New Science Fiction underway - wanna help?

Do you love Science Fiction?
Do you love Norse Mythology?

If so, maybe you will find the idea of a blend between them quite intriguing.

This is exactly the plot of my Science Fiction Novel, "Skrymer´s Glove," which was published in Danish on the 17th of October last year. Right now, I´m struggling with a translation and will hopefully have the book ready for publishing in English within the next few months.

But, alas... I have come to realize I need help. Even though my English is certainly above average, there are issues with grammar and sentence structure, I have trouble overcoming.

This is where you might come in.

I´m in search for people, who love Science Fiction (or books in general) and want to help me edit the book for grammar, spelling and the flow of the text. Anyone participating will of course receive a free copy of the finished eBook (I´m working to find a solution, so that you can get a hard copy, but no promises there...)

This is how it works:

1. Write a comment in the field below or send me an email to: perholbo@gmail.com
2. You will then receive a copy of the draft in RTF, which is a standard format that can be opened by almost every editing programme such as word, openoffice and iPages
3. Read the draft and insert your comments as you see fit. If you´re one of those people who find grammar to be the most important thing in the world, focus on grammar. If your main competence is in the field of making a text flow, focus on text flow. If you prefer doing body count, please do that. Whatever makes you tick. As long as you comment on the text, so that I have something to work with.
4. When you´re ready, send the RTF back to me using the before mentioned email. I prefer receiving all comments integrated into an RTF-file, but if you have trouble saving the file as RTF, we´ll work out that problem as well.
5. I will then read through all your comments and based on them I will edit the book and send it to all of you, again as an RTF-file.
6. If after reading the edited file, you still have comments, please feel free to do so, but this is not an obligation.
7. Based on the second set of comments (if there are any) I will re-edit the book and publish it through Smashwords.com, Amazon.com and other channels and you will receive a discount code to obtain your full and freely readable copy of the book in your preferred format, that being any of the formats listed here.

Hoping to see you participate,
Regards, Per Holbo

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.

Was this guide helpful?

Anything you´d like to add?

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.

Was this informative?

Do you find Norse Mythology interesting?

Did you find any flaws in my post?

Comment and correct beneath

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...