THE 10 BEST NORSE MYTHOLOGY BOOKS

The Viking Spirit is an introduction to Norse mythology like no other. As you’d expect from the creator of this enduringly popular website, it’s written to scholarly standards, but in a simple, clear, and entertaining style that’s easy to understand and a pleasure to read.

It includes gripping retellings of no less than 34 epic Norse myths – more than any other book in the field – while also providing an equally comprehensive overview of the fascinating Viking religion of which Norse mythology was a part. You’ll learn about the Vikings’ gods and goddesses, their concept of fate, their views on the afterlife, their moral code, how they thought the universe was structured, how they practiced their religion, the role that magic played in their lives, and much more. The book gives equal weight to the nonfiction, historical material and the stories.

With its inclusion of the latest groundbreaking research in the field, The Viking Spirit is the ultimate introduction to the timeless splendor of Norse mythology and religion for the 21st Century.

Click here to view or buy The Viking Spirit at Amazon.

In Norse Mythology, acclaimed fiction writer Neil Gaiman sets out to retell a selection of the Norse myths that have served as a substantial source of inspiration for many of his earlier works, perhaps most notably the very popular novel American Gods.

Although Gaiman retells only a few of the dozens of surviving Viking myths, his choices include almost all of the most important ones, such as the creation of the universe and its cataclysmic downfall, as well as some that are particularly odd and funny. And by limiting himself to a particular portion of the myths, he’s able to flesh out those myths in a grand, novelistic form, which is perhaps the book’s greatest strength. It turns some of the greatest stories in world literature into a great modern novel in its own right.

The only downside for some prospective readers will be that Norse Mythology doesn’t have much of a discussion of the Norse religion from which the myths arose. But if you’re only interested in the stories, it’s hard to beat this book, and if you want more than just the stories, you can always round out the picture by also reading another one of the books on this list that include more of a nonfiction, historical discussion of the religion. I’ve heard from many people that Norse Mythology and The Viking Spirit complement each other particularly nicely.

Click here to view or buy Norse Mythology at Amazon.

If you’re a parent looking for a book on Norse mythology for your child, The D’Aulaires’ Book of Norse Myths is easily the best book on Norse mythology for children. There’s not even a close second. The D’Aulaires’ Book of Norse Myths is specifically written for ages 5-9, or kindergarten through fourth grade.

Lovingly and evocatively written and very easy to understand, these retellings of the Norse tales and descriptions of the gods and their world are sure to fire your child’s imagination and get him or her interested in Norse mythology. Numerous color pictures are interspersed throughout the text. It’s also completely “family-friendly” – the d’Aulaires exclude the lurid elements of Norse mythology that some parents might find objectionable in their children’s reading material.

Click here to view or buy The D’Aulaires’ Book of Norse Myths at Amazon.

Hilda Roderick Ellis Davidson was one of the twentieth century’s foremost scholars of Norse mythology, yet most of her works were written for a general audience rather than just her fellow academic specialists. Gods and Myths of Northern Europe is her most accessible work, and is ideal for beginners who want a scholarly take on Norse religion.

Her book describes the pre-Christian religion of the Norse and other Germanic peoples in a manner that focuses less on retelling the tales than on the historical religion of which the tales were only one part. The reader comes away with a picture of pre-Christian Germanic religion that’s more thorough and nuanced than just about any other one-volume popular introduction to this topic or similar ones. For decades, Gods and Myths of Northern Europe has justifiably been one of the most widely-read books on the Viking Age.

Click here to view or buy Gods and Myths of Northern Europe at Amazon.

Much like Ellis Davidson’s Gods and Myths of Northern Europe (#4 above), legendary Oxford Old Norse professor E.O.G. Turville-Petre’s Myth and Religion of the North provides a comprehensive overview of the pre-Christian religion of Scandinavia. However, while somewhat more academic than Ellis Davidson’s book (which is why I listed Gods and Myths of Northern Europe as #4 and Myth and Religion of the North as #5), Turville-Petre more than makes up for this with his sheer comprehensiveness and acuity of insight. Where Ellis Davidson is highly admirable, Turville-Petre is downright astonishing.

In numerous universities across the world today, Myth and Religion of the North is treated as the go-to reference book for all things related to Norse mythology, and with good reason. Reading this book is something like an intellectual initiation. To put it simply: until you’ve read this absolutely essential book, you’re just a dabbler in Norse mythology.

Click here to view or buy Myth and Religion of the North: The Religion of Ancient Scandinavia at Amazon.

Now we come to the primary sources themselves (in English translation, of course).

The Poetic Edda is a work of such vision and overwhelming beauty that it has few rivals in all of world literature. It’s a collection of Old Norse mythical and heroic poems, composed by anonymous poets in Iceland or Scandinavia during the Viking Age and shortly thereafter. Taken together, these poems comprise our single most important source of information for Norse mythology and religion.

To be perfectly frank, no English translation that’s been published so far comes close to conveying the full extent of the grandeur and nuance (both aesthetic and philosophical) of the Old Norse texts. To a large extent, this is inevitable; as Robert Frost once said, “I could define poetry this way: it is that which is lost out of both prose and verse in translation.” However, Jackson Crawford’s translation achieves what no other translation has to date: the style is clear and easily understandable while preserving much of the beauty of the original. (Other translations tend to do one or the other, but not both.) That’s quite a feat.

Click here to view or buy The Poetic Edda at Amazon.

The Prose Edda was written in the thirteenth century by the Icelandic scholar Snorri Sturluson, and it’s often considered to be the second most important source for our information on Norse mythology (after the Poetic Edda, #6 above). It was originally written as a treatise on the mythology behind numerous conventional images in Old Norse poetry, to be used by poets and those who wanted to understand the works of older poets better. Snorri provides something akin to a systematic summary of the narratives, deities, and cosmology of Norse mythology.

Scholars fiercely debate how accurate the information in his book is, and there’s a widespread consensus that, at the very least, Snorri can’t be taken at face value. Nevertheless, one way or another, his Prose Edda is a treasure trove of facts that would have been totally lost otherwise, regardless of the difficulty of separating the facts from Snorri’s own embellishments or misunderstandings.

Click here to view or buy The Prose Edda at Amazon.

The Saga of the Volsungs is probably the most popular and influential of the Icelandic sagas, which, along with the Eddas, are the most important literary sources of our present knowledge of the mythology and religion of the pre-Christian Germanic peoples. The Saga of the Volsungs is a truly epic story if ever there was one, and recounts the larger-than-life deeds of the Volsung clan, the gods who had a hand in their fortunes, and especially the hero Sigurd. Dragons are slain, treasures are lost and recovered, humans become animals and animals become people, and all the while the reader is gaining authentic knowledge about ancient northern European gods, myths, and values.

The stories upon which this saga is based date from the early centuries AD and were common throughout the Germanic world. Elements of them also survive in a few of the poems in the Poetic Edda (#6 above) and the medieval German Das Nibelungenlied. The Germanic peoples evidently saw these stories as being among their most important. The Saga of the Volsungs in particular was also the basis for Richard Wagner’s Ring operas and a major inspiration for J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings.

This particular edition of the saga also includes the Saga of Ragnar Lothbrok.

Click here to view or buy The Saga of the Volsungs at Amazon.

The medieval Icelandic sagas are wondrous literary works, written in a stark, matter-of-fact style that brims with unspoken implications. And, once again, they’re also some of our most important literary sources of information on the pre-Christian mythology, religion, and culture of the Norse and other Germanic peoples. This 740-page tome contains no less than ten of these sagas, as well as an assortment of numerous shorter tales.

The centerpiece of The Sagas of Icelanders is Egil’s Saga, which recounts the deeds of the nigh-invincible warrior-poet and devotee of Odin Egil Skallagrimsson. It’s among the best of the sagas, both in terms of its literary quality and what the attentive reader can learn from it.

The translations are all carefully selected and top-notch. This is the best introduction out there to the Icelandic sagas as a genre, and for less than $20, it’s quite a bargain.

Click here to view or buy The Sagas of Icelanders at Amazon.

Professor Lindow’s Norse Mythology mostly consists of an alphabetical encyclopedia of some of the most important personages, cosmological locations, and other such “key terms” in Norse mythology. It’s certainly not a standalone introduction to Norse mythology (see #1-5 on this list for such books). Rather, it’s a very handy reference book that you can use when reading other books on Norse mythology, much like the glossaries that sometimes accompany Tolkien’s works, which similarly feature a potentially confusing profusion of proper nouns.

Lindow’s book makes the perfect companion to any and all of the other books in the field.

Click here to view or buy Norse Mythology: A Guide to Gods, Heroes, Rituals, and Beliefs at Amazon.

Once you’ve read some of the books on this list, you’ll be ready to move on to The 10 Best Advanced Norse Mythology Books.