Tales of Norse Mythology

The Historical Item that I chose is a book “Tales of Norse Mythology” by Helen A Guerber.

I was about fifteen years old when I pulled up the story of “Balder’s Death” and read it to my younger brother, we sat there cracking up at this sad yet hilarious story. We knew some about Norse myth from the marvel movies (which is not accurate) but after reading that story, I did not want to stop reading it. I had a good knowledge of Greek myth, but I never really liked it because the gods seemed so cruel to humans, and it was not like that in Norse myth. And I am Irish Scandinavian in blood myself, so I was reading about what my ancestors believed in and I loved it. This book is not the only book about Norse mythology on my shelf I have many more, but I enjoy this one because it gives you the actual poems the stories are written from and many of the nursery rhymes that we recite now are from Norse Mythology (like the pied piper and jack and jill) and this book explains all that. I have not stopped reading; my reading has just expanded into the Vikings and how they lived and interacted with the world around them. I do not want to stop I and I plan on Scandinavian Studies being my main point of historical education. Did you know there are Viking caving as far as the Mississippi river? The Vikings were here before Columbus. What happened? What was their relationship like with the Native Americans? Why didn’t they try to stay? Or did they try to stay?

This book does explain some of the Change Over Time and how stories tend to take on a life of their own and shift into other stories and become legend. This book also shows Causality, yes, these stories are myths but there are also real people woven in and we can get a better understanding of them and their effect on the world around them. The Tales of Norse Myth explain what a powerful people group believed in why they did what they did and their beliefs in the world around them and how it affected the choices they made.