Myths of Northern Lands

The old gods of the North still walk among us, hidden in the names of our days, the shapes of our stories, the shadows of our fantasies. H.A. Guerber's celebrated handbook traces the mythological inheritance shared by Norse, German, Anglo-Saxon, and Scandinavian peoples: a pantheon of war and wisdom, of tricksters and twilight gods. Here are the thunderous sagas of Odin the All-Father and his ravens, the doomed beauty of Baldur, the serpentine doom of Ragnarok. Here too are the quieter stories: dwarven craftsmen, frost giants at the world's edge, the well of destiny guarded by the ancient Norns. Guerber illuminates how these tales moved from campfire to epic poetry, from pagan worship to the foundations of Western literature. For readers drawn to the dark forests and frozen seas of Viking imagination, this book maps the mythic past that still shapes our present, whether we know it or not. It speaks to anyone who has ever wondered why we still tell stories of gods who die and worlds that burn and rise again.