Monday 27 May 2019

Thor Was Something of a Yorkshireman




E:  Sir, I come as emissary of the Prince of Wales with the most
    splendid news. He wants your daughter Amy for his wife.

H:  Well his wife can't have her! Outrageous, sir, to come here with
    such a suggestion! (stands up angrily) Why, sir, or I shall take off
    my belt and by thunder me trousers will fall down!


“The whole point about Odin was that he had the Right but not the Might. 

The point about Norse religion was that it alone of all mythologies told Men to serve Gods who were admittedly fighting with their backs to The Wall and would certainly be defeated in The End. 

‘I am off to die with Odin’ said the rover in Stevenson’s fable, thus proving that Stevenson understood something about the Nordic spirit which (Nazi) Germany has never been able to understand at all. 

The Gods will fall. The Wisdom of Odin, the Humourous Courage of Thor (Thor was something of a Yorkshireman) and the Beauty of Balder, will all be smashed eventually by the realpolitik of the stupid giants and misshapen trolls. 

But that does not in the least alter the allegiance of any free man. 


Hence, as we should expect, real Germanic poetry is all about heroic stands, and fighting against hopeless odds.”

- C.S. Lewis

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