Blond Thor: Stan Lee Wasn't Wrong

Students and scholars of Norse mythology often roll their eyes at the Marvel Comics version of Thor, with his clean-shaven chin, blond hair, winged helmet and self-questioning insecurity. The burly and macho thunder god of myth, they insist, had a large red beard and was a fully-formed adult god, not a childish figure who defers to a Yahweh-like Odin (cf. Anthony Hopkins’ patriarchal performance as the Allfather in Kenneth Branagh's recent Thor movie). According to this position, the comics character created by writer Stan Lee and artist Jack Kirby is simply too pretty, too blond, too young.

The first appearance of Lee and Kirby's Thor
Journey into Mystery #83 (1962)

A 2005 issue of The Jack Kirby Collector quotes Lee on the origins of the Marvel superhero: “Before starting the series, we stuffed ourselves to the gills with Norse mythology, as well as almost every other type of mythology – we love it all! But you’ve got to remember that these are legendary tales – myths – and no two versions are ever exactly the same. We changed a lot of things – for example, in most of the myths Thor has red hair, Odin has one eye, etc. But we preferred doing our own version.”

“In most of the myths”? Isn’t Thor always a bearded redhead in the source mythology?

In his Dictionary of Norse Myth and Legend (1997), Andy Orchard writes, “Physical descriptions of [Thor] are few . . . According to the eddic poem Þrymskviða (“Thrym's Poem”), however, he has a bristling red beard, piercingly frightening eyes when roused and a frightening appetite.” A simple check of the poem’s text shows that it actually does not mention the color of Thor’s beard. The verse in question reads:

Thor was angry when he awoke
and missed his hammer;
his beard bristled, his hair stood on end,
the son of Earth began to grope about.

Maybe the comic book writer read the poems more carefully than the scholar of Old Norse!

Snorri Sturluson’s Edda makes no mention of Thor’s beard at all, and the Prologue simply states, “Hár hans er fegra en gull” (“His hair is fairer than gold”). This would seem to be a clear case of Thor being described as blond, but it’s not quite that simple.

Thor, pictured in an Icelandic manuscript (1760)
His beard looks blond to me!

The Old Norse fegra usually means “fair” in the sense of beautiful – not necessarily “light in color” – yet it is also used in the compound hárfagra (“light-haired”). Conversely, the Edda elsewhere cites poetic verses calling gold “red wealth,” which would imply that Thor is a redhead. However, other poetic quotations in the work compare gold to both yellow amber and red fire. So, evidence from Snorri doesn’t give a definitive answer on the color issue. In an email exchange, Helga Hlaðgerður Lúthersdóttir (University College London) underscored this ambivalence: “the issue is also complicated further by the fact that most blond Nordic men have red beards.”

Rudolf Meissner’s Die Kenningar der Skalden (1921) provides an exhaustive list of kennings (poetic phrases that replace specific nouns) in Scandinavian poetry dating back to approximately 850 CE. In the section of the book dealing with references to Thor, there is no mention of beards – blond or red. Over the last hundred years, scholarly dating of Þrymskviða (with Thor’s bristling beard) has ranged from the late 900s to the early 1200s. Snorri’s Edda was written or compiled around 1220. In these early mythic sources, there is no clear answer. 

The first references to a red-bearded Thor appear in the sagas, written after the Eddas (either slightly after or much later – see below). These few mentions of Thor’s red beard appear in strikingly Christian contexts, not pagan ones. They portray Thor a god whose time has passed – a relic of a bygone era. 

In Eirik the Red’s Saga, Thorhall remains loyal to Thor during the Viking exploration of Vínland (North America) despite the Christians around him. In one well-known passage, he brags that Thor is more powerful than Jesus: “Didn’t Old Redbeard prove to be more help than your Christ? This was my payment for the poem I composed about Thor, my guardian, who’s seldom disappointed me.” Gísli Sigurðsson (Árni Magnússon Institute) has dated the writing of the saga to between 1220 and 1280. When Kendra Wilson (UCLA) was kind enough to check attestations of rauðskeggr (“red-bearded”) in the Dictionary of Old Norse Prose, this speech of Thorhall’s was the only result she found.

In "Out-Thoring Thor in Óláfs saga Tryggvasonar en mesta" (2006), Merrill Kaplan (Ohio State University) describes how Thor appears in the saga as a “demonic entity” who is “young-seeming, powerfully built, and red-bearded” and is referred to only as rauða skegg (“red beard”). The saga itself was likely compiled between 1225 and 1250.

In Flóamanna Saga, Thor appears several times in the dreams of Thorgils, a man who “was among the first to be converted” to Christianity in Iceland. Thor repeatedly threatens the hero in an attempt to turn him back to the old religion, but he is unsuccessful. When he visits Thorgils in his dream-visions, the god materializes as a “large and red-bearded man.” According to Medieval Scandinavia: An Encyclopedia (edited by Kirsten Wolf, Paul Acker and Donald K. Fry, published 1993), this saga is dated between 1290 and 1350 and was most likely written by a Christian clergyman in southern Iceland.

Thorgils isn't the only one who dreams of Thor!

So the first traceable appearances of Thor's red beard appear in sagas dated c1220-c1350, not in the earlier mythological sources from c850-c1220. The chronology can be argued, but it is clear that the saga version of Thor's appearance is the one that has stuck with us. Long after the age of saga-writing, the red-bearded Thor remained as the popular image of the god in folklore of various lands. The French scholar Georges Dumézil writes, "Whereas the Edda presents [Thor] as a man in the prime of life, the Lapp tradition, in accord with several popular Norwegian expressions, makes him an old man with a red beard.” Jacob Grimm wrote in 1835 that “this red beard of the thunderer is still remembered in curses, and that among the Frisian folk, without any visible connexion [sic] with Norse ideas: ‘diis ruadhiiret donner regiir!’ (let red-haired thunder see to that) is to this day an exclamation of the North Frisians.”

Marvel’s youthful, inexperienced Thor – especially as portrayed in the early Lee/Kirby stories – also has roots in the Eddas. Both Hárbarðsljóð (“Harbard’s Song”) and Hymiskviða (“Hymir’s Poem”) refer to Thor as sveinn (“boy” or “lad”). Snorri glosses the second poem by writing that Thor “went out across Midgard, having assumed the appearance of a young boy,” but the original text makes no such claim that Thor's youth is put on as a disguise.

Snorri’s description of Thor’s fight with the giant Hrungnir also posits a younger, less-experienced god of thunder: “Thor was eager not to let anything stop him from going to single combat when he had been challenged to a duel, for no one had ever done that to him before.” Dumézil discusses this passage in connection with initiation rites for young warriors, which underscores the idea that Lee and Kirby’s immature Thor is not necessarily out-of-step with mythological sources.

Jack Kirby’s classic Thor design incorporates earlier elements of his work that stretch back over twenty years before the character’s first appearance in 1962. In 1941, the superhero known as Mercury – a Kirby character for Timely Comics (which eventually evolved into Marvel Comics) – moved from Red Raven Comics to Captain America and underwent a name-change to Hurricane, “son of Thor, god of Thunder, and the last descendant of the ancient Greek immortals.”

The son of Thor kicks butt!
Art by Jack Kirby

Despite this strange confusion of mythologies, the character is noteworthy in that he is blond and wears winged headgear – two attributes of the later Marvel superhero version of Thor. Of course, the wings relate to clasic portrayals of the Roman Mercury, not the Norse god of thunder. Similar character design of another character named Mercury appears in the December, 1948 issue of Venus – edited by, of all people, Stan Lee.

Mercury appears in Venus #3 (1948)

In 1942, Kirby (with Captain America co-creator Joe Simon) published a story called “The Villain from Valhalla” in issue #75 of DC’s Adventure Comics. It features the first Kirby-designed version of the Norse god thunder god, portrayed as a villain with a red beard and horned helmet who fights the heroic Sandman. Although this “Thor” is really just a mobster using futuristic technology to imitate the god, Kirby's first vision of the character is much closer in appearance to the bearded Thor of the sagas than it is to the later Marvel character.

Jack Kirby's first version of Thor
Adventure Comics #75 (1942)

In 1957, Kirby drew a story called “The Magic Hammer” in DC Comics’ Tales of the Unexpected #16. This bearded Thor is almost identical to Kirby’s 1942 version, but his hammer now has the same design that Kirby would use five years later for the Marvel superhero. Also notable is the design of Thor's tunic, which features the same stylized circular bosses that are prominent on the costume of the subsequent Marvel character. Unlike the 1942 story, this tale portrays Thor as an actual Norse god, complete with a foil in the villainous Loki – who would, of course, become the main villain in the Marvel series.

Kirby's second Thor, same as the first
Tales of the Unexpected #16 (1957)

How did Kirby’s later conception (beardless, blond) change so radically from these two similar designs, separated from each other by fifteen years? A possible “missing link” can be found in a 1959 story illustrated by Steve Ditko, who was known to Stan Lee since the early 1950s and who began working in 1955 for Atlas Comics, another Marvel precursor that featured writing by Lee. Ditko drew “The Hammer of Thor” in issue #11 of Charlton Comics’ Out of This World. It features a young Viking – initially blond and beardless – who discovers Thor’s mystic hammer in a cave and uses its magic power to drive invading Huns out of Scandinavia. In a strange echo of Snorri’s euhemerism, the final panel implies that this human hero was remembered as a god by later generations.

Steve Ditko's Thor finds the magic hammer
Out of This World #11 (1959)

Finally, in 1962, issue #83 of Marvel’s Journey into Mystery featured the first appearance of Lee and Kirby’s thunder god in “Thor the Mighty and the Stone Men from Saturn.” The influence of Ditko’s version is clear. Dr. Don Blake finds a wooden cane in a Scandinavian cave; when he strikes it against a boulder, it becomes the Thor’s magic hammer. Kirby’s visual storytelling of a human character's discovery of Thor's hammer in a cave is quite similar to Ditko’s:

Kirby's version of the hammer-finding scene,
suspiciously similar to Ditko's

As in the Ditko tale, the hero uses the newly-found weapon to repel an invasion of Scandinavia. In this case, which takes place in contemporary times, the invaders are space aliens rather than Huns. Did Lee know Ditko’s tale and instruct Kirby to replicate its plot and imagery? The murky nature of Lee and Kirby’s collaboration – and who created what elements – has led to recent court battles, so there is no clear answer to be found. However, we do know that Lee insisted later Marvel artists study and imitate Kirby's work, so it's not outside the realm of possibility that, in this instance, he asked Kirby to emulate the earlier Ditko story.

Kirby’s final version of Thor is blond, clean-shaven and wears a winged helmet, combining elements from both his earlier Mercury/Hurricane character (the headgear and blond hair) and his second Thor (the hammer design).

Kirby's classic Thor, with clean-shaven chin, blond hair & winged helmet

The wings are also clearly related to the imaginary Viking helmets popularized in the Romantic Era through productions of Richard Wagner’s Edda-derived operas.

Fritz Feinhals as Wotan (Odin) in a
1903 production of Wagner's Ring

As for the youthfulness of Lee and Kirby’s Thor, it may – like the plot of the origin story – come from Ditko’s version, but is more likely part of Lee’s idea of featuring young and inexperienced characters such as Spider-Man, the X-Men and even Millie the Model in the new “Marvel Age of Comics.”

As Lee said of the myths, “no two versions are ever exactly the same.” The complicated back-history of Kirby’s design reflects, in a way, the complex and contradictory nature of the ancient myths and sagas. What is clear, however, is that we can’t simply dismiss the 1960s Marvel Thor as having no connection to the source material. Writers and artists pick and choose what elements of myth they will use in their interpretations, and academics do the same as they polish their scholarly interpretations.

Interview with M. D. Lachlan (Wolfsangel), Part Five

Click here for Part Four of the interview.

KS - The title of your book and the symbol it references are somewhat problematic, as you have discussed in previous interviews. Wolfsangel is not "wolf’s angel" (in the English sense), but a German word for "wolf-trap" that refers to a so-called runic symbol. The symbol has a disputed history, but no version of its origin traces it back to the Viking age. There was a rather nasty hooked trap used to capture wolves in Germany, and its shape is echoed in German heraldry dating back to 1340 – well past the end of the Viking age and not in Scandinavian territory. You reference the hunting tool in the novel in a wonderfully poetic way when the werewolf feels "as if the rune was hooked through his throat, pulling him up towards a terrible destiny." In any case, this early version lacks the central cross-bar of the Wolfsangel symbol, which doesn’t appear in heraldic design until sometime around the 18th century.

How to use a German Wolfsangel: (1) Sling longer piece over tree branch.
(2) Wrap meat around z-shaped hook. (3) Wait for wolf to take bait.

The symbol – as we know it today – was popularized by the Nazis, who used it as an insignia for several military divisions and programs. As far as I can tell, they got the symbol from the German occultist Guido von List. It seems to be based on "Gibor," the 19th "rune" in The Secret of the Runes (1908), which detailed the "occult vision" he had in 1902, when the "secret of the runes" appeared to him in a vision while his eyes were bandaged after a cataract operation. Tellingly, the 18th "rune" is the swastika. I’ve asked some colleagues (scholars, publishers, religious leaders) to weigh in on any runic origins for the symbol, and their reaction is telling.

List's Gibor

An Icelander said, "I cannot find a single reference to this symbol in my library." One (polite) German said "I do not know any older German source," and another (rather more forward) German said that "the Wolfsangel itself is, so far I know, more or less a kind of Fleischerhacken ["meat-hook"] used for wolf hunting. Not a rune. Wolfsangel seems to me really Nazi. He should use another name." A Norwegian said, "I have only seen that rune used by people like Boyd Rice/Death In June" – musicians associated with neo-nazi politics. The symbol is now banned in Germany and is categorized in the Anti-Defamation League’s Visual Database of Extremist Symbols under "Graphic Symbols," notably not under "Pagan Symbols Co-opted by Extremists."

Wolfsangel on cover of Rice's Music, Martinis and Misanthropy

You have said that, "in the Norse myths, the runes and the history of the Vikings we have a huge cultural treasure. We shouldn’t hand it over to morons without a fight." No argument here. In the novel, however, you acknowledge the non-Viking origins of the symbol, writing that it is "not one of the twenty-four runes given by Odin." When the witches first see the Wolfsangel, they have varied interpretations. Some see it as a thunderbolt, some as a werewolf. "Others," though, "saw a different meaning in the rune, one that it would bear down the centuries until one day someone gave it a name. Wolfsangel. This was not a word the sisters would have recognized, though its sense was clear to them – wolf trap." Did you choose this symbol because the book was originally intended – as you’ve said in interviews – to take place in WWII? Did you first plan to use it as a Nazi symbol, then reset it as a rune when moving the action back to the Viking age?

After the interview, a leading runologist wrote to me
about the runic origins of the Wolfsangel symbol:
"The whole concept seems very much like 19th-20th-
century rune magic. Pure hogwash, in other words."

ML - It’s a serious point you make, so I’m going to give it some serious attention – starting by telling you how the symbol ended up in the book and going on to discuss if its Nazi associations outside of the US and UK make it illegal or unusable.

The symbol appealed to me because it has three meanings – wolf trap, storm and werewolf, depending on the orientation. I have no idea where I got that information from – it’s something I think I picked up as a kid. I was very interested in runes, in hieroglyphs and all sorts of magical symbols and used to scan the encyclopedia for references to them. So the symbol was in my unconscious, I think, and that’s why it suddenly hopped out on to the page when I was writing.

It fitted well with the central theme of the book. Its use as a magical symbol which embodies all three meanings was a driving force of the plot. I have to be honest and say I did no research at all on it while I was writing the book and was unaware of its association with Nazism or neo-fascism until the book was nearly finished. Then I think I looked it up on Wikipedia and was given some pause for thought. However, the entry I read referenced it as a heraldic symbol, and my further research seemed to bear that out.

However, the Wolfsangel looks
much more like List's Gibor than
it does like heraldic symbols such
as this one from circa 1340

I was aware it may or may not have been a rune of the Viking Age but I incorporated it as a matter of artistic license. There is some suggestion that it is a version of the rune Eihwaz, which is a Viking rune, but I understood it emerged as a 13th-century Mason’s mark. Had I thought that rune originated with the Nazis – which I don’t think it did – then I would not have used it. I think it’s just part of the Nazis' haul of symbols swiped from Norse mythology, Rome, Victorian and Edwardian pagan revivalists and other cultures. Some of those symbols are beyond redemption, clearly – the swastika is rightly outlawed in Germany. But some of the symbols had a life before Nazism, continue to have a life independently of Nazism, and their association with the ideology – certainly in my country – is weak or non-existent. And in fact, some symbols that actually did originate with the Nazis outgrew them and have an entirely different cultural resonance today. The Olympic torch, for instance, was invented for the 1936 Berlin Olympics, and the first lighting of the Olympic cauldron by a torch bearer was presided over by Hitler.

As far as my research goes the Wolfsangel is a heraldic symbol – one that is used in coats of arms in Germany and which continues to be used to this day. So it predates the Nazi smash and grab on mystical cultures and, crucially, it has a life independent of association with Nazism today. There are also uses of it which are contemporaneous with List but, as far as I know, have no connection to him. The 1910 novel The Warwolf by [Hermann] Löns incorporates it in a non-nazi context.

Löns' The Warwolf

List was certainly an unsavory figure and a Nordicist, but he wasn’t a Nazi and in fact was decried by the Nazi’s chief occult cheerleader Karl Maria Wiligut. However, some of what he thought chimed with the Nazi philosophies. But, then again, ideas of racial superiority and anti-semitism were common in that era. We were only just out of the Victorian age, where racist prejudice had the status of scientific fact. And not everyone who held those views was a Nazi. Churchill, for instance, was a supporter of eugenics and wrote, "the unnatural and increasingly rapid growth of the Feeble-Minded and Insane classes, coupled as it is with a steady restriction among all the thrifty, energetic and superior stocks, constitutes a national and race danger which it is impossible to exaggerate." So, though it’s tempting to put List into the box "proto-Nazi," that may be a historically-inaccurate way of viewing him. He certainly talked a great deal of bunk and some of it nasty bunk – just as Churchill did – but it’s a long way from there to the Final Solution. He clearly had some horrible views, but they belonged more to the Victorian and Edwardian ages than they did to that of the horrors of Hitler’s Germany.

List was plundering heraldic symbols and adopting them to his runic alphabet, so it seems possible he got the Wolfsangel from heraldry. There’s no evidence Hitler took the swastika from List. It was a symbol in use by several German nationalist and folk movements, but it seems likely that Hitler adopted it from the Hindu symbol, based on claims by the orientalist and racialist Émile-Louis Burnouf that it was a fire altar seen from above. So I dispute your implication that the Nazis took both the swastika and the Wolfsangel from List – which is what I assume you meant by your use of the word "tellingly." They grabbed runes from a variety of sources, some of which weren’t actually runes but Hindu symbols.

There really is evidence of a connection, including
1932 statement by prominent member of the Guido
von List Society that Hitler is "one of our disciples"

Also, if you’re going to say that the Wolfsangel is intrinsically a Nazi symbol because the Nazis used it, then you’d have to say that Nordic neo-paganism is irredeemably stained by its association with Nazism, which continues to this day. Some neo-nazis do identify themselves as Odinists. I don’t think the link is unbreakable, though. I think it’s possible to be a Nordic religion revivalist and a decent human being. However, it’s undeniable that Nordic neo-paganism has its roots in nationalism and racialism. It’s also undeniable that, for many neo-pagans, it has left them behind.

There were two deciders for me. The first was that, contrary to your information earlier, the Wolfsangel is not banned in Germany. I researched this before deciding on using it. According to the German law, the symbol is illegal if used in a neo-nazi context – as it should be. In any other context, it’s fine. The German publishers were happy to reproduce the symbol in the book. The Wolfsangel is still used in coats of arms in Germany and in True Blood, which I assume is shown in Germany – it’s shown everywhere else! I was surprised that True Blood’s use of the Wolfsangel emerged a month after my book was published – one of those weird coincidences – and I haven’t seen the episodes with it in. What it does show, however, is that the symbol can be shown without controversy in a fantasy context.

German Criminal Code actually does punish anyone who
"domestically distributes or publicly uses, in a meeting or in
writings disseminated by him, symbols of one of the parties or
organizations" such as "a former National Socialist organization"

The second decider was that, in my primary market – US and the UK – the symbol has entirely lost any resonance it did have. Very few people would associate it with Nazism in the UK – and I believe very few in the US, too – outside of academic and specialist circles. I had no idea the book would sell in Germany, but we’ll come to that later. I tested it on a wide audience, and no one had even heard of it.

The symbol was used in the WWII version of the book. It’s used as in the Norse version of the book as a rune that lives inside someone. Other symbols the Nazis used are there, too. The Wolf’s Head was used by the main character as his family crest. He referred to it as "one of the many venerable symbols the Nazis have so presumptuously appropriated." The original WWII version was a fairly sustained and direct attack on the Nazis, their barbarity and their ridiculous occult research program. In the very first version, the main villain is a Nazi, and he falls very foul of the Norse gods – whom he is trying to summon. There are also two parallel threads – the descent into lycanthropy of one of the main characters, who manages to hold on to his humanity, and the far more disturbing descent of the other main character, a flippant but well-meaning young man who finds himself in the orbit of the SS and is utterly compromised and degenerated by the experience.

An obsession with wolves & the occult isn't unique to Germany.
Example 1: The symbol of Yale University's Wolf's Head Society

I was very pleased with the story, and it’s as well written as anything I’ve ever done. However, I cut it, after a lot of thought. The reason was that I just wasn’t convinced that an event as terrible as the Holocaust could be handled in what is, essentially, a fantasy story. I still don’t know that I made the right decision, because it was powerful stuff that made valuable points about the uses of faith – independent of its truth – in directing correct moral action. I was concerned, though, that my intention would be misunderstood because historical fantasy is, primarily, a form of entertainment. If you incorporate the barbarities of the Nazis in that context, would people think I was presenting them for entertainment? That was not my purpose at all. So I cut all the stuff in Germany out, even though I thought I had come up with something affecting and worthwhile.

The WWII version that was submitted to publishers only had Nazis in it flying at 40,000 feet over Coventry to bomb it. It’s a detective story set in the Blitz on my home town of Coventry in the UK. I may release the WWII story as an eBook one day, if my publishers agree – because it could be 20 years before I get there, if I keep proceeding through history. Which version I release will depend on a lot of consultation. I may even consult you, Karl! The one with the Nazis in it is definitely up there with the best stuff I’ve ever written. However, it may be treading on too many sensitivities. I have asked one Jewish friend of mine what he thinks of it, and he loves it, but I fear he may be untypical. X-Men, of course, touches on the whole concentration camp horror, and I have seen no complaints about that, so my feeling is that what I’m writing would be fine. It’s not like it’s making light of the Holocaust. But I’m not sure. So – if you’d care to read it – I’d love to get your opinion. Also, if you know any Jewish scholars who’d be willing to read it, then I’d love to get their opinion too.

Coventry Cathedral after the German bombing of November, 1940

KS - How do you feel about your choice now that the book is out in the world? In Germany, the novel has been published as Wolfskrieger ("wolf warrior"), and the cover features an image of a large, Marvel-style Thor’s hammer – two choices that clearly distance the book from what most Germans would see as fascist imagery. How would you explain your use of the symbol to a German or Israeli audience?

German edition of Wolfsangel

ML - Well, obviously, I don’t want to upset or offend anyone, but I don’t think I have! The symbol is used in Germany, as I said, entirely independently of fascist associations. I don’t know if most Germans see it as fascist imagery. If any do, then they haven’t mentioned it to me. The symbol is in the book in the German version. No one from the German publishers even raised it as an issue with me. So I don’t know how strong the association is in Germany. I should imagine that it’s stronger than it is in the UK, though. Sometimes books are retitled for no apparent reason. My book Lucky Dog was retitled When the Hound Came in German – not a title that gives the right impression in English at all! No one consulted me about that either. So I have no idea if the book was retitled out of concerns about the symbol’s association or for other reasons. I have no idea if the German publisher even recognized the association.

Let’s assume it was retitled out of concerns about the associations of the Wolfsangel – as seems likely. It was still left in the book, complete with an illustration of the symbol. I think this is because, when Germans read how I introduce the symbol in the context of the story, they can clearly see it is not used to support a fascist outlook, nor to make any political comment at all. I have had no comment from Germans on its use whatsoever, and it’s only come up in one interview worldwide so far, other than this one – and then because the interviewer’s flatmate was a military historian who recognized the sign. Thankfully, I have had no fascist idiots mistaking me for one of them either.

The important thing here is that the symbol is obscure in my country and in the US, and I am clearly not using it in a Nazi context, nor is there a crypto-fascist agenda in the book. Symbols are defined by context, and the context here is very obviously not one that supports Nazism or fascism. In fact, it very clearly points out the value of ordinary, fallible, humanity.

I would explain it to a German or Israeli audience by saying all of the above. There was certainly no intention to offend and, as far as I can see, no one has taken offense.

KS - In contemporary genre fiction, one major difference between writers in the US and the UK is the British willingness to kill off major characters over the course of a story. Think DC Comics versus 2000 AD – Superman and Batman keep dying and resurrecting, while the Mighty Tharg (2000 AD’s green alien editor) seems quite gleeful about bloodily axing long-running characters without a moment’s hesitation. Grant Morrison, especially, seems quite bloody-minded whenever he’s allowed to play in the sandboxes of American comic companies. You have said, "If I’d written Lord of the Rings, Sam would have been left dead on the mountain." Why do you think there’s this difference between American and British writing styles?

The death of Wulf Sternhammer, 2000 AD's time-traveling Viking

ML - I’m not sure I accept that. George R. R. Martin chops people down with relish. And Tolkien was British. No one you really care about dies in Lord of the Rings. In a country as big and as culturally diverse as the US, I’m not sure you can talk about "American writers" in any sense other than they happen to all live or work in the US.

Surely somebody cares about poor Gollum!
Painting by Frank Frazetta (1973)

If there is a difference, it’s because we British have a chip on our shoulders about happy endings. Somehow they don’t seem very clever, and we have a chip on our shoulders about that too. We’re the people making vomiting noises in the medal-giving ceremony in Star Wars. And was I the only one who felt sorry for the RDA Corporation in Avatar?

A writer needs to kill some of his characters occasionally to get taken seriously by the reader, to increase the dramatic charge. Otherwise, it’s all too comfortable. I never liked James Bond as a kid, because I never thought he was ever in any serious trouble. Spider-Man, however, earned huge respect from me when the writers killed Gwen Stacey. Wow! That never happened to Lois Lane. However, Bond is English and Spider-Man is as NYC as a stand-bought hot dog. You need to get the reader’s respect, and killing dearly loved characters is just one way to do it..

But let’s suppose you are right, or at least there is something in what you say. Why the difference? Do US writers grow up in a story-making culture so influenced by Hollywood and TV that the happy ending becomes almost a reflex for them, a tick? Can’t see that would account for much of a difference as we see the same films. Our public TV, however, is much darker. If you look at a lot of our cop shows – or even comedy shows – they are quite bleak, sometimes. Apparently, when the sublime Fawlty Towers – England’s best-ever sitcom, for my money – went to the States, US viewers were turned off by the unremitting nastiness of the main character. However, a lot of British men saw the rude, reactionary, abusive, snobbish, half-mad, sneering Basil Fawlty as a role model, or at least as saying and doing the things they would like to. The Office: An American Workplace features a foolish but essentially lovable main character. The main character, David Brent, in the English version has very few redeeming features at all. And yet a mainstream audience loves the show – it’s on public TV, not tucked away on a cable channel.

English culture hero Basil Fawlty moonlighting as a Scottish wizard

If there is a difference, perhaps it’s because US writers have an optimism that we lack in our country. We fell quite quickly from our role as the world’s superpower, and perhaps that has an ongoing effect on the national psyche. I don’t think modern British writers are harking back to the days of empire, but they are writing in a culture that still carries the invisible tremors of the aftershock of its collapse. It will be interesting to see, if the US loses its pre-eminent role in the world, how US writing changes.

KS - In the movie of the book, I would cast Summer Glau as Gullveig, a character with the same otherworldliness as Firefly’s River Tam. One scene in particular reminded me of a specific shot from the TV series. After Gullveig finds a dead girl in the witches’ labyrinthine caverns, "the witch leaned forward and tapped her tongue on the girl’s cheek."

Summer Glau as Firefly’s River Tam

Of course, Danielle Dax could also pull off Gullveig as “a girl, a wasted and haggard child, dressed in a long and bloody white shift.” When you were writing the novel, did you picture specific actors in an imaginary film?

From the cover of Danielle Dax's Blast the Human Flower (1990)

ML - Only Loki as John Hurt, in his Caligula role, though Hurt is too old to play the role nowadays. I kept envisaging Bodvar Bjarki either as a Swedish soccer fan I once encountered at an international match between England and Sweden – around 7'2" and built like a bear – or as Martin Johnson, the old England Rugby captain – a very intimidating individual of 6'7" and 265lbs. He’d have to change his hair color, though.

Martin Johnson & the spoils of victory

The rest, I don’t really have a solid picture of what they look like – Authun aside. I have a verbal imagination, not a visual one. I get glimpses of the characters, but they don’t sit still long enough for me to get a very clear look at them. One thing is certain, though, I wouldn’t like the corn-fed look of some of the Twilight actors. Nothing wrong with Twilight, but its actors look like what they are – affluent teenagers. My actors would have to appear a bit more starved, hungry and sharp looking.

Come to think of it, Mads Mikkelsen would make a good Authun. Valhalla Rising came out just before Wolfsangel was due to be published, and I was terrified it was going to feature the same view of magic, so mine would look derivative. It was a great film, though, and Mikkelsen certainly had the right look.

Mads Mikkelsen in Valhalla Rising (2009)

KS - There’s a wonderfully atmospheric video trailer out for Fenrir – the second book in the series – that hints at the power that a film version of the series could have. How far forward in history does this book move the story?

ML - It begins at the Viking siege of Paris in 885, so only about 60 or so years. This actually occurred and was one of the steps on the way to the foundation of Normandy. The trailer is good, isn’t it? The soundtrack is by Jonathan Harvey – Mortuos Plango. Sends shivers down the spine.

KS - What’s your planned schedule of writing and publishing the rest of the series? Has the whole process tilted more towards the exciting or to the daunting?

ML - The third is done, and the fourth will be written early in 2012. The third is set in Constantinople in about 969 and features the beginnings of the Varangian Guard – the Byzantine emperor’s Viking bodyguard.

KS - Thank you for being so gracious and patient during the interview process!

ML - Well, thanks for such an in-depth and challenging interview. It’s amazing to be questioned by someone with such a detailed knowledge of the book’s background. I’m aware that I’ve answered some questions as, "Dunno, just came out that way," but – as I noted several times – this is the prerogative of the creative writer rather than the academic. Thanks a lot, Karl. Much appreciated.

Interview with M. D. Lachlan (Wolfsangel), Part Four

Click here for Part Three of the interview.

KS - Although your book weaves together the stories of many deeply-constructed individuals, Vali is arguably the "main character." There are two Vális in Norse myth. One is the son of Odin who will avenge his father’s slaying by the wolf Fenrir at Ragnarok and go on to survive the Twilight of the Gods. The other is the son of Loki, turned into a wolf by the gods. He kills his brother Nari (or Narfi), and the poor fellow’s guts are subsequently used to bind his father Odin in his cave of torment. Wolfsangel, with Loki as the father of both Vali and Feilig, clearly uses the second of these myths. That explains Vali’s name, but why did you call his brother Feileg? The closest I can come to interpretation is jeg feile – Norwegian for “I fail.” Is his name a coded foreshadowing of his inability to stop the tragedies at the end of the book, or is there some other reference?

M. D. Lachlan (a.k.a. Mark Barrowcliffe)

ML - Félagi or Félagr are names meaning "fellow" and it’s an adoption of those – as I generally prefer to avoid accents whenever I can. I thought there was a source for it in one of the sagas but, like you, I can find no trace of it now, which is annoying. Again, I go back to the academic/creative writer thing. I don’t have to do a glossary so I don’t keep track of my references.

KS - Early in Wolfsangel, the Viking characters come into violent contact with people they refer to only as "West Men." The term comes from the Old Norse vestmenn, which referred to the Irish. Despite what is in the publisher’s blurb, the actual text never specifically calls them Saxons – Anglo or otherwise. When your character Vali participates in his first Viking raid, is it meant to be an Irish village, an Anglo-Saxon village, or is it modeled on the historical raid on the Lindisfarne monastery off northeast England’s Northumbrian coast? You have said that the book "begins roughly at the dawn of the Viking era, which is 793. That’s when the first Viking raid began on British shores, anyway." This is, of course, the date of the Lindisfarne raid - which leads me to believe that Vali is actually participating in this historical event.

Unfortunately for the monks, Lindisfarne Castle wasn't there in Viking times

ML - It is modeled on Lindisfarne. I couldn’t find out if the Vikings actually used the name "Saxons," so I settled on West Men as a generic term. I found it very difficult to establish exactly what the monastery would have looked like at this period – the people at the Lindisfarne museum didn’t really know, so I had to base my description on other, contemporary descriptions of monasteries. It’s not meant to be Lindisfarne exactly because it’s a flatter island, and it’s made clear (I think) that raids are already underway.

KS - Wolfsangel features terrifying berserks "from the northern cult of Odin the Frenzied" who drink a mind-altering mushroom soup to enter a state of battle madness. The most prominent of them is Bodvar Bjarki – named for Bödvar Bjarki ("little bear of battle") who appears in the Icelandic Hrólfs saga kraka and Saxo’s History of the Danes and may share a common origin with the character of Beowulf ("bee-wolf" = bear). While the Icelandic, Danish and English characters are heroes, this berserk is definitely a villain, and is more like the wicked berserks fought against by Egill Skallagrímsson and Haldan, the champion of Thor. Was there a specific literary or historical figure that you modeled this character after?

Berserker chess piece found in Scotland (from circa 1150)

ML - I don’t find him villainous. I find him a bit stupid but he has a strong moral code and is prepared to die by the laws he lives by. He’s not a coward and, though he likes a scrap, there’s nothing other than his opposition to Vali that qualifies him as villainous. He’s an antagonist, but is that the same as a villain? He kills some slaves they can’t fit on a boat, he picks unnecessary fights, but he’s bound by his oaths and he seeks fame and glory. I rather liked him! He gives respect to Vali when he proves himself in battle, he’s brave and applies the same standards to himself as he does to others. I took the name because I liked it and it had a good association with Beowulf which gave me a solid impression of what he looked like while I was writing the book. He is modeled on contemporary accounts of berserkers and freebooters who would use holmgang law – the right to decide disputes by combat – in order to steal whole farms from people.

KS - In Wolfsangel, female characters (Adisla and Jodis) pray to Freya, berserks pray to Odin, one of Authun’s retainers prays to Frey (and Tyr and Thor), the warrior Bragi (named for the god of poetry) invokes Tyr (and "Thor’s bulging nut sack"). During the Danes’ attack on Vali’s village, their religious predilections are described: "There was a roar like a landslide, and the enemy were charging, screaming oaths to Thor, the thunder god, and Tyr, god of war. The name of Odin was not on their lips. These were not berserks, and the hanged god was too peculiar, mysterious, and mad for the average farmer or bodyguard." This nicely reflects the influence of gender and social status on an individual’s choice of gods.

Maybe Freya - Viking pendant from Tissø, Denmark

Aside from Odin and Loki, however, the Norse gods don’t appear in your book. They are mentioned by the human characters, but it isn’t clear that – in the universe of your novel – they actually exist. Do they, or are Loki and Odin the only "real" gods in your fictional world? You give one of the meanings of the Wolfsangel symbol as "thunderbolt." Does this mean that Thor will be appearing in a later novel?

ML - Thor is a very difficult god to represent in my world because he’s so straightforward. I’m dealing in sinister and weird forces that exist at the edges of human sanity. I can’t think where the giant-crushing, hammer-throwing, serpent-smashing Thor would fit in to this. He makes a brief appearance at the end of Lord of Slaughter, but I may even cut that in the final edit. He’s not alien enough for the world of Wolfsangel – which may, of course, be one of the reasons he was popular enough to be represented as the chief among gods at the temple at Uppsala described by Adam of Bremen. I don’t like the word "liminal" which gets very much overused in all creative endeavors, but Loki and Odin are liminal figures – or at least subject to that interpretation. Thor is much more solid and earthy, at least in my imagination.

Maybe Thor's goats - another find from Tissø, Denmark

KS - The absence of other gods in Wolfsangel gives "the endless battle between the wolf, Odin, and Loki" a flavor that, again, seems to fit more into a Judeo-Christian worldview than a polytheistic one. Odin and Loki’s battle – and the position of the werewolf between the two mystic forces – feels like the struggle between the Christian God and Satan, with Jesus as the character given physical, earthly form. Why did you decide on this somewhat Manichean view of Good (Loki, friend to mankind) and Evil (Odin, bringer of death) instead of a more ambivalent, polytheistic setting?

ML - SPOILER ALERT IN THIS REPLY The endless battle is a publisher’s blurb, not my description. I would argue my view is not Manichean. Odin is a complex figure, almost at war with himself. Remember, the Witch Queen is one of his victims and SPOILER ALERT he is the cause of her death as EVEN BIGGER SPOILER ALERT she is one of his embodiments. Loki characterizes himself as Odin’s servant. It’s not a straightforward position of enmity and – at the end – it’s plain Loki has been tricked into doing as Odin wants. He’s an instrument of Odin in a way that the Devil is not an instrument of God (though, if you start thinking about it, as chief warden of Hell the devil’s actually responsible for inflicting God’s punishment).

Maybe Odin with Raven Helmet (also from Tissø)

I do accept that I’ve cut the number of gods who appear in Wolfsangel and, in that sense, you could see a Judeo-Christian style opposition in the story. This was for dramatic reasons. The focus is the human characters. I just didn’t want to start cramming lots of other gods in as they would be distracting.– although Freya is in the original WWII version.

KS - Your “witch queen of the mountains, that mind-blown child” is called Gullveig ("gold-draught") and is named for an Eddic figure usually associated with Freya, especially in her relationship to both gold and magic. In Wolfsangel, the witches have piles of golden treasure molding in their dark caves, and Gullveig is known "to some of the local people as Huldra" – a variant name-form for Huld or Holda, who is sometimes portrayed as a practitioner of seid-magic and a mistress of Odin. Near the end of the novel, Gullveig presents herself to Adisla using magic and appears as what seems to be a vision of the goddess Freya : "The lady was dressed in a fine robe embroidered with gold; a beautiful necklace burned at her throat and a crown of sapphires shone like ice in the sun upon her head. Even the dark seemed to peel away around this lovely woman."

Freya by James Doyle Penrose (circa 1890)

When you describe the piles of treasure in Gullveig’s horde, you write: "Jewels were called the tears of Freya, after the goddess who was said to weep them. He had thought it just a story for winter. But now he saw that tears and precious things have their fates tightly bound." This is a very interesting idea; it explains the kenning for gold ("Freya’s weeping") by connecting wealth to misery. I don’t think it spoils your book’s plot to say that Gullveig is not actually Freya. Did you give her this name to deepen the mystery surrounding the character, or are you putting forward the idea that Freya is merely a reflection of Odin – a sort of valkyrie messenger or “wish maiden”? How does this fit in with your use (or not) of the Norse pantheon?

ML - In the WWII version, the witch has an absolute correspondence with Gullveig – three times burned – the gold-hungry witch.

Gullveig's Execution by Anker Eli Petersen (2003)

In that version she was an incarnation of Freya and when the Nazis summon her, they get a lot more than they bargained for because of her insatiable appetite for gold. There was a really fun scene where the chief Nazi psycho contradicts her and finds himself unable to speak any more. The Nazis don’t realize she’s appeared in their midst – they only know that one of their officer’s wives is showing uncanny powers of prophecy. When they try to control her, a rising panic goes through their ranks as they find out that Norse goddesses are not so easily controlled and, in fact, are a whole lot more used to controlling.

When I rewrote the book, I kept the name but not the correspondence. I didn’t actually see who Gullveig really was until about half way through the book. It came as a surprise to me. The description of the necklace is inspired by the Brisingamen necklace that belonged to Freya. In the original Wolfsangel, it’s described as "burning with all the colors of a city on fire."

KS - The spirit of the 10th-century Icelander Egill Skallagrímsson seems to permeate the book. Chapter Five is called “The Loss of Sons,” which is the English name for Sonatorrek, arguably Egill’s best-known poem. When Gullveig sends Feileg to be raised by úlfhednar (“wolf-skins”), the boy is trained by Kveld Ulf ("night wolf"), which is the nickname of Úlfr Bjálfason, Egill’s grandfather. Egil’s Saga reports that "every day towards evening he would grow so bad-tempered that few people dared even address him. He always went to sleep early in the evening and woke up early in the morning. People claimed he was a shape-shifter and they called him Kveldulf." The original Kveldulf is no werewolf, but really just a grumpy old man. Your Kveld Ulf may not be a geezer, yet he is also not a true werewolf, "but a man who had become by instinct and thought half animal."

Egill Skallagrímsson raises níðstöng
("scorn-pole") by Gustav Vigeland

Feileg and Kveld Ulf, like the berserkers in the novel, drink mushroom potions and hallucinate. They put on wolf skins and prey on hapless travelers, like Sigmund and Sinfjötli in the Völsunga Saga. You have said that many of the tropes of the werewolf – full moon, silver bullets, etc. – are really Hollywood creations of the 20th century, and that "my wolf is closer to the wolf of the Norse myth." However, Vali’s first "transformation" occurs under "a huge full moon." Aren’t the werewolves of Norse legend really metaphorical or psychological? When it comes down to it, aren’t your men in wolf skins more like saga werewolves and the mystical monster of your book more a creature of the modern horror genre?

ML - The mystical monster’s transformation occurs over a period of about three months (maybe longer, I honestly can’t remember) – not at any one time. I admit that I do put some moon imagery in, but it’s not cited as a cause of his transformation. It’s more in the spirit of playing with the reader’s expectations. By saying that my werewolf is closer to that of Norse myth, I meant the conception of lycanthropy as something you take on as a choice – through sorcery – or as a curse. Sinfjotli in the Volsung saga has a little of both aspects.

Full moon and northern lights in Norway

But yes, the men in wolfskins are more akin to saga werewolves than the mystical monster. My Kveld Ulf may not be a true werewolf, but he does a good impression. He’s mistaken for a wolf by Feileg when he first sees him. I would say the monster is nearer to other mythic traditions – Greek and Roman, where the werewolf does not get to change back – than it is to modern horror. However, there’s undoubtedly the influence of modern horror there, it’s just not swallowed hook, line and sinker.

In fact, if there’s an inspiration for the mystical werewolf in Wolfsangel, it’s Kafka’s Metamorphosis. What level of horror can love survive? How much must someone change before they’re no longer really them? Kafka asks those questions and provides his answers. I came to the same conclusions.

KS - There are some very clever moments in the book dealing with religion. Vali misunderstands an embroidered image of Christ on the cross: "It was a strange but beautiful representation of Odin suspended from a tree, a spear piercing his side. It was a depiction, he felt, of the god’s quest for wisdom at the well of Mimir, where he had given up his eye for knowledge." At another point, Loki says, "Have you not heard the stories? Of how the gods can split off a hair and grow it as a man, how their incarnations forget their godly origin and live as ordinary people. More of a challenge to be a god and not know it, I think, than to walk secure in your divinity as Jesus did." You have written, "I have no axe to grind for Odinism or Christianity. I find both very interesting myths." After delving so deeply into the subject as you wrote this novel, what do you think is relevant about these ancient religious systems for contemporary life?

8th-century Irish crucifix

ML - Clearly there’s an awful lot relevant for contemporary life with Christianity – at least in the USA, where it has a firm cultural hold. One of the things that’s always amazed me about American friends is how atheism seems to be a statement of some sort for them. In the UK it’s the default position – I knew no one who went to church until I met my wife and you never hear politicians thanking God the same way you do in the US. You’ll notice Blair – a religious man – just said "we don’t discuss that" when asked about God during his time in office. He feared his faith would lose him votes. It’s a surprise in the UK to meet people who are religious, and – particularly in metropolitan, educated circles – it comes as a shock if you discover one of your friends is. It’s also something that’s more likely to hamper you at work than get you on. I can’t think of many corporate types who would happily admit to being churchgoers. You’d be seen as a little weird. I don’t share that view myself, or I wouldn’t have married a Christian, but I mention it as it’s a key cultural difference between the US and the UK.

The relevance of Christianity to modern life has been discussed ad infinitum by much more learned people than me. One that modern Christians might like to ponder, though, is the Sermon on the Plain – "But woe to you who are rich, because you have received your comfort." From my reading of the Bible, it seems entirely incompatible with modern consumer culture or capitalism as a whole. Can a Christian buy an iPod while Africa starves? Luckily, I don’t have to answer these questions myself!

Thor with iPod by Marko Djurdjevic

The Norse myths have great relevance for anyone who cares to read them. In particular, Hávamál – the Ballad of the High One – contains very good advice on everything from how to get on with people at a dinner to the transitory value of worldly goods. Some of the advice is inappropriate to our modern society, but some of it is timeless.

Both myths, of course, contain the destruction of the world as a certainty. That is irrelevant for modern life – our future is in our hands.

KS - Your portrayal of religious ritual mixes historical information with neo-pagan beliefs. On the historical side, Adisla is threatened with hanging at midsummer as "Odin’s bride." Disa inhales herb-smoke and chants meditatively, cutting an Ansuz rune on piece of wood and coloring it with her blood. Vali undergoes ritualized drowning to gain mystic knowledge from Odin, and is told that "we’ll put a noose on you. It’s a symbol so the god can find you." Chapter 21 is called "The Drowning Pool," the English name for Drekkingarhylur in Iceland’s Þingvellir – actually a place of Christian punishment for "guilty women" until 1838. Ancient bodies left as bog sacrifices (presumably to Odin) in Denmark – as well as descriptions in various historical documents – show a combination of hanging, stabbing and drowning. In Hávamál, Odin himself ties this all together:

Do you know how to carve, do you know how to interpret,
Do you know how to stain, do you know how to test out,
Do you know how to ask, do you know how to sacrifice,
Do you know how to dispatch, do you know how to slaughter?

Drekkingarhylur (Drowning Pool) in Þingvellir

On the neopagan side, Disa has her hair braided "at the back in three tight knots," which you describe as "the hanging knots of the dead lord’s necklace – symbol of Odin." Elsewhere, you call this symbolic shape "the three tight interlocking triangles – the dead lord’s necklace, sign of the god Odin, the berserk, the hanged, the drowned, the wise and the mad, the god to whom she had dedicated her life." This seems to reference Alby Stone’s idea of connecting the ancient (but mysterious) symbol to both the hangman’s noose and to ancient hairstyles. Did you research neo-pagan beliefs while writing the novel? Did you attend rituals or correspond with any contemporary practitioners?

ML - I think I’m aware of neo-pagan beliefs from my adolescent interest in them. The hanging knot had a great significance in the WWII story and is known to modern pagans as the Valknut. I did use a lot of Alby Stone’s ideas in conceptualizing it. Its use in my story is related to this, but you’ll see that the image of the triple knot is at the heart of Wolfsangel and to the ongoing series – from the way that Adisla, Feileg and Vali are bound to how other characters relate in the follow-up Fenrir.

So-called "Valknut" on 9th-century carving from Lärbro, Sweden

I’m aware the bog sacrifices show a combination of hanging, stabbing and drowning, and Wolfsangel contains an explanation of why that might have been. The sorcerer goes to the bog (in Wolfsangel it’s called a "mire"; "bog" is British slang for "toilet") to contact the other world. He may be possessed by dark forces and so his friends wait to kill him, if he is. This is, clearly, a step too far in interpretation for any historian to make. However, I’m not a historian so I can use the ancient religious practice as a jumping off point for my imagination.

KS - Describing your version of seid (simply put, “sorcery” or “magic”), you have said that "it is basically the magic system that operates in the real world. When I say that, that doesn’t mean I believe in real-world magic, but this is what people attempt when they attempt magic in the real world. Christian ascetics – i.e., people who go to the desert for thirty days, thirty nights or longer, live in the desert, starving – Indian yogis, American Indian holy men, particularly shamen from all cultures suffer in order to invoke magical visions or magical consciousness inside themselves." Your portrayal of a "magic of suffering" in Wolfsangel feels right; it emotionally resonates as an elaboration of the rituals hinted at in Norse myth and saga. Were these scenes in the novel based on any personal experience with, say, meditation or hallucinogens? Were they based on research that you’ve done, or did you imaginatively follow the implications of seid as it is described in the Old Norse texts?

ML - A bit of both. My experience of magic is heavily influenced by my teenage use of hallucinogens – psilocybin magic mushrooms which, I hasten to add, were legal in my country at the time I was taking them. The interesting thing about them, I found, was not the visual hallucinations they caused but the emotional effect. You start to feel emotions for which there are no words at all. I always used to get a sort of creeping, knowing paranoia descending into a conspiratorial but vulnerable sort of giggling. The descriptions of the werewolf transformation, where the werewolf finds himself giggling, his nose dribbling with snot, the world seeming hostile, beautiful and strange are basically descriptions of coming up on mushrooms – particularly in the scene at the Saami camp.

norsemyth.org does not endorse drug use.
Poster by R. Crumb (1971)

The reason I stopped taking mushrooms was that I genuinely feared being tipped over the edge into madness. That significant downside of the experience is in Wolfsangel, too.

The descriptions are equally influenced by the experience of being extremely tired, working late or – as a kid – doing all night wargames. Time becomes elastic, minutes stretching to hours but suddenly snapping back when you realize it’s becoming light.

There are descriptions of Norse vala – female magic practitioners – sitting on high chairs to conduct their ceremonies. It occurred to me that this might be because it’s very difficult to sleep on a high chair, and that went into my description of the ceremony Disa conducts. There’s no historical reason to think this was the case, but I thought it an interesting idea.

Click here for Part Five of the interview.