Hell (with 2 Ls) in Old Norse: feat. Prof. Stephen Hopkins

Added: 2026-05-31

[00:00:00]I've been reading your book with great interest. I have not finished it. Um there is but what's happened is I've been reading your book is I get you know like I start with the old Norse section and I'm like oh man this is such a good story and I haven't seen this in so long and then I like I go back and I have to read that right and then I come back cuz cuz you bring up and I mean I want to get right into this in just a moment.

[00:00:23]you bring up some amazing like deep cuts that a lot of people don't know about and uh I think that you make a really interesting series of points about hell.

[00:00:31]So, so why don't we get into it?

[00:00:33]>> Yeah, sure. Yeah. Yeah. Um and I think you know the the random deep cuts are uh that's my passion, right? The stuff the obscure stuff that people don't care about but maybe should, right? You got to do that when when apocrypha is your main thing.

[00:00:45]>> Yeah. Well, and I and I'll tell you too, I think a lot of my audience is very much of a similar mind because a lot of the folks that tune into my channel for these interviews and things like that, they have read a lot of, you know, the sort of canon of Old Norris and they're interested in branching out and seeing other things. Um, and uh I' I'd really like to talk to you especially about that one and uh about neither sticking our saga. Uh so folks, this is Dr. Dr. Steven Hopkins, assistant professor of old English and old Norse at the University of Virginia. Also, uh, has quite a background in the Celtic languages. I found it's a little bit of a blind spot for me. Uh, so it's been interesting to see some of that material, too. Recent author of the new book translating hell, which is about well, you tell us what it's about.

[00:01:35]>> Okay. Uh so translating hell um is basically I'm looking at the reception and transformation of apocrypha about hell um as they travel around the North Sea right um the project kind of started when you know as part of early grad school reading I was reading through Dante's Divine Comedy and I thought like how did we get from the handful of references to hell in the New Testament because there really there's only a half a dozen verses that actually you know explicitly talk about about it and they don't give a whole lot of detail. So, how do we get from the few references that are there to like this schematic complex rich uh layered version of hell with all this symbolism in it, right? Um what happened in the middle? So, that was sort of where I started with with the dissertation. Um and and I wanted to figure out like what allowed people to like sort of elaborate upon the idea of hell. And the answer that I sort of landed on was Apocrypha, right? um they're non-cononical scriptures, so they look and sound like scripture. Um but they weren't universally regarded as scripture. And I argue that this sort of liinal um status in terms of like textual authority, right? Um allowed some people to revere them, right? A lot of people read Apocrypha as spiritually edifying and maybe even scripture scripture adjacent. Um, but it also allowed people to revise them kind of consequence-free since they weren't, you know, they would never do that with the with the canonical texts, but they could elaborate or they could like bring in maybe some other cool lore that they'd read in a French manuscript or something and sort of graft these things together.

[00:03:08]And so, Apocrypha have a a habit of transforming in um even in recopying, but also in sort of uh growing and accreting, right? Um slowly over the centuries. Um, and so that's what I'm looking at is sort of what happens when these hell texts, uh, specifically the Gospel of Nicodemus and the Vision of St. Paul get translated from Latin into Old English, Old Norris, Middle Welsh, Old Irish as they travel around the sort of North Sea.

[00:03:35]>> I was about to say, so an example of the Apocrypha would be for the Gospel of Nicodemus. Can can you talk a little bit about that because people may not be familiar with the >> Yeah, absolutely. So, um, you know, I grew up thinking that there were four Gospels, right? Matthew, Mark, Luke, John. Um it wasn't I hadn't heard about Apocrypha until uh late in undergrad when I was taking a Beaywolf seminar and um my professor uh said oh well if you're interested in hell and I was like kind of writing about the the Gindle's mirror you know where the fire is on the floor um where there's fire on top of the water and he was like well some people have compared that to the gospel of Nicodemus and I was like the gospel of what now um so the gospel of Nicodemus is this fifth gospel um that seems to be it was written fairly early.

[00:04:21]Um we have we have it fully by the fifth century but basically it's a gospel that synthesizes the crucifixion accounts from the other canonical gospels and basically reports uh gives another version of the trial and crucifixion of Christ before pilot. Um its earliest resentions are actually known as the act of pilotti the the acts of pilot. um because it seems to have started out as a as a document that sort of depending on how it gets written uh exonerates Pilate um sort of lets the Romans off the hook which seems like the sort of thing you might want to do if you are a Roman Catholic and a St. Peter's basilica is important to you, right? You have this problem of like, well, didn't you guys kill Jesus? Like, how is how did that happen? Um, so this apocryphal text, one theory as to why it was composed in the first place is to sort of exonerate Rome um symbolically, right? Uh so that so that this is not a problem. Um but yeah, that that's the first half of the text is the pilot um trial and crucifixion. But then after that um the second half which does seem to have been composed separately and then these things were brought together in the fifth century um is the descent into hell um and that's the one where Jesus basically goes down into hell um after the crucifixion on Good Friday u and he liberates the uh prophets and patriarchs from the Hebrew Bible or what what medieval Christians would have thought of as their Old Testament. You know people like Adam and Eve and all the prophets and Abraham, right? and leads them up uh out of hell uh in time for the resurrection on Sunday. So, >> and remarkably, there is an old Norse translation of this text.

[00:06:00]>> Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That was one reason why I picked that text and the vision of St. Paul in particular is those are numerically like in terms of manuscript survival, they're some of the most wellattested medieval texts that we have period. There's over 450 copies of the Gospel of Nicodemus in Latin alone that survive today. So, it's a test about any vernacular language.

[00:06:22]>> I was really stunned to to I didn't realize how popular it was. I mean, I knew it was out there and floating around. I didn't realize how popular it was. I also didn't realize something you you said kind of as an aside, but it stunned me a little bit that there's an early modern text of it and I'm like, so like a a Lutheran copied this? That's kind of interesting, right? Uh yeah, it's fascinating to think about like Yeah, because that's that's actually I'm actually writing a paper. Um hopefully your viewers aren't my editors, but um it's deuce. It's doo >> it's fashionably late. Um but I've got a paper talking about the reception of scripture in um in Apocrypha, especially in Iceland. And this is like one of the weird things, one of the quirky things about Icelandic history is that apocrypha in general seem to become uh very volatile, controversial um during the reformation, right? Um they're wildly popular before the reformation all throughout the the Middle Ages. And then once textual scholarship sort of comes to the four as some of the ammunition in these arguments over, you know, whose Bible is best, who understands scripture best, who understands the apostolic tradition, right? You can't understand those things that claim primacy to all that unless you have the best version of the tradition which means the best manuscripts and the best Bible. Right.

[00:07:39]>> Arasmus kind of guys. Yeah.

[00:07:42]>> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. And so yeah, Arasmus and those guys sort sort of um well they wind up villainizing Apocrypha as sort of like popish nonsense, right?

[00:07:52]Um medieval superstition that has accred to the Bible and Protestants are above that. Um and then some Catholics become suspicious of their own apocryphal texts for the same reason as sort of a counterreformation move. So anyway, all to say post 1500 apocrypha start to decline. Um they don't totally and they don't go away. Um in fact some people still are really into them today, right?

[00:08:12]Um but they definitely get viewed with some skepticism after that. Not in Iceland. In Iceland because the Lutheran church is well coming later, right? um that they don't produce their own full translation of the New Testament, right, until like 1550 or something like that.

[00:08:29]Uh it's kind of like the Black Death where it arrives surprisingly late, right?

[00:08:32]>> 1540 is older Golkson's New Testament.

[00:08:35]>> Oh, sorry. 1540. Yeah.

[00:08:37]>> And I think Guunron's Biblia, the complete one is 1584.

[00:08:42]>> Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, so it is like it is, you know, I think that they're sort of imitating Luther's Bible, right, being in the vernacular and they want their own, too. Um so yeah so that all happens a bit late but at the same time they are Lutheranism is connecting them to the continent and to these like continental um you know lanes of transmission cultural transmission and part of that is just texts right um and so on the one hand they're importing Lutheranism and on the other hand somebody is also importing more apocrypha um because we have like the testament of Solomon that shows up as super rare apocryphon on that is not known in the West in general suddenly just crops up in an Icelandic manuscript circa 1500. Um, and that's what I'm trying to figure out. I was like, where the heck did they get It's this cool story about King Solomon using a magic ring to summon demons and help him build the temple. Um, >> rock and roll. Is it is it in Icelandic translation or is it in Latin?

[00:09:39]>> Yeah. Yeah, it's in Icelandic.

[00:09:42]>> Never read that. It's awesome.

[00:09:43]>> It's uh Yeah. Yeah. It's a Mariana Ovagard's 1962 uh uh Arnamagnian edition of the history of the Holy Rude tree. Um and it is just interpolated into that legend and it has ne I've been studying the Holy Rude legend for a long time now and I've never seen a version that just also casually says by the way Solomon used flying demons to haul stones up for the temple. I'm like >> it's rock and roll. I mean that's it's a >> very metal.

[00:10:08]>> Yeah, right. I don't know. This is like a Mega Death album cover, you know? Like damn. So, >> so, uh, the gospel nicodemus is translated into old Norris as >> fun to say.

[00:10:23]>> It is kind of fun to say. And what can you tell us about that translation and the cultural context that produced it?

[00:10:30]And there's a certain amount of I mean, there's so many different threads we can kind of follow here, but you you talk quite a bit about the synretatism, the unique Icelandic synratism >> of pre-Christian and Christian traditions. And I think you make a really interesting implicit and explicit comparison of nitherning saga to Volispaw.

[00:10:50]>> Mhm.

[00:10:50]>> So if you could talk a little bit about that, I'd be happy.

[00:10:53]>> Yeah, sure. Uh I'm trying to think which is the best one to start with. Um why don't we start with Nether Stigo saga and then go backwards to Vulpa as to like what might be going on there. Um so and you know this is not completely uncontroversial, right? Because I think anytime you talk about the history of Volospa in particular, you're just asking for it's sort of like trying to date beolf, right? Uh you are kicking a landmine leafy.

[00:11:18]>> But I mean like you know you don't you don't say anything crazy and I happen to agree with you. So >> Okay, great. People let us know in the chat if they hate it. Um or or in book reviews maybe even better. Um >> or YouTube comments.

[00:11:31]>> Yeah, that's it. Um anyway, yeah. So neither signing saga, right? Which like literally means the the the descent saga, right? um as in the saga of the descent of Christ into hell. Um our earliest manuscript copy of it is circa 1200. Um I think there's pretty good evidence. People philologists smarter than me have argued that it probably goes back another generation of copying before that copy. Um but not much more.

[00:11:57]Uh but anyway, it's the Old Norse translation of the Latin version of the Gospel of Nicodemus. Just the back half.

[00:12:03]Um I mentioned that you know the acts of pilot A and B right were sort of two separate texts. Uh one interesting thing I think one telling thing that happens over the course of the trans uh mission of that text in the middle ages is that the A version becomes a lot less popular. People kind of don't really care for yet another retelling of the trial of Christ. Um and so there's the long Latin version of it that you'll find in some manuscripts. Um but then there's the much more popular hell red action is what it's called in scholarship uh which is a great name right um that's basically just the B text and so that's what you get in saga is just the B text it basically starts and says one day you know um Christ was crucified and went down to hell um so it picks up right at the actually it starts it opens with the um Hebrew Bible uh prophets and patriarchs sort of in darkness and gloom and they see a great light pierce the darkness and they all sort of have a conversation. Adam is like, "Who is that? What is this? What's going on?"

[00:13:03]And then you get this sort of train of prophets who pop up like Isaiah and he says the verse, he says the line that like they would say in the Eastern Eastern liturgy when they are saying, you know, oh, the people who have dwelt in darkness see a great light, right?

[00:13:15]Um, and so it's a sort of way of in having the prophets pop up and say their little uh iconic line, right? The text is basically sort of saying like, ah, here's a chain of um extra literal readings of these Hebrew scriptures, right? Here's the bit from Isaiah that we are interpreting as a prophecy that was really about Jesus, even if Isaiah didn't realize that at the time. Um, right? The the thinking about the timing and all of this actually gets really confusing the more you think about it.

[00:13:42]Um, but anyway, that's what they're doing is they're providing a model of typological readings, right? I guess I should probably tell people typology um in Christian hermeneutics, right? Uh interpretation is the idea that um things that happened in the Old Testament foreshadowed things that would be fulfilled in the New Testament, right? Usually through Christ's life.

[00:14:06]So, you know, uh the term itself actually comes from the Greek word tupos, uh which Paul uses in first Corinthians when he says that Moses and the Israelites passing through the Red Sea was a type for Christian baptism. Um that that they sort of set the pattern in this prophetic way and that that it was fulfilled, right? They pass through the water and they're all saved, right?

[00:14:26]Just like Christians go through the water and they're all saved from the slavery of sin or whatever. Um, so anyway, Gospel of Nic signing saga opens with these prophets who come out and they say their little prophecies about how, ah, that's Jesus. I told you he was going to come. He's going to come and save us. And he does. Um, in the Old Norse version of it, um, one of the things I was really struck by the first time I read it was for a few sentences it seemed like, yeah, okay, this is a literal straightforward translation.

[00:14:56]Probably nothing too exciting going on here. And then as soon as Satan is mentioned for the first time, he is called the high troll of Helheim or the high prince of Helheim. And I was like, wait, what? Um, it was just casually dropped there in the like second sentence.

[00:15:09]>> Do any of the manuscripts include the guitar tabs?

[00:15:14]>> Uh, ns I don't know. I don't know when ns first appear in Icelandic manuscripts, if ever. So, I don't know.

[00:15:20]Um, but that part is probably like in drop D or drop C or something. Um but anyway, uh so that happens right away and then the text kind of goes on and just kind of follows a literal translation of um the Latin version.

[00:15:34]Nothing too exciting until you get to the part where um in the Latin Satan hears about the crucifixion happening.

[00:15:42]Um and so they they sort of report it in the third person about this thing that's happening on earth and they're like and then there's a debate between Satan, death, and hell. uh the personified characters where they're like debating whether it was a bad idea or not to have crucified this guy because he may or may not be the son of God and Satan is an idiot and he's like no he can't be the son of God because he was crying in the garden of Gethsemane. That's how I know he's a human and he's a coward. Um and so >> this whole thing about Satan thinking Jesus is just a man, right? And it kind of like I I was thinking about that because it seemed to be sort of a persistent like motif.

[00:16:17]>> Yeah. And I was kind of thinking about like in the Gospel of Mark, which I'm reasonably familiar with the Gospels because I'm really into Gothic. And so, >> oh yeah, that's all you have to read.

[00:16:26]>> Like, what can I read? But, um, you know, the the the demons are always like it's it's sort of noticeable that they recognize that Christ is who he is and he's like, don't tell anybody or something. Right.

[00:16:39]>> Right.

[00:16:39]>> So, I'm like, why does what why doesn't Satan know and why wouldn't he know, you know?

[00:16:46]>> Yeah. It's um actually sort of reenacting some ecumenical councils um reenacting some of the debates that were happening especially between the eastern church and the western church over the aranism I mean basically over whether Christ was just a man or how the fusion of you know being the god man right we're starting to get into like some really deep uh anzelian type of uh theology with this right but it is sort of reenacting that that >> and honestly when you think Think about it like if you're going to take your opponents in a theological uh argument and assign their opinion to Satan and then show how stupid Satan is, that's a that's a super own, right?

[00:17:25]>> It's a flex. It's a flex.

[00:17:26]>> Yeah. Exactly. Um so yeah, so that is why and also there's this trope about um Satan the beguiler who who beguiled Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden is the one who ultimately is going to be beguiled by Christ. Um, and so like there's this, you know, the concern for symmetry between the whole cosmic, you know, Hayasha, the history of salvation. There needs to be perfect symmetry between all these events, right? So if Satan tricked us in the beginning, he's going to get tricked, uh, at this pivotal moment in history.

[00:17:56]>> Um, but yeah, anyway, so uh, when he hears about it in Old Norse though, he doesn't just talk about it. It say the text says that he shapeshifts into the Midgard serpent and flies to Jerusalem to devour Christ off the cross. Um which obviously does not happen in any other version of this text in any other language ever. Period.

[00:18:16]>> I I was sort of floored by this. Um >> yeah. Yeah. And then the he goes to bite the cross and it falls down on him and it says that it traps him like a fish on a hook or a um mouse in a mouse trap or an arctic fox in a snare, which is like the most Icelandic metaphor you could come up with, right?

[00:18:34]>> Yeah.

[00:18:36]It's always kind of fun when when it actually gets really Icelandic.

[00:18:39]I I had heard about this like just you know it the the the term nether signaga had bounced around here and there and you know I see you know some because it is a fairly old text right so I sometimes see like oh you know this archaic form is attested there and I'm like h whatever it's just more homalytic literature but apparently this is actually really rad >> yeah yeah that's the thing is like people often assume that like apocrypha like you know it's already just more Sunday school stories yeah >> I've read it in Latin why would I bother to read again in a harder dead language, right? This is what you're missing out on. This is what my book is trying to, you know, deliver you to. Um, but yeah, so uh when So, what's especially like amazing to me about that particular moment with the the fish hook slasharctic fox uh what's the word? What's the old Norse? Tati for like a wooden cat is the name for a mouse trap, right? Um which I also find charming in its own way. But uh Satan gets trapped, right? He gets tricked in this way. And in that moment, the saga writer has basically brought together three separate strands and woven them together in like a single sentence quite seamlessly, I think.

[00:19:50]Right. Um there's three levels of logic at least going on there. First, you get Satan uh caught like a fish on a fish hook, which is an image. It's a a phrase borrowed straight from a homaly by John Chrissum uh where he says that Christ was um you know he's like a fisherman um which isn't surprising given all the time he spends on fishing boats in the gospels right um and that he he catches the uh on the flesh or the the hook of his divinity he catches uh Satan right and so again coming back to this this thing about how Satan doesn't understand the true nature of Christ as a god man that's what allows that's why the crucifixion works, right? That's how it is salvific. Um, and so anyway, that's coming from John Crosstum. Um, and it's sort of a homalytic commonplace that gets recycled later on. Um, but that's one strand. The other strand is um we get this we we get the Midgard serpent being caught on a fish hook and defeated because of that, right? Which to me screams Humes, right? Thor's fishing trip. Um he's the other guy who caught the Midgard serpent famously and you know may or may not well you know in one version he kills him in another version most versions uh the giant humir cuts the line and lets him go and so they'll have their final confrontation at Ragnarok right uh that's two strands what's the third strand um fish on a fish hook oh I lost my train of thought >> mousetrap artic fox um I mean both of those strands are compelling right >> yeah yeah yeah right and so yeah and so like but this you get this weird moment where it's like, okay, Christ literally out Thor's Thor, >> right? Um, they're using, it's staggering to me that they're using Norse mythology, even obliquely like this, to basically typologically explain something as central as the crucifixion, right? It's like the central fact of of this religion.

[00:21:45]>> Yeah. I mean, it brings you back to uh which cross is that? Is that the Gossford cross?

[00:21:50]>> Yes.

[00:21:50]>> Right. uh which you also I mean you aduced that in in your discussion of this but just and just remarkable I mean that that you cannot help but think that that's an intentional echo I mean right >> you you have the excuse always of course yeah I will make you fishers of men Jesus is a fisherman etc right but like it's it's too perfect yeah >> right >> especially something introduced >> yeah and so like to take that moment and sort of you know there's nothing in the Latin that would suggest that you should bring in any other body of mythology or whatever uh in relation to this discussion, right? Um and so that's like clearly like a very clever move by some translator, some redactor at some point uh to bring that in. Um and the only purpose that I could think of to do that is to appeal to an audience that knows Norse mythology well enough that this reference would would would awe them, right? that they would see that like Christ finishes the job that Thor could not do, right?

[00:22:50]Because even in the end, uh spoilers, hopefully people know this, but you know, Thor and the Midgard Serpent kill each other, right? Uh he doesn't get to triumph over the Midgard Serpent. Um but Jesus does, right?

[00:23:02]And and all of this ties I mean just to kind of bring it back to something we mentioned at the beginning of this discussion ties back to Volis a little bit because you see some sort of like a much earlier version of the same kind of synretatism but from the other way there right >> yeah it's a really vexed question in the field right as you know um the question of you know we have all these old texts we have the poetic eta I mean you know you have your translation of them right you've worked with them intimately um their reception history is a real puzzle. um we have these texts that had to have written like we know the technology of writing is a Christian importation mostly right I mean they they had runes before that but there as far as we know there's not like a whole codeex this runic length right so so booklength writing is a monastic thing mostly um at least originally and so how is it that we have all these written texts that linguistically we can argue they're much older and some of us believe in that um and other people you know are linguistically agnostic. Um, >> and then there's lots of people at universities in Germany that say that we're idiots for thinking that. So, it's kind of how it goes.

[00:24:14]>> Yeah. Yeah. And so, uh, that's so that's it's a very vexed question of sort of what if if the texts really are if the poems are centuries older, right? Uh, which linguistically I think you can you can make a metrically, especially like Chris Saps book a great job of of demonstrating that, right? Um uh and of course, you know, as a student of of Rob Folk, I'm also inclined to believe believe the metricists. Um >> those are two two great name drops.

[00:24:44]>> Um but yeah, I mean uh so that's that's just sort of where my my loyalties are.

[00:24:49]Um although I am not a metrist myself, right? Uh Rob tried very hard and you know, we moved on. Um he let me do my weird apocrypha thing instead. Um but yeah uh if the texts really are as old as we think they are the poems I shouldn't I should say um rather than the texts then how is it that we have written versions from so much later especially after the conversion period especially when you have other peoples around the North Sea who converted who didn't keep a shred of their mythologies right in England I mean we got nothing uh we have the days of the week and from that we can deduce that they must have known something about Woden and Thor and Fri am I forgetting one >> tier two Tuesday, right? Tuesday, right?

[00:25:30]Yeah. Yeah. I was like, I feel like I'm started the wrong part of the week.

[00:25:32]Anyway, um yeah, so we have four glam very passing references to them. Um we don't I mean it seems like for whatever reason when the English converted, they had to leave all of that stuff behind or maybe I mean I'm sure you could phrase it differently. Maybe there was an active campaign to suppress it. Uh I think the metrical charms gives it gives us cl uh glances at like maybe some rural traditions. This is sort of what my old English chapter is at least partially thinking about right um sort of out there in the heath in the countryside. It seems like there were survivals or whatever or pockets or something at least maybe it's just folklore tradition but anyway if that's representative you know and indeed we don't have old Saxon we don't have much in old Saxon either. We don't have much in Gothic like references to pre-Christian religion, right? Uh which makes sense cuz it's just the New Testament. Um but you know, the question in my mind is why were the Icelanders/Nwegians so special? Why did they get to keep their mythology I I hesitate to say intact, but why did they get to keep so much of it? Right?

[00:26:41]Maybe the intact is an illusion created by people after 1200, right? Um, maybe it was pre-Christian. Uh, that's where things get really contentious, I think.

[00:26:50]Um, but whatever it is, there's so much more of it than there is in Old English or Old Saxon or whatever other um pre-Christian. The only other group in this whole region that gets to keep anything, it seems, uh, are the Irish.

[00:27:03]Um, and and you know, maybe there's something to say about that connection, right? But um but yeah, it's it's all very speculative because we're talking about a centuries wide gap between when these texts might have been composed orally versus when they were written down and trying to uh look at a text like Volispa and figure out okay so you know the the if you make like a stanza by stanza summary of the plot of Vulispa it's overall uh program is kind of reminds you of the Bible right of of the Christian world history there's a creation with a sort of golden age. And then there's like a fall of sorts around stanza 7, right? Uh or eight when Ghoul Viag gets brought in um and tortured um maybe that's gold and greed corrupting society or whatever, right? And then there's a fall like the sky is blended and Loki shows up out of nowhere. Uh and then we get sort of a steady march through like phases like miserable phases of increasingly horrible history, right? until we get to um Ragnarok and and there's going to be a final battle and the whole order is going to pass away. There's going to be a series of cataclysms that are evocative of the um Christian civiline uh doomsday prophecies and the 15 signs of judgment which is another apocryphal text. Um and then everything, you know, everything goes up in flames. Uh and then in one version, right, in the Hawks book version, we get the we get the the happy ending. The In the Ricky comes down, right? Whoever that is, probably Jesus, right? Um and everything is good again and and there's a new creation. So, like when you look at that that plot skeleton, it's hard to look at that and say, "Yeah, that's just a coincidence that uh that it mirrors Christian the whole Christian world salvation history blow forblow, right? Like that's the Augustinian seven days of creation plot.

[00:28:59]>> Yeah. And I I think I think it's hard to look at Volvo and not think that the author somehow has encountered some version of the Christian story. What's interesting I think in well there's a lot of things interesting about your take on this. Part of it is your particular view and very clear way of talking about the synchronism of all which I want to hear some more about.

[00:29:20]But I also want to say bringing in all the apocrypha because I had you know I've read revelation >> and you know you read revelation and you read Volispaw and and it there's not that much similarity between Revelation as a book and Volispa because one thing Revelation keeps doing is basically you know this is your fault this is your fault this is a >> bunch of angry emails right >> yeah yeah and and I guess that's not quite so true of some of the apocryphal literature Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, Vulpal and uh the its version of Ragnarok and things like that is often compared to another old Norse text, Merlin, right? Uh the prophecy of Merlin. Um which also seems to have some familiarity with the 15 signs of judgment tradition. Um which is, you know, wildly another wildly popular apocryphal text that is what it sounds like. These are the 15 signs according to Jerome, who is absolutely not Jerome.

[00:30:17]Um these are the 15 signs that you should watch out for when you know that the antichrist is about to come and the day of judgment is going to come, right? Um and uh that that list is wildly popular.

[00:30:28]You can imagine, you know, if people are waiting for the end of the world, if they're taught in Sunday school that like we are living in the sixth day, right? The sixth day of of the world history week according to Augustine starts at the uh ascension of Christ, right? After after Christ goes back up to heaven. we're just sitting here in day six waiting and waiting and waiting for him to come back and bring the final judgment and get rid of all this crap and make everything better and that'll be day seven and it'll all be perfect, right? Um so if you think you're sitting at the very very end of history, then you're always going to be looking for the signs of judgment because you're like any day now, right? Um and so yeah, that sort of preoccupation seems to be behind texts like that in Old Norse. Um, if Volospa is genuinely preconversion, um, and if it represents like the kind of Christianity that a skull might hear a missionary preaching, um, and that's I think that's very possible. Um, I also think that this fixation on that world history trajectory and waiting for doomsday like that is a classic um, old English homalytic formula, right? If you've read like any even two old English homalies, you will know that they always take a sort of turn at the end where it's turn or burn, right? Um it's it's judgment day is coming. Jesus is coming back. It's going to be really bad if you're on the wrong side of it.

[00:31:47]Therefore, um you know, embrace him as your Lord. And it's the old English alter call. Um >> this is all in Wolf Ston's greatest hits and whatever. Yeah.

[00:31:56]>> Yeah. Wolto, Alfred, even the Blickling homalies like all of them do this sort of this pattern, right? Um, even Alfred's I was just reading yesterday Alfred in the Dumbart notes volume. Um, Alfred's very first homaly on the creation of the world is really just this salvation history that we've just been talking about and it ends surprise surprise with uh Jesus is coming back.

[00:32:18]Get your crap together, right? Um, and so you can imagine like that's the sermon if that's the sermon that this poet is hearing. Um, and this poet is like, you know, this world view is kind of rad. Um, I want to map it onto our Norse mythology, right? Um, where would our gods fit into that scheme, right? Or what would it look like if that scheme were true? I I'm not totally sure what's going on in this person's mind, right?

[00:32:44]Or this tradition uh or whatever we're talking about here, right? But somehow it seems like a person or persons tried to use these together. Um whether that is as some scholars have argued to sort of create a Norse version of you know oh it's nice that these Christians have their scheme of world history we have one too right like is it in competition or is it meant to be syncric and like be like a new thing you know is Christ one among many right is he just another assier that's being sort of brought into the pantheon right um it's hard to tell exactly what the motivation would have been for this sort of move especially because it's so unprecedented within in medieval European literature, right? Um if other people did it, we don't have any any surviving written evidence to show it, right?

[00:33:34]>> Well, and you wonder too how conscious the imitation is, right? Like I think about all the crappy sci-fi movies that have been made since 1977, which >> like even if they're not trying to rip off Star Wars, they rip off Star Wars.

[00:33:46]>> Yeah. Yeah. Like and >> if you if you've heard it enough, if like you it's going to creep into the way you tell the story anyway because you're it it's like oh yeah this is how a sto I don't know this is how a story is framed.

[00:34:00]>> Yeah.

[00:34:01]>> Yeah. I mean whether Yeah. you're talking about secondary orality uh essentially, right? Um but primary and secondary have that in common of like if you are steeped in a tradition when you turn around and go to produce a new you know your take on whatever myth, right?

[00:34:16]Odds are you're going to imitate some of those genre markers probably unconsciously. I think I think you're right about that. Um I don't know if it has to be a deliberate evocation, right?

[00:34:25]Same deal with with uh Odin hanging himself for nine days and nine nights.

[00:34:29]Is that really meant to be the crucifixion or is it just a powerful moment when a god sacrifices themsel and so we're going to do the same thing?

[00:34:38]Right. Hard to say.

[00:34:40]>> Yeah. It's you know are you were you were you trying to rip something off when you had someone say no I'm your father or did you just think it was kind of cool and you decided to work it into your story too. Right. Yeah. I mean like and you can't really answer these questions for sure >> but but it it opens all kinds of questions and I think that your discussion of >> Volspa as a text informed by Christianity in these specific ways is is really well done and really interesting >> and a really interesting mirror to another saga 200 years later say >> yeah and that's why I picked them right is they sort of are taking the opposite angle on a similar phenomenon right um they're both doing this whatever we want to call this syncric thing right where instead of being exclusivistic and saying it's either Norse heathenism or it's Christianity right both are sort of interested in saying well what if it's kind of both somehow right is looking at that I think from a pre at least one way to interpret it would be that is a pre-Christian looking at the tradition trying to make it make sense together whereas Whereas neither signing or saga would be uh you know a Christian looking back and saying well what if what if the old nor myths what if our ancestors in particular um were special right what if they were to us as the Israelites were to Christians right as sort of the typological forbearers who who paved the way for this church here in you know uh monk or whatever.

[00:36:22]Um, >> and I think that's a really interesting discussion that that that you have too is about this notion of sort of rehabbing the asir and the heathen ancestors as like okay guys, right? Like or at least sort of provisionally okay guys. I mean actually this kind of >> virtuous heathens, right?

[00:36:39]>> Which is like this weird category in medieval literature that happens quite a lot. Trajan gets it ushered into this and Dante and before that um the idea that there were that God was always trying to reach out to humans um and there are revelations. This is actually a very Tolkenian, you know, if you've read his um poem to CS Lewis, right? Um this is sort of what they're talking about um with this, what is it? Mythopa, the poem.

[00:37:06]>> Myth myth. Yeah, mythopia or something.

[00:37:08]Yeah.

[00:37:09]>> Yeah. Yeah. I don't know how to say it.

[00:37:11]>> Yeah. Mythopoya. Um but uh yeah the the idea that God is sort of was all throughout history was always trying to reach out to all the peoples of the world and some revelations were more uh intact than others. Uh that some of them are splintered light if you will. I know I'm reading my Tolken into actual history and maybe that's not a great idea but um but you know the idea that there are partial revelations that were somewhat obscured um or garbled or whatever. Um this is a very medieval idea. um Virgil's fourth eklog gets used as a prophecy for Christ's birth, right?

[00:37:47]As a way to prove that the Romans, again going back to the question of like, well, is should Rome really be the seed of the church? Um some medieval people said, "Ah, yes, uh Virgil actually was a prophet just like Isaiah or whatever, and he prophesied about the coming of Christ. Just read the fourth eklog and you'll see, right? So did the symbols, right? God was trying to prepare the whole world for the c for his coming into history, right? And so why not the why not the Assir as well? Why not the uh Norris wherever they happen to live uh forebears? Um why couldn't they have a partial prophetic um you know warning or or not warning but uh what's a positive word for that? Um >> premonition. I don't know.

[00:38:30]>> Yeah. Premonition, foreshadowing, something like that, right? Uh why shouldn't they get have had a foretaste of this great event too just like lots of other people around the world did.

[00:38:38]Right.

[00:38:39]>> Mhm. And you and this actually brings up another really interesting deep cuddled Norse text that you discussed that weird. Will you tell us a little bit about that?

[00:38:48]>> I love Thorstein's thath skelks. Um so it's the the tale of thorine shiver right the are those little short uh pros narratives that sometimes travel in in big collections at the end of um like um >> saga trickerson.

[00:39:03]>> Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. And uh they're called Falcon I believe because doesn't that mean strand literally?

[00:39:09]>> Yeah. And so the idea is um you know maybe they were sort of oral storytelling episodes uh that traveled together and like if you wanted to make a new saga you could sort of read a bunch of these and take the tropes and like weave from these strands weave a new you know tapestry a new story um together. Um but anyway this particular one is delightful right? Uh it's it's one of those uh Icelanders abroad um stories which seems to be a subgenre within the um and uh we find out how Thorstein Shiver earns his nickname. Um >> yeah and it's you know I don't know uh maybe I should say if you're grossed out by discussions of outhouses you should sit this out but >> yeah this is going to be not safe for work uh because there's going to be a lot of toilet talk.

[00:40:00]>> Yeah it's it's surprisingly gross.

[00:40:03]Yeah. Yeah, it really is. Yeah. Did you do you want me to like walk us through it?

[00:40:07]>> Yeah, might as well. Just so we can >> Okay.

[00:40:10]>> Yeah. I don't know. I don't know how much uh how much time you want to devote to this, but um so this is coming at the I use it to introduce that Old Norse chapter, the fifth chapter of the book, uh because I think it really epitomizes sort of the cultural logic and anxieties that are at play in so many of these Old Norse texts that think about the pre-Christian and the Christian sometimes side by side. Right? So, in the story, um, Thorstein is out east.

[00:40:34]Um, I guess that that probably means Norway, right?

[00:40:37]>> Probably.

[00:40:38]>> Yeah. Um, >> yeah. Yeah. From an isolator. Yeah. So, anyway, he's out east with the king and, uh, King Olaf's, you know, they're out partying, uh, carousing. Um, and the king says, you know, do what you want.

[00:40:51]Um, but there's one rule tonight after the party. Do not go to the outhouse alone. Right. Um, and so since he's made that rule, of course, an Icelander has to break that rule, right?

[00:41:03]Um, they all drink, they all go to sleep. Um, but everybody's supposed to have a, you know, a potty buddy. Um, basically, and Thorstein wakes up in the middle of the night, right? He hears nature's call. Um, and he tries to wake the guy up, but the guy has had even more to drink than he has, and he's not he can't wake him up. So, he thinks, you know what? It's fine. I'm just going to No one will know, right? So, he slips out. He goes out to the outhouse and it is I will say that I spent an embarrassing amount of time uh researching uh outhouses from late antiquity to now um as I was reading the story because what it says is he goes to the outhouse and it says that there are 11 seats um in there and the more digging I did apparently like this actually would mean two benches that faced each other so 22 seats in all likelihood.

[00:41:55]Um cuz he's >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. This is just a thing.

[00:42:00]Um so, so he goes out there and he's by himself, right? And he's sitting apparently in the seat that is closest to the door. And all of a sudden, as he's sitting there trying to do his business, um he hears something. He looks all the way down the end of this long hallway. Um and he sees a demon, a pooky, the text says, climb up out of the furthest toilet seat. And it just kind of plops down on the seat and they start making small talk as one does, I guess. Um although personally I'm horrified when that happens in real life.

[00:42:27]>> Yes.

[00:42:29]>> Um and so he's like trying to make small talk with the demon in the toilet and he just says like, "Hey, um you know who who comes there, right? Who who are you?" And the demon's like, "Uh it's what does he say?" Um I forgot his actual name. I have the book.

[00:42:44]>> It's Well, he has a kind of a normal name, right? like >> um >> it seems like he has like he's claiming to be an actual warrior who died cuz he's a >> uh he's a fain of who is it? Oh yeah, he's Thoral the Thin is what he's called. He's a long deadad warrior from the retinue of the semi- mythical 9th century heathen king Harold War is what he says. Um he's just come up out of the latrine out of the toilet from hell, right? Um, and so Thorstein is trying to figure out, it doesn't say this in the text, but I'm imagining that he is unhappy about a demon, like being alone in the bathroom with a demon. And um, he's trying to stall, right? Pun intended. Um, and trying to like figure out how to get out of the situation.

[00:43:32]According to folklore, you can't turn your back on a demon, right? Or the demon will just instantly grab you and drag you to hell, right, through the toilet. Um, and so he has to sort of make up a game or come up with an excuse to like talk. So he asks the demon, "What's it like in hell, right?" And uh, who's down there? Um, and the demon just starts casually nameropping a bunch of old Norse legendary heroes, right? Um, and the which is interesting in of itself, right? The assumption is that these pre-Christian even the greatest of the pre-Christians, right? Sigard uh, Fafnespani and uh, Staren Gami, right?

[00:44:06]uh Starcod the old, they're down in hell, right? So being a good heathen was not enough. Being a good hero was not enough to get you out of hell.

[00:44:13]>> And yet, as you point out, the critical thing, who endures the torment best?

[00:44:18]>> That's his follow-up question, right?

[00:44:19]Who deals with it the tortures of hell best, right? And so there's still this heroic preoccupation with like, okay, sure, they're in hell, but like who's toughest about it, right? Who's the manliest while they're in hell, right?

[00:44:31]Um and so the demon dutifully like he takes the bait, right? He's like, "Oh, yeah. Sigard Fafnespani uh deals with it the the best, the most bravely, as you might expect." Um, and and there's this sort of delightful sense of humor in this tale as well, right? Where the demon always sort of misleadingly describes what he's talking about. Um, and so at first he says that uh >> flames look at his ankles or something.

[00:44:56]>> Yeah. Thorstein says, "Well, what's what torture does he endure?" Right? And the demon says, "Oh, he's up to his ankles in flames." And uh Thor's like, "Well, that doesn't sound so bad." And he goes, "Wait, because you don't understand it."

[00:45:05]He's upside down, right?

[00:45:08]Um and then, you know, you get the next one where he says, "Well, who endures it the worst?" And he says, "Starti, right, is the one who who deals with it worst."

[00:45:17]Um and his shrieks are so bad that even it's the worst thing that we demons in hell have ever experienced in hell, right? Um and so then he asks him, you know, well, what's his torture, right?

[00:45:29]And he says, "Well, he kindles an oven."

[00:45:31]And Thorine says, "Well, that doesn't sound so bad." It's like he himself is the kindling, right? Um, and as they're having this conversation, the demon is scooting three seats closer every time they uh have an exchange, which is bad news for our protagonist, right? And so he says, "Well, if it's so bad, um, can you do the screen? We we can you do your best star color impression?" And the demon's like, "Absolutely. I would love that."

[00:45:56]Uh, and so he lets out a terrible shriek and you know it, Thorstein can barely stand the first shriek and he's like, "That was it, huh? That was pretty bad."

[00:46:03]And the demon was like, "Oh, no. I was just clearing my throat." Basically, um, he doesn't say exactly that, but he says, you know, "Oh, no, no, that was not it at all." Um, and so then he goes, "Okay, well, do the real thing for real." And so the demon does an even louder, more horrifying shriek and Thorstein actually passes out and then like wakes up on the floor, I guess. Um, and he was like, "That was really terrible." And the demon was like, "Oh, no, no, that was just his quietest scream." Um Thorsine goes, "Give us the loudest one." Right? And so then the demon does do and he like wraps his cloak around his head and like covers his ears um trying to get ready for it.

[00:46:34]And so he's sort of able to survive this one. But the demons shriek so loud that all of a sudden the text tells us that the church bells ring out and that sound causes the demon to fall to the floor and then poof, you know, disappear in a puff of smoke. Um and that's how Thorstein survives his encounter with this uh you know, outhouse trip from hell, right? Um, and the implication is he knew that that King Olaf, you know, if he heard these demonic screams from far away that he would ring the church bell to sort of banish the demon and that would be his only way out without turning his back on the demon. Um, and then he goes back and then in the morning, King Olaf's in a really bad mood at mass. Uh, and and Thorine has to come clean. Um, and in the end, you know, he gets scolded. Oh, it's typical of you Icelanders to to not follow directions, right? Um, and he says, "Were you scared?" And Thorstein says, "I felt maybe a shiver." So that's how he gets his nickname, right? He's Thorine shiver. Um, and he's given a place of honor and all that. And it's a happy ending.

[00:47:31]>> It becomes a here's mothers and all that. Like it's it's like it's such a short story.

[00:47:38]>> Like reading it is probably actually shorter than the discussion we just had about it.

[00:47:43]>> But it it packs such a punch, right? Like it's so in one way it's so archetypically medieval Christian and in another way it's so archetypically Icelandic.

[00:47:55]>> Yeah. It's wonderful. Right. I mean like yeah the idea that this demon crawls like through a physical literal port hole to hell right and crawls up out of the sewer. Right. And um uh is it Caroline Larington who wrote on this?

[00:48:09]Wait, I want to make sure I get it right.

[00:48:13]>> If you've got the book right there. I don't I don't >> I got the book. Um there's an article on this that talks Yeah, it is Caroline Larington. Diet, defecation, and the devil discussed in the pagan past. And she's like one of the only people before my book that had talked about this this at all. Right. And I think she rightfully points to like the from especially from the Christian angle, this is about disgust, right? This is about a Christian Icelander who is too curious about what's going on down in hell, right? That he literally to learn about it, he literally has to go to a toilet, right? and sort of inquire of the toilet. Um, and you know, this demon that is presumably covered in feces, right? Because these are not these are not flushing toilets, right? No such thing exists yet. Um, or post Rome, right? Whatever. Uh, he's going to be gross, right? Um, and so like just the idea symbolically of being interested in the past is disgusting and suspect in and of itself, right? Um, and it's also sort of symbolically taking all of these pre-Christian myths and saying they belong in the toilet, right? in their filth. They are >> below you as a Christian, right? Um >> and yet he's presented as kind of sympathetic, right? Like and it's like this is these are natural questions that occur to him, you know, and like it as if these are natural questions that would occur to an audience member.

[00:49:28]>> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Right.

[00:49:29]Because he's still an Icelander, right?

[00:49:31]Although, you know, he's a Christian and an Icelander and he's out east with the king, right? Doing whatever the king and his retinues do out east, right?

[00:49:38]Presumably bullying people for for silver. Um but uh but yeah, he's um I think like you say, it's such a perfect fusion of medieval Christianity and medieval Icelandic interests, right?

[00:49:53]Because of course he wants to know about his ancestors and about these heroes and who endures it most manfully because those are the things that you want to know when you read a saga, right? Or here saga.

[00:50:03]>> Um >> yeah. So, and I think it's also a parody too of like the Volispile type tradition where you consult a dead seas who will tell you about the underworld, right?

[00:50:13]Um, and instead he's talking to a toilet, right? Or a toilet demon. Um, which in and of itself is quite funny to me.

[00:50:20]>> Yeah. I mean, there's a lot of layers you could dig into here hopefully.

[00:50:23]>> Yeah, >> I'm not kidding.

[00:50:25]>> No gloves on.

[00:50:27]>> Um, you know, cuz like hell is below.

[00:50:31]So is what you've excavated beneath the outhouse. So yeah, if someone is coming up from hell, be that a vulva or a demon or whatever, then that they might come through the outhouse. That's a portal as it were, right? That's a a higher level of down. Um but I don't know, like I had read the story before and said kind of like, "Wow, that's weird, >> right?"

[00:50:55]>> But I hadn't thought about it very deeply. But like you you really got me thinking about it quite a bit and and revisiting it and it I was kind of like weirdly delighted mindb blown by it because it really is as you point out a really fascinating syncretic moment that's not very like you can't imagine an old English version of that right >> oh yeah no never right bead would never >> yeah right bead would never yeah that's true but but like but the Iceland of Snory's days like oh yeah this is the kind of thing people were absolutely talking about and telling jokes about and yeah, I I thought it was amazing. By the way, that that word pooky, someone with a Celtic background, is that a Celtic word?

[00:51:38]>> Um, no. As far as I Well, you know what?

[00:51:41]Um, what I was thinking was in Two Towers uh when the um they're mustering the Roherum and uh they're all, you know, where are they? They're at Dunharrow, right? um getting the armies together so they can ride off to the Pelanor fields later. Um there are there's like the haunted mountain side, right? Um and outside of them the the text says that there are puklmen p u kel and that was the first time I'd ever seen that word, you know, as a teenager.

[00:52:14]So I did some digging. Um and pukl is a it's an old English word. Um I don't etmologically be behind old English.

[00:52:24]That's a good question. Is it common Germanic or is it somehow filtered like is it a a lone word? Uh I feel like >> you don't see it very much in Old Norse.

[00:52:33]You see it some you don't see a lot and just >> shows up in Shakespeare, right? I don't have to just reference Tolken, but it's also Puck, right? The demon.

[00:52:42]>> Oh, is that the Okay. I just thought, you know, I mean, it starts with a P basically. So, I'm like, uh, that that already makes it look slightly foreign. Like, is this Welsh or something, you know? I don't know. Uh, just just curious if you knew.

[00:52:58]>> But then P in Welsh would go back to a to a protoeltic uh C sound, right?

[00:53:06]>> Well, >> I'm definitely not going to make a joke about cucks. Um, but I have I have holding. Uh, I don't know if your pe if your audience cares for >> we we don't have to get into the weeds about this. I was just the word came up and I was like, "Oh, yeah. I wanted to ask you about that because you actually know more about Celtic than I do." Uh, like way more.

[00:53:26]>> Oh, but um, give me one second because now I feel like I need to just um, would you believe that the AI generated answer was complete horseshit?

[00:53:40]>> No way.

[00:53:42]something about a Native American bowl.

[00:53:43]Uh, which might actually be true, but completely irrelevant to what we're talking about. Oh, yeah. It pulled that from wictionary actually. Um, >> totally out of context as if it didn't understand what you were asking because it doesn't actually think. Wow.

[00:53:53]>> Yeah, that's correct. Because it doesn't understand anything.

[00:53:57]>> Oh, interesting. Okay.

[00:54:00]>> This happens to me all the time where I'm like, where's that come from? And all of a sudden, I'm going down this huge rabbit hole. Yeah, >> according to to Wictionary at least, um it does come from protogerermanic pukco.

[00:54:12]Um and it just Yeah, it's not a it's not a lone word. I didn't think it was.

[00:54:16]>> Okay. Um >> so yeah, it would be a rare pger Germanic word.

[00:54:20]>> Yeah, I mean they're out there, but >> yeah, >> just always sort of get flagged in my head when I see them, you know. But yeah, I mean when you see a word like that, I mean pooky presumably is like a really really deep layer of um oral folkloric, you know, cultural memory, right? Um it's a native word for a demon. Um you know, because sometimes there's another signing saga will use the word, right? Uh which is obviously just borrowed straight from Latin Diablo, right? Which is itself a borrowing from Greek. Diablo uh meaning the devil. So, um, yeah. So, this is I don't know what to say about the antiquity of the word. Why it would be a pooky instead of a devil, right, is a good question. I think Simonetta Batista would probably be the one uh to ask. Um, she's written about the the vocabulary of like devils and blow men and blow mother and uh things like that, but I don't remember what what what the article says about it to be honest.

[00:55:18]>> That would be that would be an interesting interview too. Nina in the comments says that Nissuk is the north friian relative of the tona or nissa. So >> a friian reflex of the word as well.

[00:55:30]>> Awesome. That's so exciting. Yeah. So we've got fision, we've got old English, we've got old Norse.

[00:55:38]>> That's at least a good amount of North Sea.

[00:55:40]>> Yeah. Yeah. And that's probably why they're able to arrive at a protogerermanic reconstruction anyway is that they've got multiple attestations.

[00:55:48]>> Yeah.

[00:55:48]>> We've taken about an hour of your time.

[00:55:50]I want to be sensitive about your time.

[00:55:53]Would you take a question or two from the audience if anybody to throw at you?

[00:55:57]Would anyone in the audience like to to post any comments or remarks questions in the in the chat?

[00:56:02]>> Also, anything you uh I mean, we could spend another couple hours talking about just the Old Nor stuff, but could you give a pitch for some of the old English and Welsh and Irish texts that you discuss as well?

[00:56:18]>> Oh, lord. Okay. summarize the rest of the book in 30 seconds.

[00:56:21]>> Yeah.

[00:56:24]>> Sure. Believe it or not, like not that uh this is a disclaimer for my publisher because um this is not a dissertation, right? Because they don't publish dissertations. Um but the dissertation version of this project was double the length um of this already long book. So I've got like 50 pages per chapter that made it that are on the cutting room floor. Um yeah. Uh anyway, um so the Old Irish chapter is basically thinking about um well, let's start with the Old Norse one since that's what we've been talking about. In the Old Norse chapter, what I'm really asking is a why were they allowed to keep so much of their myth and b what happens? How do they use Apocrypha to to sort of allow them to look at their their ancestors as virtuous heathens, right? um for so each chapter sort of think looks at a different preoccupation that I sort of detect um after reading a lot of hell texts in these languages. Um and I think each region does have different questions because localization is a concept that I talk about in the book of not just translating these texts but localizing them so that they speak to local cultural concerns, local concerns about identity, about who belongs and who doesn't, that sort of thing. Um so in the Irish uh chapter they're they're really worried about um the question of universalism and does salvation does everyone get saved in the end right is hell forever um or is it more purgative right in a pre-purgatory world uh purgatory itself as a concept doesn't really get codified formally until after the 1100s. Uh but they've got a bunch of texts that are worried about uh like Judas tries to escape from hell uh by that's why he hangs himself according to the Irish is he's in a big hurry to get to hell because he thinks that when he gets there if he gets there before Jesus liberates everyone then he's going to get to heaven too right um and Jesus sort of like you know it's like a wy coyote thing like freezes his soul so that by the time his soul gets to hell he's the first one trapped in hell forever right um yeah it's wild um in old English that chapter is thinking about the uh baffling array of metaphors for hell um that the English are using um which I think a speaks to just how much they were thinking about hell right like I really wasn't kidding when I said every homaly and even half the poems in the exit book that don't seem to be homalies are homalytic right and they end with thinking about the final judgment in hell right um and so I'm thinking about the competing metaphors for hell there's one particularly uh baffling poem called the descent into hell Um it's in the exit book and it >> starts in hell and by the end it is you know because it's describing the harrowing of hell. It's an Easter poem.

[00:59:05]Um and so by the end it becomes this like really joyous celebration. Um and they're talking about baptism and they're talking about the new Jerusalem and they're like it's kind of an incoherent poem. Um and that's actually the first text that I was working on for this whole project, right? Was I read that for an Exod class and I was like what is going on here? Right? we were in hell one second ago and now John the Baptist is like talking about having arms while he was still in his mother's womb and then we're talking about baptism and I have no clue what this means. Um it turns out that they're just taking a bunch of apocryphal images and smooshing them together almost to the point where it's hard to understand what's going on. But the fact that hell would be a place for celebration and joy, right? because um effectively they're inviting you to imagine what it would be like to be one of these people who is lost in sin and darkness and all of a sudden is delivered, right? Like that's what salvation is. That's what Easter is supposed to represent. Um so that's one of the things that they can do. Um and then I know we've got a bunch of questions coming in here. Uh what's the one? Oh, Welsh. Um that chapter is thinking about um politics and hell um with the Angloormans sort of asserting uh dominance and building castles all over the place and making many Welsh people very miserable. Um there's a whole genre of uh Welsh bic courtly poetry by the Kokenber. Um the the slightly more recent uh bards is what that term means.

[01:00:28]Um, and these poems are celebrating kings for conquest, but then that genre gets grafted onto Christ when they ask Christ to conquer their enemies, their worldly enemies, the Angloormans, and deliver them from the hell, right, of they take this whole heroing of hell narrative, and sort of project it onto their contemporary politics in ways that I find really interesting.

[01:00:52]>> U, so they're sort of reading their own lives as typology. Um whereas the the the Norse are reading their ancestors typologically.

[01:01:00]>> Mhm. That's I mean that's fascinating of itself just that capsule of the different obsessions that you're looking at. Right.

[01:01:06]>> I mean you know it it needless to say we know one very well known book about obsessing about hell Dante's Inferno.

[01:01:14]But it sounds like you know Snory's Inferno would be a really different thing versus Wolf Stone's Inferno.

[01:01:19]>> Yeah. Exactly right. Yeah. Yeah. I think each region like each culture, you know, not that they're monolithic, but um but I think the texts that survive show that there was there were recurring patterns within certain regions, right? Um the Irish are the only ones who are asking about universalism. No one that's not even on anyone else's radar, right? I think that's because they have a body of text, they have origin, they have stuff that people other people don't have. Um and so they're asking questions of it.

[01:01:46]>> Yeah.

[01:01:46]>> Yeah.

[01:01:47]>> Should we go to the questions? Really just one question has come up over here that I see. Cameron asked if the pagan underworld per Christian hell did Valhole parallel heaven in any way >> certainly warrior's description.

[01:02:01]>> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Right. It's if you're a warrior this definitely sounds like heaven. Um I don't know a Sunday school reading of Valhalla per se. Um but I think that you know the conversion the confusion of um with the term all father right? Um, you know, sometimes Odin in in some poems is called the va father and in others he's called the all father, right? And I remember, you know, my old Norse teacher told told us that like, well, v father is probably the older term, right? That he was the father of the slain and that he became the all father when um later Christian poets sort of reinterpret that term because they don't remember what it means anymore.

[01:02:40]>> Or is it even father? Because what if it's father, right? What what if it's f the lord? Yeah, you know. Yeah.

[01:02:47]>> Yeah. Yeah. It could be. Yeah, it could be that too. Um, but at any rate, uh, that the question about that prefix, the vow prefix, you know, I don't know if that works with Valhalla, uh, the hall of the slain, the hall of everyone. I will say that um, mythologically when we see poems where um, let's see, all the warriors go to Valhalla, but um, Freya gets a crop of them too, right? Um, and hers is more peaceful, her afterlife. uh not that we get not that we hear much about it, but um I think the idea that that when you die there is a a positive afterlife that corresponds to who you were in life and that you're sorted into these various um chambers. That actually maps perfectly on to the vision of St. Paul. That is what the vision of St. Paul is all about. We haven't really talked about that one in this podcast, but that's the one that's the the real precursor to Dante, right? And it goes all the way back to the second late 2nd century. So it's a super early apocryphal text. Um >> so the kind of categorizing of the dead.

[01:03:48]>> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Where Paul is taken on a tour of hell and he sees like ah the people who are immersed to their it says umbil umbilicus, right? Their their belly button, but I think that's uh supposed to be a polite euphemism for their crotch. Um those people are people who sin sexually, right? The people who who are suspended from flaming trees by their tongues are people who lied, right? Committed sins with their tongues. Um, and it also shows paradise and it shows a very stratified ex extremely stratified paradise where Christians who did, you know, X and Y are at this low level but like monastics are much higher and then perpetual virgins are even higher, right? Um, and so yeah, I think that idea that that um there's this stratified codified afterlife that you get sorted into might I could see that maybe going back to to pre That's interesting. Yeah. I mean, Patrick is actually asking if that had any parallel and I could see that being a parallel u the sorting of the dead. I mean, you don't see a lot of it's really really hard to read the text of the portica and get a clear picture of this, right? You know, because all you get is that one stands in Grimness Paul where it's like, yeah, and Freya takes half of >> what does that mean?

[01:04:59]>> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You know, is that a Marian image? Right. The Because there is a whole apocryphal tradition where Mary um it actually it's so funny. it.

[01:05:08]There's two different texts where the same motif shows up twice and I think it's because it was so popular that people couldn't help but plug it into their favorite hell texts, right? But there's this idea that there's Sunday rest for the wicked. Um, and it originally shows up in the vision of St. Paul, but eventually it gets attributed to Mary and some of her Marian texts, but basically the idea is Paul and or Mary are seeing hell and they're seeing how miserable all these people are and it makes them very sad. It is harshing their vibe. Um and they think that uh it you know nobody wants to watch these people suffer forever. So you know Christ if you are as merciful as you say you are can you please give them some kind of break right? Um logically I think according to the logic of the day he can't actually let them out of hell because that would be unjust in and of itself right he can't reverse his judgment. That would imply that it wasn't just to begin with or something.

[01:05:56]Right. Um, now there are older texts that actually do just go full tilt universalism. Um, and say, "Yeah, he does let them all go to heaven eventually, and it's more purgatory than anything." Um, but later on that's a big no no. Um, after Augustine, Augustine really helps uh clamp down on that. Um, but there's this this idea that Christ won't take them out of hell, but every Sunday he will give them one day off of hell. Um, and especially Irish texts love this motif. And when it happens, uh, all the souls in hell basically spend their Sunday worshiping Jesus, uh, thanking him for this day off of of misery. Um, which is also, you know, I can't help but feel that that's a little passive aggressive because these people who screwed up spiritually are forced to go to church forever and ever and it becomes the best part of their week for all eternity, right? Um, >> and they spend that day just saying, "Oh, thanks. Thanks for the one day out of seven."

[01:06:51]>> Yeah. Yeah. And it's just one day off.

[01:06:52]But they look forward to it. They cannot wait. Right. according to the tradition.

[01:06:55]Um, and so yeah, I mean, is there I think is the is the idea that Freya is supposed to get a cut of the damned or of the dead? I mean, you know, does is that does that somehow mirror Mary interceding on behalf of the damned and getting some of them right, liberating some of them?

[01:07:17]>> The evidence is so thin, I don't know how you can >> Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. It's very conjectural. Uh Sarah wanted to ask, "How do you feel about comparisons between Balder and Jesus?"

[01:07:27]>> Personally, >> your own personal Boulder. Uh I mean >> I love that Depes Pesh Mo song.

[01:07:37]>> Um Boulder doesn't uh Hther actually hates it more, but um >> probably true.

[01:07:43]But uh it's I mean I think again I see why some scholars will look at the myth of Balder and say you know we have Balder the Beautiful. To your point Jackson we don't actually hear much about Balder in in edic poetry in general right or even Scaldic. Like he's there's really I'm always kind of surprised at how big of a deal we make of him. Like if you read a kid's Norse mythology book, right, there aren't very many. He doesn't have very many moments on stage.

[01:08:12]>> I mean, he at least gets more moments than like tear or frig. I mean, which >> really get blown up in the kids books, but >> like Yeah, you're right. I mean, skully poetry, it's like, okay, there's a guy named Balder out there.

[01:08:24]>> Yeah. When you get Balders's dreams, you get that that, you know, six to seven stanzas in Volpbow.

[01:08:30]>> Yeah. I mean that that's a decent amount of air time in a corpus that doesn't give anyone all that much air time besides Odin and Thor. But um but yeah, I mean like when you get those few moments and he seems to be perfect and beautiful and lovely and everybody loves him um and then you get this one malicious figure that like well why would anyone try to kill someone like that, right? It does sort of seem like Satan trying to um you know kill Christ.

[01:08:55]Um, I don't know. Maybe. But it's also I don't know. I'm hesitant.

[01:09:03]Even though I like tracing these kinds of influences, I'm not the kind of scholar who says that everything has to be influence and borrowing. Right.

[01:09:11]>> Totally.

[01:09:12]>> Um, I think people are capable of telling stories that that do happen to resemble each other. Um, >> and and >> I think that's I I think you're exactly right. like and and what's interesting is when you can find those particular motifs where it's like that's not an accident and and one of the best examples of that would be nithering our saga it's like there is a clear shot I mean not just the fact mythgarmer but you know the fishing for him it's like man that that is not an accident it's when you find >> they're not accidents >> yeah yeah and in that particular case like I think you could really zoom in on that and do sort of a case study of assessing how do you tell when something is a source or when it's circumstance, right? It just happen stance that it happens to resemble like to make Satan into the Midgard serpent for this moment. It said it literally says he flew to Jerusalem. Does the Midgard serpent fly in any other Old Norse texts that you know of? You're more of an expert than I am. I think >> I've never heard of >> kind of you know nehooker flies >> at the end of at the you know the >> um so is that a Christian a Christian dragon right that where those kinds of dragons do fly as in revelation or as in you know uh other traditions derived from it. Um, but but it seems to me that it doesn't m the mechanics of the dragon don't matter so much as getting the Midgard serpent to Jerusalem so that we can get the fish hook language, right?

[01:10:39]That's that's the important part. And so that to me, like that is why I would say, oh, this is absolutely textual influence, not just a uh coincidence, a happy accident, right? Um because otherwise it doesn't really make sense to force it in there. There's also probably some weird medieval like cosmic geography going on there where if Jerusalem is the exact center of the world and myth is around the outside, he's got a long way to go. So maybe flying is the only way for him to get there. I don't know.

[01:11:06]>> Yeah. Yeah. It does remind me of the feather um feather hama um that Satan has to put on in Genesis B uh where it's like he said he lies to Eden uh with this magical cloak. Um >> that's right. There might even be an analog. I think that word also shows up in the old sex in the Haley, but I can't. It's been a long time since I've looked at the Haley.

[01:11:28]>> Yeah, me too. I know what you're talking about with that episode in Genesis, though. That's that's a cool poll.

[01:11:33]>> Yeah.

[01:11:34]>> Well, >> like I said, I want to be respectful about your time. It's been a really interesting conversation. Uh, I've really appreciated your book. I've really appreciated the point you've made here. Anything you'd like to say in summing up or to encourage readers to check it out?

[01:11:49]I mean, I'm thinking if this if you're still awake after all this, >> everybody's >> um then you'll probably enjoy this book.

[01:12:04]Um I will say that I tried to go out of my way uh to write it as accessibly as possible. Um I mean, I know it's an academic monograph and I know it costs like several arms and several legs. Um and I'm sorry about that. I feel like I have to apologize. I hate Yeah, >> it's true. But I mean, I hate like promoting it and like asking people to like even consider spending this much.

[01:12:24]You could maybe try to wait for the paperback version uh after 150 copies sell. Um >> or >> Yeah. Yeah. L, right? Yeah. Um but anyway, um you know, I tried to write it as accessibly as possible. Uh and so hopefully that makes it a lower barrier to entry. Um because admittedly it is a lot of arcane stuff. Well, but you do a really it's really really well structured and and you do a great job of handling, you know, I think exactly the amount of the primary text that the reader needs to see. And if you want more of it, it's fairly easy to find the primary text right on handcular or whatever, even if you just need a quick, you know, quick check of what the primary says. So, I I was I've been impressed. I like I said, I haven't finished it, but I've been really impressed with what I've read. So, thank you so much for uh for uh letting me read it.

[01:13:18]>> Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah.

[01:13:21]>> Been a joy to chat with uh with you and with with everyone in the chat.

[01:13:25]>> Yeah. And uh if you don't mind, I'll put this on YouTube and hopefully get the word out a little bit more and um >> hopefully actually, you know, I'd love to have you back talk about uh more similar topics sometime.

[01:13:37]>> Yeah, totally. Yeah, I I teach Old Norse every other year here and uh teach intro to Vikings class. Um, so it's, you know, I'm always thinking about it.

[01:13:46]>> Okay. Well, likewise, >> right?

[01:13:49]>> Let's put our heads together. There may be other topics we could, we could rap about.

[01:13:53]>> Sounds good.

[01:13:54]>> All right. Well, sir, thank you so much for your time and um yeah, to everybody who came, all the best to you and all the best to you.