Neil Gaiman’s Norse Mythology was not written for me. All of this happened years before I encountered the Marvel comics’ and films’ versions of the Norse gods, of course. It was one of my first encounter with complex storytelling and an equally complex villain protagonist, and it is for this simple reason alone that Loki holds a special place in my heart. The authors of Myths and Legends were not contented in merely presenting the Norsemen’s stories as they were, but chose to anchor them with Loki as the linchpin, making him out as some sort of tragic figure who evolved from a trickster to a more malevolent creature, and even pointed out moments in the Eddas that had prodded Loki’s descent into darkness. That forever coloured my understanding of the stories revolving the vikings’ gods. “ shows that rarest of things in a mythological personage: character development.” Myths & Legends: Viking, Oriental, Greek (1992) by Bellingham, Whitaker and Grant There is a specific quote from Myths and Legends that wormed itself into my head and had not left since, I cannot recall when I was first introduced to them but the twin influence of the real-time strategy game Age of Mythology, and Bellingham, Whitaker and Grant’s Myths and Legends solidified that affection for Norse myths in my youth. Much like Mr Gaiman, I too grew up loving myths and in due course, developed a partiality to the Norse variety.
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