This week on Myths and Legends, it's the saga of Gretaer the Strong from 10th century Iceland.

It's a big episode and it contains glam zombies, tragic bear high fives, and of course,

nude Viking cabobs. If you wake up to a cobra sucking on your tongue, you might be dating this week's

creature. This is Myths and Legends, Episode 170A. Good for nothing.

This is a podcast where I tell stories from mythology and folklore. Some are incredibly popular

stories you think you know, but with spicy norogens, and if there's stories that might be new to you,

but are definitely worth listening. This is a story that will sound familiar at first. We told

one snippet of the main character's life in Episode 94, a very Viking Christmas. And as promised,

we're back to tell his whole story. You do not need to have heard that one off episode.

This is Gretaer's whole life, so it's going to tell his whole story. That last episode was just

a fun tale from it. And we'll go back over that today. Basically, we're in 10th century Scandinavia,

and the Times, they are a change in. The Viking Age is winding down. And though there are still

berserkers and raiders, they're finding fewer and fewer places to raid. Their countrymen are now

kings and farmers in the places they used to ravage, and the religion whose monasteries they sacked,

Christianity is only a handful of years away from being declared the official religion of Iceland.

Anyway, that's where we're going to jump in. In Iceland, to a boy named Gretaer.

That's what happens in the past.

Good for nothing. Those were the words that echoed in Gretaer's head, as the balls sailed over it.

They were the words that his father had said to him, and the last real conversation that

the two had. The 10-year-old Gretaer had asked for a hard and manly job. So he had been tasked with

giving his dad back rubs every night. He had been late. I don't know. Something about giving

your Viking dad a hard and manly massage, working out the knots on a sweaty, absolutely not

...