Who were the Norse gods
- the mighty Aesyr led by Odinn & the mysterious Vanir? In The Norse Myths we meet this passionate & squabbling pantheon & learn of the mythological cosmos they inhabit Passages translated from the Old Norse bring this legendary world to life from the myths of creation to ragnarok the prophesied end of the world at the hands of Loki's army of monsters & giants & everything that comes in between the problematic relationship between the gods & the giants in which enmity & trickery are punctuated by marriages & seductions; the (mis) adventures of human heroes & heroines with their family feuds revenges marriages & murders; & the interaction between the gods & mortals as Odinn the Allfather betrays his human proteges in order to recruit (dead) heroes for his army Carolyne Larrington describes the myths' origins in pre-Christian Scandinavia & Iceland & their survival in artefacts & written sources from Old Norse sagas & poems to the less approving accounts of medieval Christian writers She traces their influences into the work of Wagner William Morris & JRR Tolkien & even the recent Game of Thrones in the resurrection of the Fimbulvetr or ' Mighty Winter'