Dr. Donald Blake & Thor Odinson (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
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fandomhigh2026-01-29 09:10 am
ifwebeworthy) wrote in fandomhigh2026-01-29 09:10 am
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Norse Mythology, Thursday, Second Period
"I realized I left out an important piece of information at the beginning of this class," Don admitted. "When we talk about the 'sources' for Norse myths, what are those sources? What are the texts?" He held up two books. "These are the texts: the Prose Edda and the Poetic Edda. Both were composed in the thirteenth century CE from older sources, but while we know the Prose Edda was written by Snorri Sturluson, an Icelandic scholar, we don't know who wrote the Poetic Edda. And, fun fact, we don't know what the word 'Edda' means. So even in the source material, there's so much missing information. Why? To be really blunt: Christianity. For a long time in much of Europe, Christian religious institutions were responsible for preservation of knowledge, and they didn't want to preserve the knowledge of 'pagan' religions. We're lucky we have this much.
"So when I say, 'This is what these people believed,' that's maybe not true. Maybe that's just the version that got written down, and most people believed a different version of the story. Where I come from, Loki was adopted by Odin and raised as Thor's brother, but that's not in either Edda and it upsets Thor. But that doesn't necessarily mean people didn't know that, or that that wasn't true in other universes. It just didn't make it to the page.
"Your lesson this week isn't about a myth or a story. It's about the preservation of information. Just because it isn't of value to you in your time doesn't mean it won't be valuable to people in the future. Who knows what other stories we might have if there was a whole third book?" Maybe something that would explain what Odin's problem even was...no. No, that would take more than one book.
"So when I say, 'This is what these people believed,' that's maybe not true. Maybe that's just the version that got written down, and most people believed a different version of the story. Where I come from, Loki was adopted by Odin and raised as Thor's brother, but that's not in either Edda and it upsets Thor. But that doesn't necessarily mean people didn't know that, or that that wasn't true in other universes. It just didn't make it to the page.
"Your lesson this week isn't about a myth or a story. It's about the preservation of information. Just because it isn't of value to you in your time doesn't mean it won't be valuable to people in the future. Who knows what other stories we might have if there was a whole third book?" Maybe something that would explain what Odin's problem even was...no. No, that would take more than one book.
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