A prologue that will literally leave you gagged
Welcome to The Edda or Whatever, where I’m spilling the tea on Norse mythology. We’re breaking down the Prose Edda, a mediaeval Icelandic textbook that also low-key recaps most of what we know about the Norse gods today, but we’re doing it with a little bit of style and a whole lot of sass. (Not to mention ass!) If you’ve ever wondered, “wasn’t Þórr like the himbo of the Norse gods?” (he was) or, “didn’t Loki get dicked down by a literal horse?” (he did), then shut up, I’m getting to it.
Prolonged Prologue
Despite being called The Prose Edda today because it was written in prose, the text was basically written as an instruction manual on how to write poetry. I know that sounds boring af, but don’t worry, it is also chock-full of wild shit that will leave you gagged. Like many textbooks, it begins with an introduction or, in this case, a prologue. Interestingly, it has absolutely nothing to do with poetry whatsoever. Instead, it explains how all the Norse gods were actually Turkish. Yes, you read that right. No cap.
As you’ll remember from the last issue, the Prose Edda was written by Snorri Sturluson, a rich white dude in 13th-century Iceland. The problem with that, besides basically all of it, is that, like all of Iceland during his time, Snorri was a Christian. This isn’t a problem in itself, I guess, but it’s a low-key problem for Snorri because Old Norse poetry was written in a bajillion little nicknames based on mythology. In order to explain poetry, Snorri probably had to explain the Norse gods, even though he didn’t believe in them. You don’t even have to imagine the mental gymnastics he performed for this, because I’m about to tell you.
Turkish De-White
Of course it starts with God because God forbid anything not be about God, you know, forbidding us to do stuff or whatever he allegedly did. So, according to Snorri, God creates the earth, Adam and Eve, Noah and the flood, blah blah basic blah. Then people forget god exists! (If only, amirite?) He says they feel that the water in the earth was like the blood in the body and rocks are like its bones. They realize everything is connected and find divinity in the earth, which is honestly kinda gorge. If they’d just stopped there, they might have saved us from capitalism and the climate crisis.
But they didn’t. And neither does Snorri. He describes the three continents: Europe is cold and shitty and Africa is hot and shitty, but Asia is the GOAT. He says the middle of the world is in Asia and the best city ever built is Troy in Turkey. I mean, the ruins of Troy are in modern-day Turkey, so I guess we have to give him this one. There was once a king there whose name was — cue dramatic music — Þórr (that’s Thor, for all y’all non-locals). See where this is going?
Þórr may be devastatingly hot, but this Turkish king is also ostensibly white and blonde. At 12 years old, he kills his foster father and takes over the kingdom like an ungrateful little shit. He marries Sif, also hot and blonde but maybe not Turkish. They have a hot and blond son (okay, we get it, it’s not like we don’t still live in a white supremacist society) and so on. After 22 generations, Óðinn is born. Þórr is usually known as the son of Óðinn, but in this version, he’s the great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandfather.
Go North, Young Turk
Are you keeping up? So Óðinn has the power to see the future. He could’ve used this to prevent war, famine, or the birth of Elon Musk, but nope. He just saw that he was gonna go viral in Northern Europe. I obviously mean 21st-century viral, not 14th-century viral, because that would be the Black Plague and Snorri has made it very clear that this fam was white. So Óðinn goes to Europe, where he puts his various sons in charge of its various parts: one each in Saxony and Westphalia (now Germany), France, Jutland (now Denmark), Sweden and Norway.
Apparently, he found Sweden especially agreeable, even though Snorri had just described all of Northern Europe as an unbearably frozen hellscape. He built his fortress there like a cartoon supervillain in Sigtuna. With all the audacity in his mediaeval Christian heart, Snorri concludes this ancestral rant by saying that because of this, all the royal bloodlines of those countries are descended from the gods. So basically, all this history-twisting was just fantastic foreplay before deep-throating the dick of European monarchy. I mean, I did say it would leave you gagged.
Morals of the story:
- Nice try blaming white supremacy on the Turks, but we’re not buying it.
- Get the monarchy’s dick outta your mouth. It’s the 21st century, for fuck’s sake.
Follow along with The Edda Or Whatever series for all the latest takes on the oldest tea.
Check out Grayson’s series on the sagas and Poetic Edda and then buy his book, The Sagas and Shit. You’ll love it, we promise.
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