Newly Published: Skrymers Glove

Newly Published Science Fiction and Norse Mythology blend!

Note: A special offer for you at the buttom of the post!

Skrymers Glove

War in the Milky Way!Two races, Aseir and Vanes, have allied against the brutal Yetten forces bent on dominating the entire galaxy. During experimentation with the Fyrkat device on planet Earth, two human children, Tjalfe and Roeskva, are abducted by the Yetten and now it´s up to Thor, Loki, Balder, Freya and Sif to rescue them. Unfortunately there is a traitor among them and evidence does point to Loki, Thor´s best friend and Thor struggles with the questions burning inside: could Loki really be the traitor or is something else going on? And will they succeed in saving the children´s lives?

Why I wrote the story:
I´m a big fan of Science Fiction and one of my favorite shows is "Star Gate" including all of its spin-offs (and yes, that includes the SGU-series, which I found to be much more of a brainy series than than the others)

What I particularly like about these series is the way they integrate mythology from all parts of the world: Greek mythology, Egyptian mythology and Norse mythology. The very idea that all of these mythologies originate from visits on planet Earth from various races of the universe is both intriguing and intertextual consistent.

However, as I watched the ongoing stories of these series, I found it increasingly annoying that the Norse Mythology was so badly presented, as in 'flawed.'

For one thing, Thor and co. are called 'Asgards,' which is a funny way (not funny as in 'rofl,' but funny as in 'hmmm... strange...') of using the name of their home as a noun. The correct name of the Norse gods is 'Aser' in Danish (plural) and in English it would be 'Aseir'

But even worse, Loki is depicted as a renegade Aseir, when in fact he´s a renegade Yetten, who has joined the Aseir and more often than not is on the Aseir side fighting against the Yetten.

I wanted to write a story, where these things were corrected and began writing the story "The Legend of Hjarne´s Island," but after some time I got stuck as I began feeling that there was a story before "Legend."

Then one day, when I was surfing the internet and watching Youtube-videos, I stumbled on this video made by Hauke Vagt, a German illustrator and his brother (who´s name I am sorry to admit I don´t know)

The video tells the story of a Swedish diving team, who found a strange object in the Baltic Sea in 2011 and last year they went back to investigate further. Hauke Vagt has produced this video suggesting that maybe the anomaly was an ancient space ship crashing millenia ago.

I was intrigued at this idea and found it to fit very well with my upcoming novel and decided to integrate it in my story.

So, there you have it: Skrymers Glove is the story about how Tjalfe and his sister, Roeskva, were abducted by Yetten aliens, (maybe) rescued by Thor, Sif, Freya, Baldur and Loki and their story started the Norse Mythology!

Skrymers Glove is available at:

Kindle only:
Amazon - UK
Amazon - US
Amazon - DE
Amazon - FR
Amazon - ES
Amazon - IT
Amazon - JP
Amazon - CA
Amazon - BR

Various formats, including Kindle, PDF and EPUB (readable on most devices)
Smashwords - all countries

A gift for you!
If you want the book at half price, there´s a 'new publishing discount' right now, which means that you can get the book for only $2.50! All you have to do is go to Smashwords.com and use this discount code: CL97Z

Enjoy the book! And if you´d like to review it, I´ll really be looking forward to it!

Places and realms in Norse Mythology

"Asgard Saga" is a series of books telling the stories of Norse Mythology. The first part has already been released and is available at Smashwords.com and Amazon (and more will follow soon.) In it, you will meet various characters, all derived from the tales, Vikings have told about Aseir, Yetten, Vanes and a whole bunch of strange creatures. You will meet Thor, Odin, Freya, Mimer, Loke and elves, humans and giants.


Norse Mythology is rather complicated in the way these entities interact with each other and as to whom is blood related.


This post is meant as background material, or a guide if you will, giving you a better understanding of Norse Mythology, its characters and its view of the world. You will be provided with explanations: where do we find these myths? how do the different creatures relate to each other? what is the context in which the stories originated?


As I move forward with the writing of the Saga, I will post more, so that you will be able to get a basic understanding of it all.


First, let´s have a look at how the world is percieved according to Norse Mythology:


Places and realms

Illustration of Niflheim shamelessly stolen from Niflheim.com

Niflheim: A realm far north, where the Ice Dragon Nidhug sleeps. "Nidhug" can be directly translated to "Eager to strike" or "Will bite" - Niflheim probably means "home of the cold," which is rather fitting, as this realm is cold and dark.

Muspelheim: Opposite of Niflheim in every respect, Muspelheim is guarded by a create by the name of Surt. "Surt" directly translated means "Sour" and is probably referring to the soil being of such a nature, that nothing can grow there. I have yet to figure out, what Muspelheim really means, so the only thing, I can reveal at this point is that the ending "heim" means home - as in home of. But I suppose you already figured that out.

Obviously Ginnungagab cannot be illustrated,
but this illustrates the creational myth

Ginnungagab: The space between Muspelheim and Niflheim. Ginnungagab can be translated to something like "the gap of nothing," which is exactly what it is: A whole lot of nothing. As the cold from Niflheim meets with the heat from Muspelheim in Ginnungagab, the first creatures of the world emerges.

Midgard: After creating humans, Odin and his brothers, Vile and Ve, built a fence to protect the humans from the Yetten and this area is called Midgard, which simply means "Place in the middle."


One of Loke´s children is the Midgard Serpent, which surround Midgard waiting for Ragnarok to begin. Then it´ll have an important role to play, before the world is doomed and re-created


Utgard: Everything outside Midgard is Utgard, which means "Place Outside."

Another shamelessly stolen illustration,
this one is from marvel,wikia.com

Asgard: The home of the Aseir. They built it right after building the fence around Midgard. Asgard is placed over Midgard and thus represents Norse Mythology´s equivalent to Greek Mythology´s Olympia.


Vanaheim: Home of the Vanes. Only the name of the place can be derived from the early texts of Norse Mythology


Jotunheim: Another word for Utgard - or perhaps a specific place in Utgard, where the Yetten live.

Bifrost: The bridge connecting Midgard to Asgard. It is guarded by Heimdal, whose ears are so sensitive that he can hear the sound of grass growing. He lives in his house at the top of Sky Mountain.


An interesting detail is that while Bifrost is often depicted as a rainbow, like this illustration here, scholars today believe this is a misconception of the modern world. Instead they believe Bifrost to be the mythical object trying to explain - not the rainbow - but to explain the Milky Way.

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Asgard Saga - Odin the Creator released!

The most amazing thing just happened. I finished the first part of Asgard Saga much earlier than I expected and it is already available at Smashwords.com:

It is priced at $2.99 
     - "Hey! Didn´t you promise it would be only $0.99?"


Yes, I did, and I will keep my promise, of course. That´s why I generated a coupon for it to be used at Smashwords.com only. Go to the book´s page at  https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/148001  and punch in this code before going to payment: DT64W


That´s it! You´re set to read! Enjoy!

Norse myth narrative

Writing the Asgard Saga is no less than a real treat to me. Not only do I love the stories, but working with them in a more modern narrative form is very rewarding. These stories have been handed down from generation to generation and were not written down before some time in the early 13th century after the chance from Heathen religion to Christianity. This brings a challenge differing from, say the Christian or Jewish texts.


The Jewish tradition is different from the Viking tradition, because the storytelling of the latter wasn´t a "to-the-letter" handing down. The base line was more important than telling the stories exactly in the same way, whereas the Jewish tradition demanded the handing down of myth and stories to be told word for word. This means that the stories from the Bible are very accurate. They are told in the original languages almost exactly as they were told 500, 1000 or even 5000 years ago.

The Norse myths aren´t this accurate and in time some of the stories have changed some of their meaning. For instance, there is some doubt as to weither Odin and Frey were married or not.

The most important thing, however, is that I want to make as good a balance as possible between telling the stories in such a way that the characters come alive, but still honors the original stories. This is a difficult task, mostly due to the narrative tradition of Norse Mythology, where the characters are flat, meaning that they lean towards action rather than the characters´ mindsets and characteristics behind the action.

This is their strength, but it also makes it difficult to describe who these characters really are. For instance, the stories do not reveal Odin as having a devious mind, but his actions are either devious or he is not aware of the results of his actions. Of course, the stories tell little by little that he IS devious, but you have to read quite a few of the myths to catch that.

That´s why I really enjoy writing my interpretation of these myths. It´s a challenge to bring the stories to life and give my readers a good reading experience without being unfaithful to the messages of the myths.

I am very much looking forward to getting feedback from all you people out there, just waiting for the first volume to come out and as a treat, I want to share with you the cover for the book. It´s not entirely finished yet and it may look somewhat different when I publish, but this is what I´ve got so far:

I hope, you´ve enjoyed reading my blog posts on the Norse Mythology and I can assure you, that I´m not even close to being finished with it yet. There will be more to come.

Do you like the cover?

Feel free to comment, even if you really, really hate the cover!

War between gods

It is so exciting to work with the old Norse myths! Right now I'm going with the story of how Vanes and Ases come to war with each other. It all starts as the Vane Guldveig arrives in Asgard to offer her services as a soothsayer. Vanes perform Seid, a magic, the Ases aren´t familiar with and she has the special ability to light a fire in the Aesir heart awakening their deepest passions and jealousy. It takes a while before they figure out what is going on, but when they find that all their recent quarrels and disagreements come from Guldveig´s magic, they respond promptly. Guldveig is pierced through the heart with a spear. But mysteriously enough , she doesn´t die. Then they try burning her, but still no result. Three times she is burned and three times she survives, then leaves Asgard and returns to her home in Vanaheim. The Vanes being angry about the treatment she received in Asgard,  they send their fiercest warriors to Asgard and a war begins.

In the end, the two godly tribes come to an agreement and decide on a truce. To ensure the peace between them, they exchange memebers of their families, so that some of the Ases come to live at Vanaheim and some of the Vanes come to live in Asgard.


That´s the short version... The narrative version is under way and I´m very much looking forward to publishing!

Norse Mythology re-re-visited

As I´m digging into the mythology behind my viking heritage, I have come to realize that my knowlegde and memory is somewhat lacking. The result is that some of my earlier posts on the subject contain errors. That´s why I´ve decided to re-re-visit Norse Mythology in a new post. Of course, I could´ve chosen to just edit these earlier posts, but instead I feel it would be better to leave these posts as is (except for inserting the fact that they are a bit off) to show the development in my studies.


Another important thing is that when you read the stories I intend to include in my upcoming Asgard Saga, please keep in mind that they are fiction. The base line is coming from some of the original sources, but the stories have been modernized in the sense that the character desription is deeper than in the original stories.


The reason is that storytelling has changed through time. In the early Viking Age, character description was flat and brief, showing only the most nescessary elements of a person. Today we tend to describe feelings and landscapes more detailed. For the stories to be entertaining as well as informative, I try to keep a balance between action and being true to the original storyline. Hopefully you will find that I´ve been succesful in doing so.


Back to the re-re-visitation!


Norse Mythology is rather complex and even more so than I first realized. Some of the errors I´ve made in my previous posts are derived from this notion. I could choose to correct my mistakes point by point, but the complexity of the whole thing made me realize that re-posting and re-explaining would probably be the better option, so here we go:


The gods´ family tree


To define which supernatural entities in Norse Mythology are to be considered gods is not an easy task. Truth be told, we can only guess how the Vikings saw it. Probably they didn´t feel the urge to make such definitions, as this kind of approach is more bound to the monotheologic religions such as Christianity, Islam and Judaism. In the late 1800´s and in the beginning of the 1900´s most scholars chose to approach Norse Mythology by directly comparing it to Greek and Roman mythology. That approach makes Freyr the Norse equivalent to the Greek god of virility, Priapos and Odin the aquivalent to Zeus.


While I´m not a scholar and therefore do not have the authority to enter this discussion, I would much rather refrain from defining who is to be thought of as a god and who is merely a supernatural entity such as elves or unicorns. In the following I will there fore use the word gods when talking about Vanes, Ases and Yetten. I still don´t know what to do with some of their off spring, though...


In the world of the gods there are three family trees woven into eachother in various combinations. These are:

• Vanes
• Ases
• Yetten

The Vanes and the Ases have been at war with eachother, but peace has been established between them.


Probably as part of the truce, some Vanes now live in Asgard and possibly some Ases live in Vanaheim. However, Vanaheim is still a bit of a mystery to me. There might be sources telling more about Vanaheim, but for now I imagine Vanaheim is not placed in either Asgard, Midgard or Utgard. If you know, please feel free to make a comment correcting me beneath the post.


The peace and trusting interaction between Ases and Vanes leave the Yetten as mortal enemies of both families and although the myths usually side with the Ases (and Vanes, who mostly play a minor part in the myths) against the Yetten, it cannot be interpreted in terms of good or evil. The Yetten aren´t percieved as evil. They are percieved as enemies of the Ases (and Vanes)


So, after this (short, hopefully) introduction to family matters of the Norse Mythology, I´m looking forward to hear your comments.

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Oh, almost forgot: my next post, hopefully published tomorrow, will be about the massive influence of Norse Mythology to YOUR everyday life - every single week you are connected to Norse Mythology, believe it or not. Chances are, you will be in for quite the surprise...