Book Review – Myths of the Norsemen by Roger Lancelyn Green

Revisiting one's favourite childhood books can be nerve-wracking. Like other 8 year olds, I was fed on a diet of so-called children's books many of which would be classified as 'fantasy'. The fact that children like myths is sometimes used to support the view that myth, or fantasy, is childish. Of course the truth is that the mythic mind is natural and it takes considerable indoctrination to alienate a human being's mind from its natural state through a process sometimes called 'education'. I loved myth and science fiction, and the Tarot cards and astrological books I received around the same age fitted well with my reading; as did my Bible.

Besides obvious items like The Lord of the Rings and C. S. Lewis' works – which I never liked so much (now I understand why, but that's for another blog) my favourites were a series of re-tellings of global mythology by Roger Lancelyn Green. I knew nothing about him until recently discovering that he was one of the Inklings and knew C. S. Lewis well. Green also wrote The Tale of Troy, Tales of the Greek Heroes, Tales of Ancient Egypt and King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table. I cannot imagine a better introduction to comparative religion and mythology than these works. Told in simple and gripping narrative style that holds the attention on the story, Green skillfully brings out the quality of the different myths. It is like an introduction to the folk-souls of the world. Just imagine what fun education could be if this was combined with food of the world, music of the world and so on!

It was quite an exciting discovery for an 8 year old that meditating (or day-dreaming as I then thought of it) on myths with a magical content can induce 'esoteric' experiences. Perhaps Christian fundamentalists are right that there is a subversive occult agenda behind fantasy literature – after all, many children's writers were either directly involved in the magical traditions like E.E. Nesbit, or highly sympathetic, or attuned to the mythopoeic element in religion and folk culture, like the Inklings. And of course one of the Inklings was Owen Barfield, a profound student of Rudolf Steiner's philosophy and C. S. Lewis' closest intellectual friend.

But to return to Myths of the Norsemen. What a captivating world! We are continents away from the sultry warmth, the dark earthiness of Egyptian myth, the playfulness and humanism of Greece. These are older mysteries, akin to the Celtic / Brythonic yet distinct. Perhaps due to the over influence of Judaeo-Christian and Graeco-Roman traditions on our culture, the Norse / Saxon myths which should be the closest to the British, are the most remote. We have been taught to sneer with politically-correct disdain at the term Anglo-Saxon; and yet, the Norse myths, preserved in works like the Eddas and the Volsung Saga and deriving from the Skalds (Bards) are full of magic and life.

The Tree of Yggdrasil; the city of Asgard in its very top; the Aesir and the Vanir; one-eyed Odin with his broad-brimmed hat and blue cloak; the ice giants; beautiful Baldur killed with the mistletoe and laid out with his wife in the longboat; the destructive Fenris Wolf and the Midgard Serpent which encircles the world; Thor and his mighty hammer Miolnir; Andvari's cursed ring and Sigurd's tragic destiny; the Halls of Valhalla where warriors who die in battle feast and drink mead; treacherous Loki; and the final battle of Ragnarok. Anyone with a drop of the blood of the North aches with recognition at these images, as if they were part of our minds all along and have never been forgotten.

Scholars now understand how a group of tribes from the Caucasus region, horse lords with deities of the sky, lightning, wind and other primal forces, migrated passing down into India, across Europe and even to Ireland. They called themselves Aryan – nobles – and the peoples of Europe and India are largely descended from them. They left their name not just in India but in Iran, and Eire (Ireland). Their languages remain surprisingly similar – for example the names of the numbers 1 to 10 are virtually identical in all these languages and in particular German and Sanskrit retain some deep verbal similarities.

The emerging sciences of ethnology and comparative linguistics in the 19^th Century abused the dawning insights to create racist ideologies in some cases. The Aryan rather than Christian heritage common to the Indians and Germanic peoples, increasingly clear through the scholarship of Max Muller and the occult traditions collected by Madame Blatavsky, were distorted to become influences on the hate-filled ideology of Nazism. But it has yet to be appreciated that the suppression of the indigenous cultures of our lands by the religions of the East and the intellectuality of Greece and Rome – above all by books and languages of other lands – was a blow from which we are still recovering.

The Western Mysteries have done wonderful work in integrating Celtic / British themes with Magical Qabalah. Surely the Norse myths must one day attain their due role.

If they do, the key figure will surely be seen as J.R.R. Tolkein, who combined a deep knowledge of the Nordic Sagas with a true Christian spirit. His co-worker Roger Lancelyn Green will be remembered alongside him. Everyone should buy this little book to begin the quest. Now I am off to look for a good edition of the Eddas.