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Kaleb

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The Viking Spirit: An Introduction to Norse Mythology and Religion

by Daniel McCoy

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Kaleb said: " The Viking Spirit is divided into two sections. The first section is about culture and daily life of the Norse people during the height of Norse paganism. There are 10 chapters in this section; each one dedicated to a certain aspect of Norse Religion The Viking Spirit is divided into two sections. The first section is about culture and daily life of the Norse people during the height of Norse paganism. There are 10 chapters in this section; each one dedicated to a certain aspect of Norse Religion. A few examples are fate, magic, places of worship, rituals, and perception of time. This was my favorite section because the myths are relatively popular. It also has information on the culture of the norse people which is harder to find. I have yet to find a book with this much factual information on this subject that was also entertaining enough for me to enjoy reading.

The second section has 35 chapters and each one is a different norse myth. I liked that before each story there was a small paragraph that cites the source of the story and explained how authentic it is. This is needed because many of these myths were written down by Christian scribes, so some stories were changed or completely reworked to make them more Christian. The stories themselves are fun and interesting.

The book is relatively short, just 290 pages, and a few chapters are a bit scholarly making them slower to read. Things that a reader might find find distasteful in the book are the talk of murder, sacrifices (human and other) and some sexual themes. However the author handled all these topics professionally making them purely academic. Overall this is a great book to introduces a reader to Norse Mythology and history. It's intriguing and has a great wealth of information. I would recommend this book to those who like ancient mythology or a introduction to Norse Paganism.

“The Vikings put their vibrant religious conceptions into practice in a number of ways. Over the course of the past several chapters we’ve noted some of them: hallowing weddings and oaths with a symbolic Thor's hammer, casting a spear over an enemy host to offer them as a sacrifice to Odin, constructing farmsteads in imitation of the spatial layout of the otherworld, and many other things” (ch. 9, pg. 104).

“The Norse Gods and Goddesses were none of these things. They weren't “supreme” they weren’t particularly benevolent, and they has personalities as rich and multifaceted as those of the most complicated humans, which could not be reduced to any simile formula like “god of x” without expressing only a fraction of the deities character and sphere of influence” (ch2,pg25). ...more "

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— Apr 09, 2018 07:16AM

Apr 09, 2018 04:00PM · see review