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Hello, Thor's huge hammer the wailing valkyrie, howling wolves and fierce elemental giants give a violent impression of the Norse myths

But at the center of their cosmos stands a knald and ancient astery from which all distances are measured and under which

Valhalla lies in the first perm of the poetic edder where the stories of the Norse gods are laid down in verse

The seeress describes it in her prophecy. I know that an astery stands called Iggdrasil a high tree soaked with shining loam

From there come the Jews which fall in the valley ever green. It stands over the well of fate

It's from this tree that the farts of the gods Odin will ultimately hang himself an image of divine sacrifice

So problematic for 13th century Christians that they left it out when they wrote the myths down

Who were the gods that inspired the Vikings and what role did their myths and religion play in their daily lives?

With me to discuss the Norse gods are Caroline Larrington tutor in Medi of English. Just and John scholar Jorksford

John Hines professor of archaeology card if you university and Heather Adonohue reader in ancient Icelandic literature and the department of English at Oxford

University Caroline Larrington you've just translated the poetic edder and it starts with the seeress's prophecy

And she foresees the end of the gods at the battle of a ragna rocker

But also the beginning of the world of humans. Can you outline their creation myth for us, please?

well, there are

Multiple versions of the creation myth, but probably the simplest one to uncover is

The one which you find in the poem the seeress's prophecy where the earth simply rises up out of the sea

And the giants appear and the gods

Who are descended from the giants eventually kill the primordial giant and form the earth as we know it out of his body

So his blood becomes the sea his bones become the rocks and rather interesting his eyelashes become the central fence that surrounds the world of the gods

And that suggests an idea of creation coming out of destruction and

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