Handbook of Norse Mythology

John Lindow, Handbook of Norse Mythology. ABC-CLIO Handbooks of World Mythology, 2001. ISBN 1-57607-217-7. Republished as Norse Mythology: A Guide to the Gods, Heroes, Rituals, and Beliefs. Oxford University Press, 2002: ISBN 0-19-515382-0. $22.50.

John Lindow is one of the foremost American scholars in the field of Old Norse Studies. He was one of the Harvard students who produced the first English translation of George Dumézil's classic Les dieux des Germains--published as Gods of the Ancient Northmen in 1973, and in print almost continuously since then. Lindow's contributions to our understanding of the ancient Northern religion have been many and significant, from his Ph.D. dissertation, Comitatus, Individual, and Honor: Studies in North Germanic Institutional Vocabulary (1976), through his co-editorship of Old Norse-Icelandic Literature: A Critical Guide (Islandica 45, 1985), to his insightful analysis of the story of Baldr's death and its aftermath, Murder and Vengeance Among the Gods: Baldr in Scandinavian Mythology (1997). The Handbook of Norse Mythology is Lindow's first work designed to make the old Northern mythology accessible to a general audience.

The first 38 pages of Handbook consist of a wide-ranging and rather unfocused introduction, in which the author discusses the meaning of myth, the historical background of the Eddic poems, the conversion of Scandinavia, the influence of Christianity, runic inscriptions, an overview of Eddic and skaldic poetry, more detailed overviews of the Prose and Poetic Eddas and Ynglinga Saga, the archaeological record, the Indo-European background of the myths, Tacitus' Germania, and thence up to Richard Wagner, Hitler, and modern Asatruar - whom Lindow dismisses as primarily interested in drinking beer and sacrificing sausages.

The second section brings an abrupt shift in mood and tone. These 7 pages consist of Lindow the scholar discoursing on the nature of mythic time. This is fascinating reading, recounting the latest scholarly views on the subject and speculating on the role of Ragnarök in the old Norse conception of time.

Section Three is the heart of the Handbook, an alphabetical, encyclopedic presentation of "deities, themes, and concepts." These 280 pages cover the waterfront, from Aegir to Yngvi. The entries are generally comprehensive but without excessive detail. I compared Lindow's coverage to Andy Orchard's Dictionary of Norse Myth and Legend and found the main difference to be that Lindow has fewer but longer entries than Orchard. If you want to look up Aelfric, Albruna, or Atli, for example, forget Lindow's Handbook--they're not listed. But on the other hand, Lindow offers 2-1/2 pages on Aegir and his daughters, and more than 4 pages on the Aesir, compared to half a page each in Orchard. (Lindow also has entries for "Alfödr" and Atla that are not found in Orchard.)

The final, 14-page section of the Handbook consists of a narrative account of Lindow's recommended sources, arranged by topic. This section includes a rather terse (but sadly, well deserved) swipe at heathen sites on the Internet. "Content is easy to find," Lindow notes, "but there is no quality control." No kidding. This section also mentions a couple of sites that sound like valuable resources, but when I tried to find them they had moved or shut down.

The Handbook of Norse Mythology concludes with a useful, comprehensive, 25-page index. Overall, this is a good general reference work that casual readers may find more useful than Orchard's book or Rudolf Simek's Dictionary of Northern Mythology, because of Lindow's more in-depth treatment of the most important concepts and personages in the old Northern beliefs.