respect to the source texts, so much is inaccuarate or invented that the reader should take care not to cite anything found here as though it were genuine Norse mythology without first checking more reputable sources.
For those who do want to learn something about genuine Norse mythology, there are good, readible translations of the two ''Eddas'' (the major primary sources) and good, readible translations of the Völsunga saga. There are also other more modern scholarly books. And there are accounts which are more obviously children's books and which are less complete in what they attempt to present but are more generally accurate in what they do give and more openly presented as containing invention.
Guerber provides a trove of misinformation. Her analysis of the similarities between graeco-roman and norse mythology jumps between the obvious and the inaccurate. Her explanations of what the myths mean are mostly the long discarded and arbitrary solar-theories of Max Müller and his disciples, already on the wane when Guerber wrote.
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24 of 28 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Must and a Classic, July 23, 2001
This book gives you something other books on Norse mythology do not. It contains 64 superb black and while illustrations which, for those who love mythology, are worth the price of the book alone. Also, this volume contains the most dramatic and compelling retelling of Ragnarok I have ever found.
In this book, the myths are partly stories and partly explanations of what stories and their characters mean. So it does not feel that you are actually reading tales. For a more "direct" reading of the tales I use Crossley-Holland's "The Norse Myths."
Also, I thought that too much was made of similarities between Greek and Northern mythology at the end of this book. Some comparisons feel artificial and strained. But one should keep in mind that this book was originally written in the 1920s, when linguists were very impressed, some would say "scandalized," by the apparent common origin of most European and some Asian languages. These languages, which today include all but three European languages, belong to the so-called Indo-European or Indo-Aryan group. It does appear that a number of characters in the Greek and Northern myths had a common Indo-Aryan prototype, but as already said, some similarities are farfetched and artificially constructed. The book contains a comprehensive index.
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14 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Enjoyable if inaccurate, December 24, 2004
The original publcation date of 1909 would explain why many of the tales are watered down and a Victorian morality imposed on them. The style is charming and readable, and there's a wealth of information to pursue. Guearber does some editorializing here and there, and the final chapter which attempts to draw parallels to Greco-Roman mythology was a waste of time. One clue that Guerber did not spend much time doing actual research is that she used Roman names for the "Greek" gods in that final chapter. I'm not familiar enough with Norse mythology to point out errors there, but several reviewers here on Amazon were outraged by Guerber's inaccuracy ... I consider this a good book to start a study of Norse mythology; it's an easy read, and if nothing else at least it tells you what to look for as you continue your reading elsewhere. This should NOT be your _only_ book about Norse myth. Definitely further research is needed since Guerber is not a completely reliable source herself.
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