The Lives and Deaths of the Norse Gods

A comprehensive study of the mortality of Norse gods, with close readings of the Prose Edda, Poetic Edda and Saxo Grammaticus' Gesta Danorum . Divinity usually implies immortality. The very phrase "gods and mortals" highlights an ontological gap between two distinct categories of existence: immortal deities and transient humans. This divide, however, does not hold true in the Scandinavian mythological tradition, where the gods themselves are mortal. This mortality is central to myths such as tho