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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Wombat" data-source="post: 1398486" data-attributes="member: 8447">There are a lot of problems with trying to bring Norse mythology to life.  The primary sources are the Elder and Prose Eddas (there are others, but they are less direct).  The Prose Edda is a pretty straight read; the Elder Edda requires quite a bit more internal mental translation work.  But if you read through these works you will find several odd and interesting points.  First up, there are no stories that "star" any of the goddesses -- they are only secondary players.  Given the number of artistic allusions to the goddesses, the number of suggestions of longer stories, and the number of shrines found, the assumption is that those stories were just never written down.  Equally most of the stories of regarding Thor are comical (or at least semi-comical), yet again we know through artistic evidence, shrines, and other bits that he was considered not only a strong god, but also a serious and deeply beloved god (we know that he was considered the defender of marriages, for example, a very serious position, yet the only tales that talk about him and marriage are comical).  Equally almost all the stories we have about the Aesir gods, very few of the Vanir gods, yet again archaeological evidence shows that the worship of the Vanir was still quite wide in the Viking era -- where did these stories go?So, yes, recreating Norse mythology is, to say the least, a tricky topic. Tie to this the fact that the tales were only written down after Norway, Denmark, Iceland, and Sweden converted to Christianity, a lot of potential corruption of the sources creeps in.Overall, trying to get the feel of old Norse mythology, the Elder Edda is the better of the two sources, but in the end you have to fill in a lot of blanks when dealing with the tales.</blockquote>

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