Customer Reviews

Popular Tales from Norse Mythology

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Just a warning to those fooled by the title: Don't expect to find any mention of Odin of Thor in this book. Rather than mythology, the stories in the book would be more appropriately described as folktales or perhaps even fairy tales. Most involve a fair maiden in distress who is rescued by a "once-was-a-peasant-found-a-magic-belt-or-met-a-troll-and-became-a-knight" type of hero.

Nevertheless, I greatly enjoyed the book. As the author says, the folktales in _Popular Tales from Norse Mythology_ are overall good reading. They are full of excitement and adventure and a great deal of humour. These factors probably made it possible for the stories to survive as Scandinavian oral tradition until they were finally written down in the last century.

Although the book rarely mentions Norse gods directly, a number of characters can be identified as one of the old gods, particularly Odin, slipping into an overall Christianized story. I found that interesting.