PaganSquare.com - WitchesAndPagans.com

Bragi is the god of music. He is married to Idunna, whose apples keep the gods from aging.

Fireverse-Bragi is probably pretty different than the Bragi of this universe, because the Fireverse needed a character within Asgard society that would actively oppose the teller of the story, who was Loki, and the opposition character became Bragi. Loki is usually cast as the opposition character in most traditional tellings of the mythology, but of course he would not cast himself in that role.

Asgard is not really a three dimensional physical space, but in the Fireverse it has a geography suitable for the human to whom the story is told to understand. The World Tree can be reached from the top of a hill. It’s not growing out of the hill but is next to it and Odin is able to grasp one of the branches in order to hang from the tree. From that hill, one can look sheer down into forever. On one side of that hill there is a cliff with a stone seat carved into the hillside. There is a little foot path to the seat. This is Odin’s seat of seeing. From there, he can look into Jotunheim, or Midgard, or wherever. Just in front of this throne, the path broadens a bit and there is a short wall at the cliff edge, just right for Odin’s ravens to perch on.

On the other side of the hill stands Valhalla. It is just as described in lore, made out of spears and shields and having many doors and the Einherjar within, and a pig of unlimited bacon, and a goat whose milk is mead, and the triple throne where High, Just As High, and Third sit and rule. These are Odin, Honir, and Loki. Honir does not have a physical form unless he is manifesting between Odin and Loki. He sometimes manifests in the middle throne while Odin and Loki are both in their thrones. Odin sits in the sky throne, that is, the throne of air. Loki’s throne is fire and water. Honir’s throne is earth and ice. Just as it says in lore, the Einherjar go out and fight all day and then are resurrected and party all night in Valhalla. So, the Einherjar are not there during the day. In the Fireverse, Odin holds court in Valhalla in the day, with a lunch for any gods who want to drop in; when he’s not there all these processes continue to happen.

In this series of posts, I will be presenting some of my novel gnosis, that is, my religious insights gained via writing fiction. Most of these come from my unpublished behemoth Some Say Fire, in which I retold the entire corpus of heathen mythology, with original work inserted interstitially, like in Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. Some of my novel gnosis comes from my Time Yarns Universe, which has both published and unpublished works in it.

What does novel gnosis look like?

Njord is a sea god in heathen mythology. He is the father of Freya and Freyr. The lore does not say who their mother is, but it is hinted that it might be himself, or his counterpart. That would be Nerthus, except that Nerthus and Njord never appear in the same story. Nerthus appears in lore written by Tacitus in the Roman era, and Njord appears in lore written in the Viking Age. Linguistically the name Nerthus probably became the name Njord, and thus, Nerthus the goddess probably became Njord the god.

In Viking Age heathen mythology, Njord was briefly married to Skadi, the frost giantess who became a goddess of winter. That story took place in Asgard, though, and Njord, Freya, and Freyr all settled in Asgard as adults, with the status of hostages after the First War. So, Skadi is a stepmother, and after the divorce, a former stepmother.