Neil Gaiman’s book Norse Mythology, and especially the audiobook, is incredible. I’d venture a guess that it’s a fairer representation than, say, Marvel. I’ve also learned a bit of Norse cultural astronomy, and it’s hella cool. Like what we know today as Auriga was for the Norse “the battleground of the Aesir”, which is 1000x more dope than “oh, yeah, that circle is a, uhhhhhhhhhhh, charioteer”. Much of the other constellations they saw are lost to time and history, but it’s easy to start looking at the sky and imagining what they saw. Many cultures saw Draco, for example, and that may have been the world serpent. One wonders if, where the Greeks and Arabs saw a scorpion, the Norse saw a short-handled hammer, especially given their more northerly latitude which would have hidden the hook of Scorpius’ tail below the southern horizon.
Neil Gaiman’s book Norse Mythology, and especially the audiobook, is incredible. I’d venture a guess that it’s a fairer representation than, say, Marvel. I’ve also learned a bit of Norse cultural astronomy, and it’s hella cool. Like what we know today as Auriga was for the Norse “the battleground of the Aesir”, which is 1000x more dope than “oh, yeah, that circle is a, uhhhhhhhhhhh, charioteer”. Much of the other constellations they saw are lost to time and history, but it’s easy to start looking at the sky and imagining what they saw. Many cultures saw Draco, for example, and that may have been the world serpent. One wonders if, where the Greeks and Arabs saw a scorpion, the Norse saw a short-handled hammer, especially given their more northerly latitude which would have hidden the hook of Scorpius’ tail below the southern horizon.