Hœnir

Like many creation stories, we do not know where these other giants came from, if not from the body of Ymir.

From Bor and Besla were born the first three gods, Odin, Honir, and Lodur.

Sometimes they are called Odin, Vili, and Vey.

These three gods slew Ymir.

One that echoes in shamanic traditions in many European cultures.

One may speculate that the tree arose out of the, uh, protomire of Gwyn, oh God, this word, Gwyn Gugop at the moment of the primal clash of worlds that brought about the creation of life so that the tree contains within itself that evolutionary drive, but there is no conclusive evidence in lore to support this theory.

After setting the worlds and multiverse in order, the three gods, Odin, Honir, and Lodur, decide to create humankind.

They take an ash and an elm, both sacred trees, and transform them into the images of bodies, one male and one female.

Later in the same poem, when the first humans are given life, Odin's companions are named differently.

as Honir and Lothur, whose natures are mysterious, and scholars still argue about who exactly they were.

But in Snorri's orderly account, the shapers of the world are Odin, Vili and Ve, the three sons of Bor.

The sources do not pause to explain why the brothers acted as they did.

Snorri tells that the three sons of Bor were walking one day along the seashore at the edge of the New World.

and they found two trees, or two logs of wood, washed up on the beach.

In the Veluspa, the gods who find them are Odin, Honir, and Lothur, and the two figures are described lying on the land, of little strength, without fate.

One was an ash, and the other, it seems, was an elm, though the meaning of its name is less certain.

So Odin.

The back jacket is something always seems to jolt Mary back into reality of living with gods.

I'm not going to say this right.

Honir, the god Honir? Yes.

And so I started the Sleuthing with Mortals series.

And the first one was The Turkish Connection.

And I deliberately chose two gods who were not well known in the pantheon.

Lin was the handmaiden of Frigg, the wife of Odin.

Völuspá explicitly names Vidar, Vali, Móði, and Magni in its vision of the world after destruction.

It also says that Baldr and Hod will return, and it mentions Hoenir in the renewed world.

These names are in the poem, but modern summaries sometimes add other figures with more confidence than the surviving texts allow.

You may see lists claiming that Frigg survives, or that several unnamed gods certainly escape, or that an entire new pantheon rises intact after the battle.

The safest conclusion is also the most interesting one.

The texts do not give us a complete census of everyone left alive.

They give us a core group, Vidar and Vali, Modi and Magni, Baldr and Hod, Hoenir, gods marked by survival, succession, and return.

Notice what is missing.

Odin, the wise father of the gods, started off one day on a journey through Midgard, the world of men, to see how his people were getting on and to give them help.

He took with him his brother Hönir, the light-giver, and Loki, the fire god.

Loki, you know, was always ready to go wherever he could have any fun or do any mischief.

All the morning they went about among the homes of Midgard.

Odin threw himself down under a tree and began to read his little book of runes or wise sayings.

But Loki began to make a fire and get ready for the feast.

Then he started off to a farmhouse nearby, leaving Hönir to cook the meat which they had brought.

As Loki came near the farmhouse, he thought to himself, "I will change myself into a cat, and then I can have a better chance to spy about." So he changed himself into a black cat, and jumping upon the kitchen window sill, he saw the farmer's wife taking some cakes out of the oven.