Hello, newbie Heathens!

Allow me to welcome you to one of the most interesting yet complex practices in modern paganism today. The main topic of discussion in this post is going to be one of the areas of complexity you will not be able to avoid in this path…

Reading the Eddas

(cue ominous music here)

I am sure that as you were drawn to this particular hearth culture you have already been told to read your lore, probably more than once. This is extremely unhelpful to those that are passionate about their calling and want to jump right in. Unfortunately, jumping right in is not always best.  In the past 25 years or so there has been an increase in resources that will help those wishing to embrace this path. Not all of those resources are good ones but they do tend to stress reading the mythology. I am not here to tell you to do something different, but rather how to navigate through it. Reading and understanding the lore are two very different things, especially with the Eddas. You will run into people along this path who will not even discuss things with you if it becomes clear that you do not know the stories of the past. You will also run into people that will not bother with you if your focus is solely on those stories. Those people usually base their entire practice on fabricated UPG (unverified personal gnosis). I will discuss this later on.

You cannot possibly have a good understanding of the belief system without reading the lore in the first place. Look at it as you would building a house, without a solid foundation the structure will eventually fall down. The Lore is your foundation. Your actual practice are the walls and roof that are built upon it. This blend of scholarly material and UPG is actually the perfect way to practice modern day Heathenry. At least in my opinion.

“But the Eddas are HARD! How do people understand all those crazy looking words? It’s hard to read these lines! What do they even mean?!”

Here are the two biggest secrets to understanding the Eddas…

1.) Don’t try to pronounce the words while you are reading for the first time.

2.) Don’t try to memorize the cadence of the meter while you are reading for the first time.

Seriously, you were not born and raised in Iceland. Our educational system, here in the States, has not trained our minds to process the literary genius that is the Eddas right out of the gate. Stop trying. Working with skaldic meter is hard for Icelanders, let alone those of us without a working background. If you try and focus on meter and pronunciation of words you have only seen a few times you miss the whole point of the lore; the stories themselves. You have plenty of time to learn pronunciation. By the way, no one speaks Old Norse anymore. No one knows exactly how it is supposed to be pronounced. Icelandic is the closest living language but there are a lot of spelling and sound changes that have happened over the centuries, including words that have fallen completely out of usage, so they will be the first ones to tell you that all the “how-to” videos on the internet are just guesses. (No matter how convincing they are that their way is the right way.) Keeping this in mind removes some of the stress of “saying it right.”

Now that you know not to worry over pronouncing the various names and places you can focus on the story that is laid before you on the pages. Except! (why is there always an “except”?) You should really not start with reading the Eddas themselves.

“What? Didn’t you just tell me that I should read the lore?”

Yes, I did. However, you need to start before the Eddas. Before you pick up one of the many different translations it is far more important to understand what you are reading. I am NOT talking about the meter, no need to panic. I am talking about the history of the material. I am talking about the actual sources and the history of the culture where the stories originate.

“Oh man, a history lesson?”

Yep. A history lesson. I am not going to give you that history lesson but instead guide you to do the research yourself. This is how you learn the differences between good source materials and shoddy ones. It also helps your growth and development in a path that is so rich in material and archaeology. This how-to will help you in understanding the simplicity and the complexity that runs rampant within the Eddas. Use this checklist to start off your research:

1. What is the history of the Icelandic settlement?
   1. What was going on in other Nordic countries that impacted the settlements?
2. What is the progression of paganism into Christianity for early Iceland?
   1. What outside forces were actively influencing this?
      1. What did they have to gain?
   2. What outside forces were inactively influencing this?
   3. What inside forces were actively influencing this?
      1. What did they have to gain?
3. When did the Icelanders begin writing (as in pen and ink)?
   1. (Runic inscriptions are an entirely different topic so just focus on the written materials at first.)
   2. What did they write?
   3. What materials were in Latin versus the vernacular Old Norse/Icelandic?
4. How did the language shift between early settlement and the early 13th century? (This is what will eventually help you with pronunciation, identifying the differences in names, and even the meter.)
5. Who was Snorri Sturlusson?
   1. Why did he write down the material in the first place?
   2. Where did Snorri get the material he presents? (This answer is more than just a person’s name.)
   3. What was going on around the world at the time of Snorri’s writings? (Think political. This is important to know as it impacts the interpretations of the mythology itself.)
      1. What was going on environmentally/geologically?
         1. How did the topography of the land influence descriptions present in the lore?
   4. Why is it important to take Snorri’s writings with a grain of salt?
6. Describe the argument of the writings being historical fact versus historical fiction.
7. Who wrote the Poetic Edda?
   1. What pieces are in the manuscript versus what we see printed today?
      1. Why are the pieces in the printed version compiled together?
8. What other sources, besides the Eddas, are available to us?
   1. Who wrote them?
      1. Were they present for the events described or were they relaying them from someone else?

^^All of this sounds complex, right? It isn’t really. To use the “building a house” analogy again knowing the answers to the above fulfills the obtaining a permit, excavating, and grading of your path to make way for pouring the foundation. Don’t just wikipedia the questions, read through the sources used to make those entries and go find them yourself. Researching the material listed above will give you a huge head-start in interpreting both what is and is NOT said within the lore.

Feel free to message me with questions and I will be happy to steer you in the right direction.