In taking on the mantle of these archetypal tales, the author of the Sandman graphic novels, of Coraline, American Gods and The Graveyard Book has set himself just such a public challenge. The wedding banquet does not go well, as Thor conspicuously fails to get in touch with his feminine side. In order to retrieve his stolen weapon, for example, muscle-bound, hammer-swinging Thor has to don fairly unconvincing drag, pretend to be the beauteous, golden-tressed Freya, and set off to marry Thrym, “lord of all the ogres”. Most of his 15 stories, which run from the pre-creation “void” made up of mist and fire to the “final battle” of Ragnarok, with its promise of rebirth after armageddon, turn on ordeals and challenges. What can you bring to the feast that will surpass the feats of writers from Thomas Gray, who penned his “Norse odes” in the 18th century, and William Morris, who translated and re-imagined the Icelandic Eddas in the 19th, to modern tale-spinners such as AS Byatt, author in 2011 of the memorable Ragnarok: the End of the Gods? Gaiman reminds us that the world of Asgard is intensely competitive, with the gods and their rivals – mighty giants, clever dwarfs, enigmatic elves – striving to outdo one another in contests of skill and strength. “The fun comes in telling them yourself.”Īs for the burden, familiarity can breed, if not contempt, then impatience. “That’s the joy of myths,” writes Gaiman in his preface to his artful and enjoyable selection from the ancient yarns. Besides, like one of those bottomless cauldrons full of magic ale that Odin and his immortal clan drain, this source never dries. Even people who have never read or viewed the work of a Martin or a Tolkien (that other great plunderer of the north) count their weekdays according to the names of the divine dwellers in Asgard: Tyr, Odin, Thor and Frigg. The bonus comes first from a widespread vague familiarity with these tales of gods and monsters, of giants and elves, of trickery and treachery: “myths of a chilly place” in the shadow of a final catastrophe that will fulfil the destiny of the nine worlds “in ash and flood, in darkness and in ice”. When a single body of legend broods over a vast range of cultural expression all the way from the opera house (in Wagner’s Ring) to cult TV series and Marvel Comics – Neil Gaiman’s first exposure to the Norse pantheon – it gives each new re-interpreter both a bonus and a burden. Martin’s very title signals his indebtedness. Many aficionados treat Norse mythology as the key to his A Song of Ice and Fire fantasy novels – the source of Game of Thrones. “Winter is coming” runs the doomy refrain of Game of Thrones, haunting the imagination of the millennial millions who have never directly heard of Ragnarok, “the end of all things”, and the big chill of the “Fimbulwinter” that will usher in apocalypse.
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