Norse mythology has a bigger part in all our lives than you may think. You have heard of Asgard and the Norse gods of Odin, Thor, Loki and so on. You have likely seen the latest movies with Chris Hemsworth as Thor and Sir Anthony Hopkins as Odin. If you are a Tolkien fan (Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit), you know of Middle Earth, elves, and dwarfs which were based roughly on the Norse realm of Midgard and the mythical creatures that work with Odin.

Did you know that even our days of the week lend their origins from Norse/Germanic folklore with Wednesday (Woden’s Day) and Thursday (Thor’s Day) named after Odin (Germanic ‘Woden’) and Thor. Tuesday comes from the Old English Tiwesdæg, meaning ‘Tyr’s day’. Tyr was the Norse god of combat and was responsible for punishing wrongdoers. The name Friday celebrates the Norse goddess, Frigg, the wife of Odin and associated with marriage and fertility.

Our celebration of Christmas towards the end of December supplanted the pagan festival of Yule which also has more than a smidgen of Norse associations. After Saint Nicolaus spawned the observance of gift giving in the world, pagan influences gradually morphed him into Santa Claus. In Norse folklore, Odin road across the skies with an eight-legged horse called Sleipnir and pulled a chariot which later was associated with a sleigh and the common reindeer often used to pull sleighs in Norway. Odin was also known to present gifts to people, and had elves who worked for him to make gifts. The fat and jolly Santa of today is a further embellishment by modern society. Odin also knew whether people were bad or good and at Yuletide, sailed through the skies rewarding the good and punishing the bad. Decorating trees at Yuletide was, you guessed it, a Norse tradition.

I used Norse mythology in my first book, The Wizard’s Sword (now being developed into a concise edition), in the naming of the messenger who brought the Wizard’s magic sword, Moongleam, to Eol where my main character, Mirrortac, found it. The name ‘Nido’ is ‘Odin’ spelt backwards. Coincidentally, I developed nine ‘worlds’ because of the significance of the number ‘9’ in folklore. There are nine realms in Norse mythology, but there is little semblance between my worlds and that of the Norse realms. I created my own different races as I felt that elves and dwarfs had already had their day in Tolkien’s stories and that of many fantasy writers.

Certainly, the Norse tradition is a rich source of folklore and inspires the imagination. Many novels and movies can attest to this.

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