The Norse pantheon and mythos - Odin, Thor, Loki, Freyja -- the world-tree Yggdrasil and the battle of gods at the end of the world called Ragnarok -- are known to us mainly from the Prose Edda and the Poetic Edda, great big books written in Iceland in the 14th to 17th centuries. If you want to know on whom to blame Der Ring des Nibelungen, or certain comics, start there.
Iceland was pagan until Christianization happened around 1000 AD, but to this day will you find yourself not only walking down Odin Street or Loki Street, but also talking to people named Óðinn, Þór (“Thor”), Baldur, and Sif.
Þór.
Thor.
Jón Þór.
What about the days of the week? Tyr’s day = Tuesday, Odin’s day = Wednesday, Thor’s day = Thursday, Freyja day = Friday. Not here, though, curiously, where they are boringly called third-day, midweek-day, and fifth-day.
Weirdly, the Norse religion Ásatrú has been revived. Its adherents know they’re working from fragmentary sources and have had to simply make certain things up. Probably because of the nativist flavor, some branches have attracted a creepy racist element; others are strenuously progressive and environmentalist.
Elves, dwarves of the supernatural sort, ice-giants: blame them on Iceland. You may have heard stories about people re-routing roads and otherwise taking care not to disturb the elves. You may not have heard about the ELF SEX.
Or about the flying love goddess.
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