The Norse Myths

The Viking world was one of opposites – light and dark, volcanoes and glaciers, famine and plenty – and its mythology reflected those extremes. First published in 1980, Kevin Crossley-Holland’s superb retelling of The Norse Myths gave new access to a magical and fascinating world, in which monsters and giants pitted themselves against gods and heroes. We may be familiar with Odin ‘Allfather’, reigning in Asgard, with the stories of Thor and Freyja and Balder the Beautiful, and with the vengeful plottings of Loki, but here are less familiar figures, from Odin’s ravens Thought and Memory to Skadi, the ski goddess, ‘that crouched dark shape sweeping across the desolate snowscapes’. Reading these tales, we see why they proved such a fruitful source to J. R. R. Tolkien and other novelists.