Njord and Skadi by Sheena McGrath

Author:Sheena McGrath [McGrath, Sheena]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Avalonia
Published: 2016-12-28T23:00:00+00:00

Chapter 9

Why do the Gods and Giants Interact at all?

Reading the Norse myths in Edith Hamilton's book, a much younger me wondered why the gods and giants kept getting in one another's way. After all, if Ragnarok was going to be a war between the gods and giants, wouldn't it be much wiser to stay away from each other? It always seemed to end in tears, usually for the giants.

As Clunies-Ross puts it:

The gods live at the self-defined centre of the world, while the giants inhabit the periphery, often conceptualized as a cold, rocky landscape that must be approached by means of a long, arduous journey. Frequently the divine journeyer to giantland must either cross a body of water or assume the power of flight in order to gain access to his giant antagonist. Why, then, do these two groups of beings come into contact at all?[245]

The simple answer is, of course, that otherwise there wouldn't be a story. If Aristotle was right and a story needs a protagonist and an antagonist, who are in conflict over some aim, then we have to bring the two aetts together to have a story.

As Clunies-Ross goes on to say, each has things the other wants, and there is no simple mechanism of exchange by which the two parties can trade goods or knowledge. And, course, there is the exchange implied in marriage, which is totally tabooed, since the Aesir refuse to acknowledge their kinship with the giants. The Aesir want things the giants have, however. Odin comes to them for the mead of poetry, and for exchanges of lore and wisdom. Loki through his trickery gets Slepnir, among other boons. Thor, on the other hand, mainly fights giants, an activity he justifies as almost ecological, keeping the various species/races in balance.

The relations between the Vanir and giants are more complex in some way, because on the one hand two of the top Vanir (we have to assume) are married to giants, but the Vanir are allied with the Aesir, and we know that Freyr fights the giant Beli at Ragnarok. (If we assume that Freyr's servant did indeed kill Gerdr's brother, then the two marriages are complicated by the fact that both Vanir are implicated in the deaths of their wives' relatives.) In addition Loki says that Njord was sent as a hostage to the giants, so we have to assume that there is some degree of reciprocity among the Vanir and giants that there isn't with the Aesir.

The gods want things from the giants, but the giants also want things, or more accurately people, from the gods. Hrungnir wanted Freya and Sif, while the Master-Builder wanted Freya and the sun and moon. Thiazi wanted Idunn and especially the magical apples that went with her. (In a twist on this theme, the dwarf Alviss wanted Thor's daughter Thrud, leading to a sort of wisdom-contest between father and potential suitor.)

There are incidents of cooperation between the two groups, but they are rare. The

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