The best books for people with a passion for Norse myths and legends
By Alice Mills
Who am I?
Alice has had a passion for myths ever since reading Greek myths as a small child. Alice's most recent book is a retelling of myths and legends worldwide. As well as editing several anthologies for children, she has published a book on mythology and another on the fantasy writer Mervyn Peake, and she has many scholarly publications on fantasy and children's literature.
I wrote...
The World Treasury of Myths & Legends
By
Alice Mills
What is my book about?
Empires and kingdoms come and go but their myths and legends live on, told, and retold over hundreds, sometimes thousands, of years. Some still flourish today as inspiration for fantasy, from J. R. R. Tolkien to J. K. Rowling and beyond. Some have been almost forgotten and others are still only being partially revealed to outsiders. This book presents a fascinating selection of stories drawn from myths and legends originating from diverse cultures around the globe. From tales from the earliest stone tablets to stories told to delight royal courts; from hero stories to those offering answers to life’s unanswerable questions, this is an absorbing and beautifully presented compendium of tales that have engaged people for generations.
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The Books I Picked & Why
Norse Myths: Gods of the Vikings
By
Kevin Crossley-Holland
Why this book?
The way these stories are phrased here makes this my favourite set of retellings. Crossley-Holland’s choice of words evokes the original Norse. He uses alliteration, mainly when describing land and sea, and he is very careful to use words that come from Old English, a sister language to Old Norse, in preference to words from Latin, Greek, and post-Latin languages. There are plenty of other retellings that cover similar ground, but none with quite this joy in the energy of the original.
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The Norse Myths: Stories of The Norse Gods and Heroes Vividly Retold
By
Tom Birkett
Why this book?
This volume covers a lot of ground, from myths of the gods to hero tales to historical figures and the discovery of America. It stands out for me because of the illustrations, which range from ancient Norse carvings to superhero films. Above all, the book abounds with fine nineteenth and early twentieth-century book illustrations and a host of paintings from the Renaissance onwards, a feast for the eyes.
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Eight Days of Luke
By
Diana Wynne Jones
Why this book?
The Norse gods enjoyed hiding their identities and fooling their enemies (usually with bloody results). Wynne Jones’ fantasy novel for young adults and above is a dazzling trickster tale set in modern England, its main character a wretchedly mistreated boy who has adventures with… She gives plenty of clues to work out the Norse identities, but the worst tricksters are only revealed unexpectedly on the last pages.
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The Prose Edda
By
Snorri Sturluson,
Jesse L. Byock
Why this book?
This translation, in the ever-reliable Penguin Classics series, is a good introduction to the scholarship of Norse Myth. It contains lots of little facts that the retellers usually omit and has helpful genealogical tables and a discussion of kennings, those tiny riddle-games that the Norse poets liked to play with their audience and that all retellers I know have omitted as too hard. The Prose Edda is as close as English-speaking readers are going to get to the original unless they learn Old Norse.
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Doom of the Gods
By
Michael Harrison,
Tudor Humphries
Why this book?
This is a vigorous retelling of the last battle of the Norse gods and their enemies, how the gods tried to avert their doom, how they first met those who would kill almost all of them, and what happened after all the slaughter and destruction. The book has the size and format of a typical picture storybook but its powerful illustrations of threat and attack make it more suitable for an older audience.
