Monsters of Norse Mythology

Loki had three children with his Jotun mistress Angrboda Hel the queen of the dead Fenris the giant wolf And Jormungandr the Midgard serpent But did you know he is also the mother of Sleipnir Odin's eight-legged horse Hi there and welcome to my local home My name is Bjørn I'm a historical novelist I live here in Norway Today I'd like to talk about monsters—monsters from old legends To my people the Norwegians And I want to speak about what they mean Why do we need to tell stories about monster In the old tales you have the Jotuns representing chaos while the gods embody order—and quite often in fact These goddesses are actually other women mistresses who are truly Jotun women Og Thor God of journeying and all mighty and human he is the result of That’s a fair point one might say But when it comes to Loki—or Loke as we call him here in Norway— e children we know from him whom he had with the Jotun woman Angrboda They all ended up being well monsters So first and foremost you have Hel of course She appears from the side as a beautiful woman She is the woman of the dead in Helheim That's where you end up if you live a life without honor We can dive deeper into this in a future video and I've also discussed it before The other side of her is dead So half of her is that of a beautiful woman The other side is that of death And then of course there is Fenris some seek a significant role during Ragnarok He grew and grew And he grew so great that even death decided to recognize him It's a story for another time d I think but the result was that yes they eventually came to know Fenris Tyr the mightiest of the gods lost his hand The tale of Jormungandr or later known as Midgard-South is extremely fascinating I find it particularly intriguing because It was seen as a powerful monster a formidable death which they cast into the sea o die That's how I understand the story and it didn't die—it kept growing and growing and it grew so vast and so long that it could wrap around the entire world or Midgard Please heed this for it will also play a major role in Ragnarök Thus these are Loki's powerful children whom we know born to his wife Sigyn Loki had Loki's sons Nari and Vali yet the tale of Loki and his children is extremely remarkable as I mentioned He was also the father of Sleipnir Gudene needed to build a wall around Åsgaard to contain the forces from Egotun and a man understood with a large dog a stallion and he offered to do it for them In a year and all the gods ran and thought it impossible to accomplish in a year but this man said I'd do it for a year if I could have the son and the mou and also Freya as my wife so they said yes because they thought well he'll do it for freedom because it's impossible to do it in a year but then the mouth opened and as Work had changed and now they saw that this man might actually be able to do it So they came up with a plan and they realized it was his dog Svadil Fara which was the reason he agreed to take these giant steps to build this Given its size they figured that if we could just distract this giant dog he wouldn't be able to do his job Thus Loki transformed took the shape of a she-wolf a female dog Svadil Fara found much more interesting things than taking those big risks So Loki in the form of a mare and Svadilfari set off and many months later Loki returned to his normal form but now he had with him a foul an eight-legged foul and the lazy one is Odin's eight-legged horse Sleipnir Of course and also the monsters whose origins lie in the tradition and history of my ancestors e Norwegians or the Vikings as some people prefer to call them Grendel from The Beowulf epic is certainly from before the Viking Age You have the Kraken e giant sea monster which is not actually from the Viking Age as it occurred long after the end of the Viking Age I believe it was first mentioned The first one mentioned as far as we know is that of King Sverre in 1180 I believe and you have moder relation to Norse mythology There's a movie called The Ritual where there's a monster called Modder I'm really looking forward to that movie by the way I can highly recommend it Modder is says to be one of Luke's offshoots and you know I'm somewhat open to adding to these stories because In reality we have most likely only managed to preserve a small portion—perhaps just a small fraction—of e old stories I believe that as humans we have an inherent need to tell stories about monsters o make plausible in a way all the bad things that actually happen in the world We have the necessity to examine chaos and e destruction we see around us as a result of these monsters we have despite knowing they aren't real we still feel the need for them making something plausible that isn't plausible if you know what I mean At the same time we are concerned that there are real monsters especially now inevitably with the Epstein files and everything that comes with them There are monsters out there Real monsters out there—powerful fierce creatures that It is never used for rights and this is a pain we feel This is a pa deep within our souls I believe I also think we tell stories about monsters especially those creatures in the deep sea and in the darkness and everything about them We tell them because We are compelled to speak of what we cannot speak of If you're out partying all night in the city f you do it on a regular basis like I do you'll start hearing sounds that you ot really as if it doesn't sound like a pet you know and you can't really tell e sound I think it's always a natural explanation but I believe that as humans we have this tendency to The necessity of resolving these stories to explain what we cannot explain Here comes the son When I started my hike this morning it was minus 17 degrees—minus 17 that’s what it was Men now as we approach the end of February I think the breakthrough will be here quite soon At the very least that's my hope Thus these monsters also represent the chaos within us Our primitive desires one might say and perhaps the more animalistic side of our psyche If that's the case Either way if you're enjoying this content click the subscribe button It helps me a lot and even when people don't subscribe what happens is that they little Goblinger and they're not monsters to say in these towns they need pinecones from me so We don't want that I hope you don't want that to happen to me They can be really bad so subscribe to this channel and help me out And I discover videos every Sunday every Sunday Yes I can feel the warmth of the sun right now It's fantastic Maybe we have the need to tell stories about monsters so that we ca pack our emotions into a box so to speak as if we carry these stories with us and We can talk about the monsters around Camp Mountain and then move on to something else Maybe it's a starting point for our feelings perhaps I'd also say that if you look a In these stories are these creatures truly monsters Who is the real monster here It's like the story of Frankenstein—the creature isn't the monster In this story there's a squirrel in the tree above me and I just found myself thinking about it I am the monster I sit here in the skin of another You're the monster and I'm the one who hunts you—makes you think doesn't it Okay I hope you enjoyed the video There should be another one appearing here on the screen shortly Something that might interest you Thanks for spending some time with me and have a wonderful day Bye for now