Erik and the Gods

Chapter 5 – The Walls of Asgard

CHAPTER 5 – THE WALLS OF ASGARDErik looked at Hófvarpnir in awe. If ever there was a horse that was fit for a god, then this was it, he thought. It looked to be in top form, with its muscles bulging beneath its skin like a racehorse. It held its head high in the air with its nostrils flared. Its long tail swayed behind it in the wind, and it flew effortlessly behind the chariot.

“Come here!” Erik said and stretched out his hand. Immediately the horse ran up to Erik so that he could stroke it. It bowed its head and whinnied faintly in appreciation.

At that moment, Erik could understand the girls at school who went off to riding school every afternoon. If they had this kind of bond with their horses, then there must be something to it. It was wonderful to be so close to such a big animal, one with such raw power, and yet still sense such tenderness.

“Soon the light shall rise above Asgard, up and over the arch of the Rainbow Bridge. I see a new dawn coming, and peace too.” Thor interrupted his thoughts and laughed out loud. “I’ve had my share of that bloody mead too, you know. I just hope I haven’t been too affected by it. Ah well, jokes aside. We are almost there.”

Thor shouted to the goats. They turned and Erik saw an enormous wall ahead of them.

“You see, there it is!” Thor said and pointed. “That wall goes all the way around Asgard.”

The goats had almost slowed to a snail’s pace. Hófvarpnir trotted along calmly with its head bobbing up and down proudly. Without asking Erik if he was interested, Thor began a new story:

“You see the wall,” he began and pushed his helmet down over his forehead so that he could scratch the back of his neck. “It was constructed in a very particular way while I was off travelling in the east of Jotunheim, battling the Jotuns as usual– There’s another one!” shouted Thor. “This is getting to be too much! They are getting far too close to Asgard for my liking.” Thor took aim and the hammer slammed into the chops of a giant that had been sitting on its tail, licking itself with its long, yellowy-green tongue. Maybe it was trying to make itself presentable before entering the realm of the Gods.

“I hope that was the last of them,” Thor muttered, looking around. “Well, back to the story,” he continued, as the hammer returned safely to his hand. “That was when we were young. We had just finished building Asgard and Valhalla when a strange young man came to see us. He said that he could build a wall of stone around Asgard so big and so strong that neither Jotuns, dwarves nor any other uninvited guests could force their way through or break it down.

The Gods thought it would be nice to have such a wall, and we asked him his price. He wanted Freya, the most beautiful of all the Goddesses in Asgard, as his wife, and he also wanted the sun and the moon. But it would take him three years to build the wall, he said.

The Gods discussed it. The price was high, they thought, but nonetheless they agreed to meet the strange man’s asking price if he could build the wall in one year. That was Loki’s suggestion, and he said that if the wall was not finished before the first day of summer, the man would get nothing.

The man agreed but only on one condition, that his horse, Svadilfari, might help. Svadilfari was a big and powerful stallion.

Loki, who is half Æsir, half Jotun and who I am certain you will hear more of, advised the Gods to accept his terms, and on the first night of winter, the master builder began his work. The work proceeded quickly, much quicker than the Gods thought possible. Every night he used his horse to drag huge stones to the building site and each day he carved them out, stacking them one on top of another, forming a high wall that looked impregnable. It was an enormous task and the man never seemed to sleep. The Gods were certain that the builder had to be a Jotun, but it was the man’s horse that impressed them most, because of the incredible loads it could haul.

The work continued and when winter was near its end, the master builder had reached almost all the way around Asgard to where the gate was meant to be. The Gods grew scared, because they never thought it possible that the man could build so much in such a short time. Since it was Loki who had persuaded the Gods to let the man use his horse, they told him that if he valued his life, he would have to find a solution. It would be disastrous for the entire world if the master builder drove off to Jotunheim with the sun and the moon, nor could they manage without the beautiful Freya.

Loki realised the seriousness of the matter and promised to move heaven and earth to stop the man.

That same night, when the master builder took his stallion out to collect more stone, a beautiful mare jumped out of the woods. The stallion immediately sensed the mare’s enticing smell, broke free from its reins and galloped off after the mare.

The master builder shouted and screamed and raced after the horses, but they ran all night and he could not catch them. The next day, the man had no stone to build with and as there were only three days left, he knew that he would not finish in time. He was ranting and raving and he damned the Gods for eternity.

An angry Jotun is not to be taken lightly,” Thor continued, “and therefore they sent word to me straightaway. I set off at once and luckily I managed to return home before anything bad happened. As soon as I saw the master builder, I could tell that he was a Jotun in disguise and so I hurled my hammer right into his kisser, smashing his skull to pieces.

Loki was nowhere to be found, as he had transformed himself into a mare – but now he had to keep up his act with Svadilfari, it was the only decent thing to do.

Some time later he gave birth to a foal. It was grey and had eight legs and grew up to be an incredible horse. It could run like no other horse and it moved just as well over water and in the air as it did on the ground. We named it Sleipnir and gave it to Odin – and he still has it,” Thor concluded.

“What happened to Svadilfari?” Erik asked.

“No one knows. It disappeared and was probably killed or eaten alive by the beasts in Jotunheim. No one has seen it since.”

Thor shouted to the goats once more, and instantly they drove through the gap in the wall that had never been completed. It was an incredible piece of construction, Erik could see. The wall was far larger than the wall around Kronborg Castle, which he had seen on a school excursion to Helsingør. He had wondered how anyone could ever get past such a wall and conquer the castle in the olden days.

Even though it looked impossible, he knew that it had happened from time to time. But the wall he was passing through now was absolutely incredible, surely far bigger than the Great Wall of China, which Erik had seen pictures of. That one had been built through the work of many thousands of people, but this wall was the work of just one man in one year!

When they got inside, Erik spotted Sleipnir straight away. It was grazing on a vast plain, but when it saw Hófvarpnir it whinnied loudly and galloped towards Thor’s chariot. Hófvarpnir raised his head and whinnied in return. Thor brought the chariot to a stop so that the two horses could greet each other, and also so that Erik could have a look around. He could hardly believe that he was in the middle of Asgard, in the realm of the ancient gods!

The light was the most striking aspect: clear, golden and sparkling. It emphasised the colours, made them more intense and more beautiful. The air was pure and filled with warmth and amazing smells; it was almost intoxicating. The rolling landscape consisted of valleys, hills, low mountains and vast plains. There were paths and streams winding off, lakes with crystal-clear blue water, and the clouds floated between the sunbeams like cotton wool. Erik sighed. It was too good to be true.

Large estates and fortresses were scattered about, each one more impressive than the last. All of the buildings he saw were built with enormous logs and had arched roofs with dragonheaded carvings on each corner. One fortress in particular, in the middle of a great plain, looked huge and indomitable. It looked like an entire army could fit inside.

“That is Valhalla,” Thor explained as he followed Erik’s gaze. “And that tree over there, that is Yggdrasil.”

Erik had never seen anything like it. In The Guinness Book of Records he had once seen a picture of the world’s largest tree, a giant American redwood, and it was so big that a hole had been cut through the bottom so that a lorry could drive through it. But this tree had to be much, much bigger.

A small squirrel darted up and down the trunk, looking like a needle in comparison to the enormous tree. Up in the treetop, four deer could be seen prancing around. They moved between the thick branches effortlessly, eating the leaves, looking like they would never leave the tree. Perched on one of the highest branches was a giant eagle. Even though it looked quite small from a distance, it was so big that there was enough room for the hawk that was perched on its beak.

“That is the most sacred tree in the world,” Thor said. “That is Yggdrasil, The World Tree. Its crown is always green, and its branches stretch across the world, as you can see. Yggdrasil has three roots. One of them leads to the spring where Mimir built his well. From there it continues into Jotunheim.

The second root leads to Urd’s well. Urd is one of the three Norns, or goddesses of fate, who live there. The other two Norns are called Verdandi and Skuld. For every child that is born, they determine how long it will live and how the child’s life will unfold. Every day they water the roots of Yggdrasil with water containing the white sands of Urd’s well, so that the tree does not perish.

The Gods also travel to Urd’s well when we want to have meetings in peace and quiet, but that is another story.

The third root leads all the way to Hell, a ghastly place, for that is the Kingdom of the Dead, deep in the Underworld. On the path to Hell, there is a great dragon, Nidhogg, with corpses between its feathers. It sucks the blood from the dead and gnaws at Yggdrasil’s root. It is a dreadful beast, one which I hope you will never meet.

Helviti, the ruler of the Kingdom of the Dead, is also terrible, hideous and evil. She lives amongst the dead, deep in the darkness below Yggdrasil, in rottenness and abomination. Darkness is her light.”

Just then, two large, pitch-black ravens let out a hoarse screech above them. Erik ducked instinctively, for they were as big as vultures. They stared at him with intense curiosity, then turned and flew back to Valhalla.

“Old ravens are shy and fly high to the heavens,” Thor said. “But the screech of the ravens forebodes death and misfortune. There will be corpses amongst men – but where and when?”

Erik shivered upon hearing Thor’s words and looked around uneasily. He heard wolves howling in the distance. Then two great, grey shadows darted across the plain directly towards them. Two enormous grey wolves. Erik could see their blood-red tongues hanging out of their mouths, and their intense yellow eyes staring directly at him. They drew closer and closer, quickly and silently.