After all, words are what remain when all the deeds have been done. Words can shatter faith; start a war; change the course of history. A story can make your heart beat faster; topple walls; scale mountains – hey, a story can even raise the dead. And that’s why the King of Stories ended up being King of the gods; because writing history and making history are only the breadth of a page apart.

Not that there was much of that when Odin was fighting the Ice Folk. There were no runes to write with then, and nothing but rock to write upon. But metaphor or otherwise, this is as much as I believe: that the world came into being through Change, which is the servant of Chaos; and only through Change has it endured. Much like Your Humble Narrator, in fact; adapting to suit the circumstance.

The snow hare changes its coat to white to go unseen in winter. The ash tree drops its leaves in the fall, better to survive the cold. All of life does the same – even gods – turning their coats to suit the turning seasons of the world. There should be a name for that kind of thing – in fact, it should be one of my names. Let’s call it Revolution.

Lesson 2 Aesir and Vanir

LESSON 2

Aesir and Vanir

Never trust a wise man.

Lokabrenna

THE WORLDS ARE ALWAYS CHANGING. It’s their nature to ebb and flow. That’s why, in the old days, the Middle Worlds were smaller than they are today – later, they expanded in the years of the Winter War, then receded again like pack-ice, only to expand again when Order came to claim them. That was always the way of things; that shift between Order and Chaos. And between the two, there was Yggdrasil, the pole that keeps the Worlds apart; known to some as the World Ash, and to some as Odin’s Steed. Trust the Old Man to get his name in there somewhere, as always, although that tree (if it was a tree) was planted long before Ymir was even a glint in Audhumla’s eye.

Some claim it wasn’t a tree at all, but some kind of cosmic metaphor. Its roots, they said, were in Netherworld, plunged in the Cauldron of Rivers, where the waters boil with ephemera born from the primary source of Dream. Its topmost branch was the branch of stars that crosses the sky on clear nights. There was no World through which it did not grow; it had a hold even in Chaos, where serpents and demons worked tirelessly to undermine its living roots. Ratatosk, the squirrel, carried news all over the Worlds by way of the great Tree’s branches – as did Odin One-Eye, of course; the ultimate collector of news, hoarding and distributing.