“Odd didn’t understand the words of the songs she sang, but she would translate them after she had sung them, and his head would roil with fine lords riding out on their great horses, their noble falcons on their wrists, brave hounds always padding by their sides, off to get into all manner of trouble, fighting giants and rescuing maidens and freeing the oppressed from tyranny.”

Odd’s mother is from Scotland, implying that her native language is an older form of Scottish Gaelic. Scotland during the era of the Vikings was under intense influence from a variety of external cultures, including Nordic, French, and English. The descriptions of Odd’s mother’s songs allude to this French and English influence, particularly that of Arthurian legends, which reflect the noble lord narrative that is less common in older Scottish tales.

“There were blankets in the corner still, and a straw-stuffed mattress, and he could imagine that the little room smelled of his father, and nobody hit him or called him a cripple or an idiot, and so, after building the fire high enough that it would still be burning in the morning, he went to sleep quite happy.”

This passage characterizes Odd as fundamentally lonely and isolated, even if he himself does not seem to identify these feelings outright. His father, while never present alive on the page, is a key influence on Odd’s development and is implied to be his tether to safety and security. With Odd’s father gone, he is unsafe and harmed by the other villagers; even isolation with the imagined smell of his father is safer than staying in society.

“It was, Odd concluded, an animal with a plan. He had no plans, other than a general determination never to return to the village. And it was not every day that you got to follow a fox. So he did.” 

Importantly, this passage establishes that Odd did not have a plan for his survival in the wilderness. While he is clearly cunning and capable, he starts the story as a character who purely responds to the world around him, rather than taking agency for himself to make decisions. The village bullies him; he leaves. The fox wanders into the forest; he follows it. Odd must learn to make his own decisions and plans and take his life—and his survival—into his own hands.

“The dead tree had a hole in one side, the kind that bees sometimes inhabit and fill with honeycomb. The people in Odd’s village would make the honey into the alcoholic mead they drank to celebrate the safe return of their Vikings, and the midwinter, and any other excuse they needed to celebrate.”

Mead is considered one of the oldest alcoholic drinks in the world and is important to many cultures. Nordic cultures in particular highly elevated mead; their mythologies included the Mead of Poetry, which was rumored to grant the drinker impressive storytelling or scholarly abilities. Mead was so vital to the social structure of Nordic societies that the traditional center of villages was the mead hall, a large structure intended to host gatherings and other celebrations.

“The fox sauntered ahead of them, the eagle flew above them and Odd thought, crazily, happily, I’m just like one of the brave lords in my mother’s ballads. Only without the horse, the dog, and the falcon.”

Odd’s perception of himself is shaped by the concept of heroism, but he does not elevate the heroic figures of his own culture in his imagination; instead, he prefers to imagine himself as a knight. This passage uses parallelism to illustrate the synthesis of Odd’s identity; he is a knight like the heroes of his mother’s tales, but he is also joined by animals integral to Norse mythology. Ultimately, however, he is simply Odd, not a knight or a Viking; riding a bear is something nobody else will ever replicate.

“He walked over to the straw mattress and climbed onto it, placing the crutch carefully against the wall, to pull himself up when he woke. The bed didn’t smell like his father at all, he realized, as he lay down. It just smelled like straw. Odd closed his eyes, and he was asleep. Dreams of darkness, of flashes, of moments—nothing he could hold on to, nothing that comforted him.”

Odd’s grief is a potent part of the story, even if Odd himself does not take much time to reflect on it. This passage illustrates the darker side of Odd’s experience of the world. He is alone in the world; his father is dead, his village rejects him, and he has pushed himself away from his mother. Odd’s realization that the straw doesn’t smell like his father connects to his lowest point, before he becomes aware of the gods and enters a new stage of the story and of reality.

“‘Freya,’ said the bear. ‘The Giant wanted Freya. Most lovely of the Goddesses—with, obviously, the exception of Sif, my own little love. And it wanted the Sun and the Moon.’”

This passage, as with many others, includes references to other parts of Norse mythology, largely recorded in The Prose Edda. The unnamed Giant was unnamed in the original story as well and was only revealed to be a Giant at the end of the story when he broke into a rage upon failing to build the wall in time. The bear—or Thor—also references his wife Sif, an earth goddess with beautiful golden hair. Mjolnir, Thor’s hammer, originates in a myth wherein Loki cuts Sif’s hair; Thor forces him to get her a golden headpiece, resulting in the dwarves Loki hires making a series of powerful gifts for the gods that are integral to many other stories in Norse mythology.

“‘I cannot accept your offer, O brave and extremely good-looking one,’ she said to me, eyes shining like twin sapphires in the moonlight. ‘For although you are obviously tall and powerful and extremely attractive, I have promised my father—a king who lives far from here—that I will not give my heart or my lips to any but he who possesses one thing.’”

The language in this passage uses comedy and exaggeration to convey Loki’s perspective of himself, as well as the obvious trickery of the Giant trying to seduce him into giving up Mjolnir. If the Giant literally said these things, it is obvious that he is trying to trick Loki; if he didn’t, then it is obvious Loki is inflating the story to make himself look better. Both options, however, are equally humiliating to Loki, making this passage humorous to read.

“‘We won’t die,’ said the bear, ‘because we can’t die here. But we’ll get hungry. And we’ll get more wild. More animal. It’s something that happens when you have taken on animal form. Stay in it too long and you become what you pretend to be. When Loki was a horse—’

‘We don’t talk about that,’ said the fox.”

This passage also slyly references the story where the Giant built the wall around Asgard, which will be discussed in more detail later in the book. Although the book never explicitly mentions it, Loki’s embarrassment at the story where he turned into a horse is due to the outcome of his encounter with the Giant’s stallion—Loki, in mare form, carried and gave birth to the stallion’s foal, an eight-legged horse. This horse became Sleipnir, Odin’s powerful mount. Loki’s children are especially important to Norse mythology, as through a giant he also gives birth to Hel, the goddess of the underworld, and the dangerous wolf Fenrir and the World Serpent Jörmungandr.

“The waterfall was one of his favorite places in the world. From spring until midwinter it ran high and fast before it crashed down almost a hundred feet into the valley beneath, where it had carved out a rocky basin. In high summer, when the sun barely set, the villagers would come out to the waterfall and splash around in the basin pool, letting the water tumble onto their heads.”

This passage uses imagery to convey the beauty of nature in the Norwegian landscape, as well as the beauty of the people who live there. While Odd has been rejected by the villagers, he still has fond memories of their joy, which reflects his own upon experiencing nature. Odd’s love of his own world is important, as it tethers him to his human nature, which he shares with all the other villagers, even if they do not act accordingly.

“A hand axe. They used to do sacrifices here, on that big rock over there, and they used tools like this to slice up the animal and to part the flesh from the bones.”

Many prehistoric cultures in Scandinavia used stone hand axes before the development of bronze, iron, and other metals. Loki could be referencing such cultures as the Pitted Ware culture, a Neolithic maritime society, or the Funnelbeaker culture, an early farming culture known to leave hand axes around religious sites. Loki goes on to claim that these early cultures were worshiping the Norse gods. While we do not have specific records of these cultures worshiping even ancient versions of the same gods, this implies narratively that the gods are an integral part of the Scandinavian landscape, as persistent as nature itself.

“Scarlet fell softly about them and everything was outlined in greens and blues and the world was raspberry-colored and leaf-colored and golden-colored and fire-colored and blueberry-colored and wine-colored. Odd’s world was colors, and despite his crutch, he could feel himself falling forward, tumbling into the rainbow.”

The language in this passage uses natural imagery to convey the beauty of the rainbow. Rather than just describing the colors themselves as blue, orange, red, and so on, Odd connects the colors to objects he sees and finds beautiful. Once again, Odd uses nature as a tether; while he is experiencing something divine, he uses his human experiences of Midgard to understand Asgard’s beauty.

“Odd untied his wooden cup from his belt. He dipped it into the water, and he drank. The water was refreshing and strangely sweet. He had not realized how thirsty he had been, and he filled and emptied his wooden cup four times.” 

Odd is drinking from the well of Mimir in this passage, a well at the basin of the World Tree Yggdrasil that contained great wisdom and power. While gods had to pay to drink from the fountain, Odd drinks four times without payment. This attests to Odd’s power as a mortal being—while he is limited by his mortality, this enables him to drink from the fountain without harm or payment, as he can only experience the extent of himself through the water.

“The moonlight was so bright in that place. Odd could see what he needed to. After some time, he pulled out the lump of wood he had found in his father’s hut and his knife, and he began to carve, in smooth confident strokes, removing everything that wasn’t part of the carving.”

The Well of Mimir, alongside wetlands and general places of water, was considered a liminal space in Scandinavian folklore, where the intersection of two realities allowed magic and experiences to be more potent. Odd experiences this liminality in the form of his parents, allowing him to connect himself to them and understand his own meaning and life through their eyes and love for each other and him. This passage highlights this connection to his own history, as Odd is finally able to rid himself of the metaphorical baggage of his own life—symbolized by the excess wood—and carve out the beauty of the life his father left for him.

“Odd climbed onto the bear’s back. ‘You’re getting smaller again,’ said Odd. It was no longer the huge bear of the previous evening. Now it seemed only slightly bigger than he had been the first time Odd had ridden it.”

While this passage is a literal reference to Odd’s growth (since he ends the book much older and taller than he started), it also metaphorically represents his new understanding of himself and the gods. Odd no longer views the gods in Asgard as separate and much greater than himself; instead, he now sees them as connected to reality as much as he is.

“It was the smile that did it. If Odd had not smiled, the giant would simply have picked him up and crushed the life from him, or squashed him against the boulder, or bitten his head off and kept him to snack on later. But that smile, a smile that said that Odd knew more than he was saying…”

The repetition of the word smile in this passage, juxtaposed with the horrific descriptions of what the giant could have done to Odd, creates a mood of both horror and comedy. Odd’s smile is just as unsettling to the giant as the giant’s size is to Odd, but ultimately, Odd’s oddness is more powerful than the giant’s physical prowess. Odd “wins” the scenario by being himself.

“He glanced behind him, and was not surprised to see that the home of the gods looked almost exactly like the village on the fjord from which he had come. Bigger, of course, but the same pattern—a feasting hall and smaller buildings all around.”

This passage uses comparison to emphasize that the gods are just as shaped by humanity as humanity is shaped by them. The village and Asgard are perfect reflections of each other, making it unclear who initiated the cultural patterns in the first place. Alternatively, Odd’s perceptions of the gods are shaped by what is familiar to him—he views them as extensions of his own people, and thus perceives Asgard as a greater version of “home.”

“I saw it in my father’s eyes. He loved her, and a few years ago he started to make something for her, but he left it unfinished, and then he didn’t come back to finish it. So last night, I finished it for him. At first I didn’t know how it was meant to look, and then I saw her…I mean, it’s as I imagine her, my mother, when they had just met. Stolen from her people and her land, but brave and determined, and not ever going to give in to fear or grief or loneliness.”

This passage parallels Odd’s mother with Freya, establishing the importance of female role models to Odd. Like Odd’s mother, Freya was kidnapped, but she, too, remained brave, determined, and beautiful; just as the Giant sees Freya as the epitome of beauty, Odd sees his mother as the epitome of beauty. This parallelism allows Odd to use his mother’s image to persuade the Giant to give up his quest. Odd’s genuine faith in his mother and in his parents’ love for each other creates a new beauty yet unseen in Asgard, and much more deeply human than Freya’s beauty can ever be.

“The eagle, which had been sitting on the ornately carved back of the highest chair, flapped over and landed awkwardly on her wrist. Its talons gripped her pale flesh so hard that crimson beads of blood welled up, yet she did not appear to notice this, or to be in any visible discomfort. She scratched the back of the bird’s neck with her fingernail, and it preened against her.”

The imagery in this passage emphasizes the inhumanity of the gods, beautiful as they may be. Freya doesn’t feel pain or discomfort from Odin’s clawed grip, instead choosing to show him affection. Additionally, Odin and Freya’s relationship is abstractly affectionate, just like in the myths themselves; Odin’s wife in mythology is Frigga, who is sometimes equated to Freya, but usually considered a separate goddess. This ambiguity is represented through Odin and Freya’s exchange here.

“‘One day,’ said Freya softly, ‘I will regret this.’ But she smiled to herself, and she reached a hand out and touched the black tip of the fox’s muzzle, then ran her finger up between its ears and along its spine and all the way up to the very tip of its tail. A shimmer—then a man stood in front of them, beardless, flame-haired, as pale of skin as Freya herself. Eyes like green chips of ice. Odd wondered if Loki had a fox’s eyes still, or if the fox had always had Loki’s eyes.”

Freya’s statement that she will regret helping Loki is both a playful jab at Loki himself and a reference to Ragnarok, the Norse war that ends the gods. Loki is a key player and initiator in Ragnarok, and the gods’ continual forgiveness of him allows him to betray them during the end times. Freya’s grace to Loki in this moment will, eventually, allow him to destroy all she holds dear, even if Odd does not have the knowledge to recognize that for what it is.

“She picked him up as if he was light as a leaf, and put him down on the great feasting table of the gods. She reached down to his foot and deftly unhooked it at the knee. She ran a nail across the shin and the flesh parted.”

This passage’s language invokes the horror and inhumanity of the gods, even though Freya’s actions are kind. Humans generally cannot lift people as if they weigh nothing, and they certainly cannot unhook legs at the knee and part their flesh painlessly with a nail. This conveys the eerie power of Freya, yet Odd’s calm reaction to the events shows that he, too, is a bit distanced from normality now as well.

“Do you know what spring it was you drank from, boy? Where the water came from? Do you know what it cost me to drink there, many years ago? You didn’t think you defeated the Frost Giants alone, did you?”

Odin refers to multiple aspects of the myths surrounding the Well. The Well of Mimir is one of three wells at the basin of the World Tree, and the water flows, according to some sources, from between the antlers of a giant stag. The god or entity Mimir guards the well and demands payment from those who want to drink from it and gain the wisdom he gains each day from it. Odin made at least one sacrifice—his eye—to drink from the Well; some myths additionally depict him dying for three days to drink again, but this may be a Christian addition meant to synthesize Odin with the death of Jesus Christ.

“Odd reached the village. For a moment he wondered if he had come to the wrong place, for nothing looked as he remembered it looking when he had left, less than a week before. He remembered how the animals had grown, when they reached Asgard, and then, how they seemed, later, to have shrunk.”

Odd has been gone from the village for an indeterminate amount of time—possibly a week, but possibly much longer. It is unclear whether the unrecognizability of the village is the result of Odd’s perspective on his own existence changing, because of his literal growth, or because more time has passed than he realized. Odd himself does not spend any more time thinking about it beyond this passage.