The Norse Myths That Shape the Way We Think
By Carolyne Larrington
Thames & Hudson 2023

Perhaps the least-consequential detail of Carolyne Larrington’s new book The Norse Myths That Shape the Way We Think is the obvious observation that Norse myths don’t, in fact, shape the way we think. Nor does the contention much come up in the course of the book. Larrington, Professor of Medieval European Literature at Oxford, makes some vague assertions about the Norse myths being more “culturally central” than any others, and on the rare occasions when she expands on this idea, she can be quite eloquent:

Part of the answer must lie with the belief that they do seem – in some ways – like our gods. They are not the elite Greek and Roman gods who stroll through the sunny olive groves of the Mediterranean, not the mysterious part-animal deities of ancient Egypt, nor yet the dimly perceived Irish deities who leave their names embedded in the soft, green Irish landscape. The Norse gods belong among forests and mountains, like our own northern landscapes; they walk along the wild seashore or wait for passage by a steep-sided steel-blue fjord. 

This is well written, but it’s an obvious reach/ True, people clock in to work on Tuesdays and Wednesdays and Thursdays; true, they’re grateful when Friday comes around, and maybe they’ve heard once or twice that those days are named after Norse gods, but that’s about the extent of the shaping that’s going on. The closest the modern era comes to such influence is surely the incarnation of the norse god Thor that has appeared in Marvel Comics for over 60 years and in the movies grossing millions since 2011, so it’s a bit ironic that Larrington’s discussions of these incarnations are the weakest parts of her book (Jane Foster is not a scientist in the comics, etc.). 

Fortunately, they’re far from the only pop culture discussions in these pages, and most of them are quite fun. Larrington touches on everything from Assassin’s Creed to Apocalypse Now to Douglas Adams’s The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul, and her book is full of pictures to demonstrate how long and how widely all artistic media have loved the idea of a warrior pantheon. The pictures and her knowledgeable, engaging narrative make this a Norse mythology book all Norse mythology buffs will want to own.

Larrington’s narrative features generous references to the myths that have come down to us from Snorri Sturluson and others, as well as her analyses of how those myths have been transmuted by comic books, video games, unlistenable operas, blockbuster movies, and the genial obsessions of Neil Gaiman. The book’s US cover is oddly drab, and Larrington throughout strikes an oddly defiant note by spelling “Odin” as “Odinn” and “Thor” as a weird combination of runes and elk antlers, but these small attempts to dissuade readers won’t avail: the book itself is just too irresistibly interesting. 

Steve Donoghue is a founding editor of Open Letters Monthly. His book criticism has appeared in The Washington Post, The American Conservative, The Spectator, The Wall Street Journal, The National, and the Daily Star. He writes regularly for The Boston Globe, the Vineyard Gazette, and the Christian Science Monitor and is the Books editor of Georgia’s Big Canoe News.