Shadow Children and Inhumi

Mark Millman · 30 Nov 2010, 22:01 · from 2010-November.txt.gz

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From: markjmillman at gmail.com (Mark Millman)
Date: Tue, 30 Nov 2010 17:01:45 -0500
Subject: (urth) Shadow Children and Inhumi
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Dear Mr. Wynn,

On Tuesday 30 November 2010, you wrote:

>> I subscribe to the idea
>> that the world's refound-
>> ing by Odin's sons is
>> a late addition to the
>> mythology, influenced
>> by Christianity.
>
> Okay. But if Wolfe is riffing off of Ragnarok
> (and I think there is sufficient evidence that
> he is)

I agree.

> then surely he ascribes to the Poetic/Prose
> Edda versions (assuming there _is_ another
> one).

I'm not aware of others, but I'm not an expert in the field.

I'd imagine that Wolfe--even if he, as I'd be inclined to believe,
personally prefers the extant version--is aware of the arguments and
might well use the postulated pre-Christian version for its literary
value.

> I say that because the destruction of Urth
> is not final. And, in fact, no ultimate cata-
> clysms are final in tBotNS.

But the Ragnarok future in fact doesn't come to pass.  The outcome is
strongly implied in BotNS and explicit in _Urth_.  I'd argue that it's
safe for Wolfe to use Ragnarok as a contrasting potential future of
permanent destruction precisely because Master Ash disappears.
And--who knows?--maybe he wants on a still subtler level to imply that
even if the worst possible result should transpire, hope even then
remains (assuming, that is, that he means to reference the extant
Ragnarok material rather than the theoretical version).

> Also, I have to say that I see absolutely no-
> thing Christian in the Vidar and Vali's surviv-
> al of Ragnarok. The scene itself as well as
> Vidar in particular are almost stereotypical
> of mythological forms -- from the revenge of
> his father to the tip of his big thick shoe. I'm
> really not intending to debate or contend
> here, it's just that you are not the first per-
> son I've heard make the assertion that
> Odin's sons are a Christian addition, and
> I've never understood how that could be.

I don't think the idea is that Vidar and Vali are a Christian
addition; I think that their survival and revivification of the world
is the Christian-influenced part (I tend to think that, like Thor,
they originally didn't survive their climactic fights despite killing
their adversaries).  Snorri Sturluson, who compiled the Eddic
materials, shows in _Heimskringla_ that he's inclined to euhemerize,
and I don't think it's unlikely that he might have adjusted things to
suit in _Edda_.  He certainly had the knowledge and literary skill to
do so.

But you're right; this really is rather an irrelevant tangent.

> u+16b9

Best,

Mark Millman

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