Words by

Grayson Del Faro

Photo by

Maria R. Dell'Olio

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 meathead 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.

Bawling for Baldur

So our main bitch Gylfi (some king) has overstayed his welcome in the sex dungeon (castle) of our favourite throuple (three other kings all stacked up). He won’t stop asking questions but, to be fair, that’s the whole point of their little game. He asks a question, they call him stupid, they answer it. I can only assume everyone is turned on by this, which makes it sound pretty gay — so count me in! That is, except for the part where he dies if he loses. Murder does not pass the vibe check.

Be it Brat Summer or Gylfaginning, all good things must come to an end. The end of Gylfaginning starts with Baldur, that shiny, pretty-boy god. He has a nightmare about his own death, which freaks everyone out, so everything on Earth is made to promise not to hurt him. I do mean everything, including water, fire, metal, diseases, animals and Ketamine overdoses. (We know what really kills pretty boys.) You know, just in case.

Then all of Baldur’s family promptly take turns trying to kill him with all those things, just for fun. Like it’s some kind of hillbilly family reunion.

Loki is here to fuck around, so he learns that a plant called mistletoe is the only thing that didn’t promise not to harm Baldur. Then he tricks Baldur’s blind brother Höður into shooting him with a mistletoe arrow. You could say he slayed, because oops, his brother dies. At first everyone is shook and then those bitches be bawling. Not ballin’ like the ageing millennial slang, but bawling like ugly crying. Like snot running, mascara smudging and probably live-streaming it for pity likes. But hey, we stan dudes in touch with their emotions.

Þökk for Nothing

Baldur’s other brother, Hermóður, goes to hell to fetch him. Hel, the goddess of the underworld, says she will only release Baldur if every single thing on Earth weeps for him. Everything does, even the grass, which is how dewdrops are created. Isn’t that cutesy? It’s all cutesy except for one giantess named Þökk, which literally means “thanks.” She refuses to shed a tear and Baldur is doomed to remain in hell. Thanks for nothing, motherþökker!

Plot twist: it turns out that that giantess is actually Loki in drag.

So Loki has fucked around and now its time for him to find out. He tries to hide by serving fish, by which I mean he literally turns himself into a salmon, but the gods catch him anyway. They rip out the intestines of his son, Vali, and use them to tie Loki up while a venom-dripping snake looms over his head. Although Loki’s wife is forced to catch the poison in a bowl, it still drips on him when she dumps it out — his agonised thrashing is what causes earthquakes. This punishment is a total flex and I’m starting a petition to bring it back. I think JK Rowling could use a taste of her own venom, as could several politicians.

That was the beginning of the end. Now we come to the end of the end. Our favourite throuple must be coming down from whatever they’re on because they’ve launched into a description of Ragnarök. They don’t quite mention the current climate crisis apocalypse caused by late stage capitalism, but their version isn’t too far off. It starts with three years of winter in which humanity descends into chaos. Then wolves eat the sun and moon, the stars go out, mountains collapse and lands are flooded. Then the sky cracks open and fire spills out. Bad? Yes. Still kinda lit? Also yes.

1911 John Bauer illustration, Wikimedia Commons

Ragnarök-n-Roll

It is truly a Netflix-style series finale because all the side characters you’d forgotten about over the last seven seasons suddenly reappear and go to war. We’ve got gods, we’ve got monsters, we’ve got a boat made out of the unclipped fingernails of dead people! Óðinn is eaten by the giant wolf Fenrir before Viðar finally uses his giant shoe to kill the beast. Loki sides with the baddies. Þórr finally gets his hands all up and down the slippery dick of the sea serpent Jörmungandur. He rubs it out, killing it. Then he dies because it squirted “poison” on him. (We all know what it feels like to get jizz in the eye.)

The world is burned away. Everyone keeps to their own lanes in heaven or hell, waiting for it to be reborn. Very demure, very mindful. The Earth reappears from the sea and the gods return. They spend their days yapping and playing a special edition gold-plated Settlers of Catan. Two humans survived by hiding in a special nook of the cosmic tree and they repopulate Earth. Okay, byeeeee!

That’s basically how the throuple leave the chat. There is a sudden crashing as their sex dungeon collapses around them and Gylfi is left standing alone in the middle of nowhere. I guess the game is over, because he blurts out some final thoughts about how the Norse gods were actually Turkish and that Loki was Ulysses. Wait, who won?

Morals of the story
Crying is not unmanly. It’s healthy. It’s even kinda hot.
You wanna fuck around, you’re gonna find out.

Read more about the Edda or Whatever here. Buy Grayson’s book The Sagas And shit here.