Fjallabók is |
FAIRY TALE COMMENTARY
Thorri and his Brothers is a unique story based on Grimm's Jack and his Brothers; and there are vast differences between the two. The first difference is that a story that was originally Asatru and Vanatru was Christianized by the local peoples, and in turn, the story was reverted to Asatru and Vanatru to resemble something that, I believe, was similar to the original. The brothers Christianized names were John, Paul, and Jack, or something like that, so I naturally changed these names to resemble proper Heathen names, thus Eirik, Bjorn, and Thorri. It is also right to mention that in the Christianized version, there is a King, palace, and a large sum of money, and half the kingdom----not to mention the Princess, to give to the man who can fell the tree and dig the well; since I cannot imagine why someone would want to destroy such a great and sturdy oak, I had to give a valid reason, i.e. "It would seem that a wicked Jotun planted an oak tree right against the Hópr in order to rob it from the sacred light from both the sun and the moon; and as you well know, since this was a magical tree it grew up in three days time into a great, and sturdy tree, and since it was just as wicked as the Jotun no wights would dwell in it, and nine days later it died." What better justification would one need? Further, each of the items are sacred to a divine group; the axe is sacred to the Æsir because it can be representative of both air and agressive action, it "flies" about and is aggressively an industrious worker, and as the Æsir are representative of elemental air the axe is then considered as sacred to them. The spade is sacred to the Dwarves because it can be representative of earth, it does not "fly about", instead it remains close to the earth, and as the Dwarves are representative of elemental earth the spade is considered as sacred to them. Lastly, we have the walnut which is sacred to the Vanir because it is both a seed and representative of both water and passive action (not to mention fertility), and as the Vanir are representative of these things, the walnut is considered sacred to them. Finally, the reward of money, half the Kingdom, and the Princess was changed to be "the highest blessings of the Vanir" and the drinking horn; spirituality is better than greed.
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