Tales of Asgard: Stories from Norse Mythology

About this book

Asgard.. where sky and ice shake hands in the dance of eternity. Have you ever wondered how dawn was born in the imagination of the distant northern peoples? Behind the thick curtain of mist and in lands where frost tales never set, this book opens a forgotten gateway to "Asgard," the holy city the gods built to be a fortress of beauty and wisdom. This is no mere chronicle of bygone myths, but a deep human journey into the heart of the eternal conflict between the powers of light and darkness, and between wisdom and sacrifice. Through the translator Eman El-Ghazaly's pen, we track "Odin," the All-Father, as he offers his dearest possession at "Mimir's Well" for a sip of wisdom to light humanity's roads, and we feel the trembling of the "Bifrost" bridge beneath the immortals' feet. You will meet "Idun" here and her golden apples preserving the secret of eternal youth, and you will understand why the world trembles when "Thor," god of thunder, grows angry. The tales slip between this work's folds to revive the values of courage and loyalty embodied by "Tyr" the brave, and uncover the machinations of "Loki," who mixes intelligence with evil. They are stories fathers chanted to their sons on long winter nights, preserved by mountains in their rocks, to return to us today in an enchanting literary formulation that does not content itself with transmitting the myth, but searches in the human instinct for "the Creator" and for the beauty latent in nature's details; from the smallest flower fairies to the greatest storm giants. "Tales of Asgard" is an invitation to contemplate the world with our ancestors' eyes, where every thunder is the sound of a hammer, and every rainbow a bridge toward the unknown.