Miscellaneous Myths: The Great Norse Seal Fight

One of many "wait, WHAT?" moments while reading The Prose Edda, leading to a short deep dive into a very specific norse myth I wish I could summarize instead! Today let's talk about the vastness of Lost Knowledge and the immense effort it takes to dredge up scraps of that forgotten space of storytelling and rearrange them into shapes that halfway resemble what the original might've been! It's archaeology, but for storytelling!

PARTIAL TRACKLIST: Voice of Rushing Waters, Fire and Ice, Wind Queen, Ancient Gods, Mars The Bringer Of War

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[NotAnEldritchHorror]

Just the whole idea of Odin being shocked that Freya, a fertility goddess boned the dwarves, is funny in and of itself; but Red’s addition of Loki correcting him to “Fertility Human” is just A+ comedy.

[CatholicDragoon]

Makes a certain amount of sense, Loki likely tried to disguise himself as a seal to escape and Heimdall called him out on it by doing the same thing. They probably went through several animals knowing myths of this type.

[timothymclean]

1:11: To be fair to Snorri, that probably didn't seem like a very important story at the time. It's just Loki stealing something from Freya again. It's only important _to us_ because we know _just enough_ to know how little we know.

[vladimirenlow]

It's one thing to retell a myth, but Red outdid herself here, reconstructing the myth as far as she could get it based on primary sources. In doing so, Red may have created the most comprehensive and authoritative version of the story that exists... all for an excuse to draw some seals.

[zxcxdr]

Loki's description as "Not a god. sometimes a horse." is priceless

[lewisirwin]

"Give the necklace back Loki, else your fate is sealed."
"You know what? You're right!"

[Sea_Leon]

You forgot the best part about all this: Heimdall as a seal was able to get the neckless back from Loki. Think about that for a second, let it percolate. Heimdall beat Loki while both of them were seals.

[bdletoast]

It's cool to finally hear Red sing Kiss from a Rose after she used it so many times in her past Miscellaneous Myths videos...

Also, it's a song from Seal. Very clever pun there.

[samueldixon]

I would definitely buy a “not a god, sometimes a horse” t-shirt and a “don’t talk to me until I’ve had my mead of poetry” mug, just sayin.

[ikebirchum]

The bird shirts are the best part. Imagine a raven like, walking into the DMV or something wearing a little "extremely human person" shirt and everyone is just like "yeah that checks out"

[eliburry-schnepp]

Wow, the Norse myth books I read as a kid really made this sound like a much more substantial story. That's fascinating.

[blubistheword]

1) I absolutely love how the “definitely human and not at all pagan gods” are drawn
2) I really enjoyed hearing abt the research rabbit hole and how these different versions come together

[dvos_the_god]

Red: *goes on huge speech about how little we actually know about ancient mythologies*
Also Red: Loki and Heimdall fought as seals, no actually you gotta believe me here's the proof

[Mornathel]

I love how you artistically deal with christianization of the myths. A “fertility human” is the best thing I’ve heard all week

[floataway]

Loved all of the human T-shirts, but the absolute adorableness of "If found please return to Huginn / If found please return to Muninn" on both of the ravens just got me.

[minercrafik]

I love the "totally a human" section. The characters in myth are often absolutely brilliant yet stupid at the same time. So I can't help but imagine that gods disguising themselves as humans could possibly be just them wearing a shirt with "I am not a god" printed on. (Even though it doesn't make sense from the historical context)

[Mad_Scientist_IRL]

Honestly, I'm curious how the Loki vs Heimdall seal fight would have looked. Fights between elephant seals can get pretty brutal.

[Ludohistory]

Hey y'all - Red consulted me on the video, to see if there were any other sources (lol), and I'm glad it turned out super well!

I do want to highlight again that this is *one* reconstruction of a myth. That doesn't mean that Red uncovered "the true story" or that these sources all were derived from a single even slightly coherent oral tradition. Honestly, looking for a single 'original' myth in the context of Old Norse is kind of a fool's errand. This is just one (and imo the most) plausible narrative that can be drawn from the surviving evidence.

[kaptinkookie]

I swear this whole story just sounds like the “filler” of mythology and I am all for it

[Talonistrying]

Kiss from a Rose will forever be "that one OSP Aphrodite song" to me just because of how Red used it to cue Aphrodite in so many past myth videos lol, glad she finally covered it herself!

Also that seal fight drawing was totally worth all the thumbtacks and string-