I read a lot of fairy tales and mythology when I was young (and still do!) but this one stands out in my memory as one of the most vivid collections, with some of the most intriguing, imagination-kindling tales. Just looking through and reading the names was a treat.  Lidskjalf. Skidbladnir. Mjolnir. Yggdrasil.

This book introduced me to the Norse creation myth, in which Ymir the frost giant and a hornless ice cow are the first creatures to come into existence, born at the meeting-place between the frozen waste of Niflheim and the inferno of Muspelheim. And where do the next creatures spring from? I was used to odd origins after the Greek myths, but I never would have expected jotuns to spring from Ymir’s armpit, and a troll to sprout from his feet! And what is the noble origin of the Aesir, the Norse gods? They get licked out of the ice by the cow. It’s hard not to be intrigued by stories like that.

This book is packed full of cool mythology and interesting tales; like the Greek myths, they were particularly interesting to me as a kid because the gods were so flawed and human. Despite the fact that Loki is constantly held up as the bad kid of the group, it always seemed to me that the rest of them weren’t particularly estimable either. I always felt a little sorry for Loki, especially reading tales like “Loki’s Monstrous Brood”. There’s Loki, playing with his three young monstrous children, and in comes Odin to tell him the kids are going to bring disaster to the world and so they have to be sent away. And of course they do end up bringing disaster to the world, but one wonders if they might have turned out better had they not been exiled. Especially the poor Fenris wolf, who is dragged off and tricked into his chains by the Aesir.

Meanwhile Hel, “pale as death on one side, black as peat on the other”, gets sent to the border of Niflheim to rule over the dead. It’s hard for me to expect her to be sunny and happy after that…

Gravely she welcomed all who had died of sickness or old age, but she did nothing to make her guests happy in her vast hall. The walls of the hall were a wickerwork of winding serpents; on the roof sat a soot-black cock who never crowed but was silent as death. Pitfall her doorstep was called, sickbed was the name of her lair, her knife was called hunger, her platter starvation.

~ D’Aulaires’ Norse Gods and Giants