Words by

Andie Sophia Fontaine

Superpowers: Signalled peace between two warring sides, very wise
Weaknesses: Thirsty dwarves
Modern Analogy: Anthony Fauci

Long ago, the Æsir and the Vanir—two groups of Norse gods—were at war with one another. When peace was at long last achieved, these two sides did the only reasonable thing: chewed up some berries and spat the resulting juice into one pot. From this melange of half-chewed berries and god spit arose the hero of this story, Kvasir.

Kvasir quickly gained a reputation for being a very wise dude. He would travel the lands, and people would hit him up with problems they were struggling with and, like some kind of Norse Anthony Fauci, Kvasir would give them the solutions to how best to confront their struggles.

It wasn’t long before his reputation began to precede him. Just as is the case now, the ancients also had their anti-intellectuals who were distrustful of academics. Two such people in this story are Fjalar and Galar, dwarves who were disdainful of Kvasir. So they killed him. But they didn’t stop there, as they took the unorthodox step of draining his blood into another pot, mixing it with honey, and creating the Mead of Poetry—an elixir that would give anyone the gift of wordsmithy to anyone who drank it.

While Kvasir’s story ends at this point, the Norse gods’ love of poetry continued on, so we largely have Kvasir to thank for all the sick bars dropped by these ancient deities. Respect!