Of course, they weren’t quite gods. Not yet. Another tribe, the Vanir, had pretensions to godhood. The Vanir were bastard Firefolk, born from the dregs of Chaos and the promiscuity of Mankind, but they had powers that Odin’s people – the Aesir – could neither grasp nor duplicate. What’s more, the Vanir had runes with which to write down their own version of history; runes that, cunningly used, could ensure that their tribe lived forever in memory.

From the beginning Odin, whose ambitions lay that way himself, coveted these mysterious runes – letters from a secret script – and the powers that came with them. But the Vanir, predictably, weren’t interested in sharing.

There followed a series of skirmishes. The Aesir, though weaker in numbers, were by far the better tacticians but the Vanir had glamours and runes on their side, and managed to resist them. The Old Man tried to negotiate, promising gold in exchange for the runes, and for a while it almost seemed as if they would come to a peaceful arrangement.

The Vanir sent an envoy to Asgard to begin discussing terms. She was Gullveig-Heid, the Sorceress, and she was ready to take on the gods for every piece of gold they had. She was a mistress of the Fire; a witch, like all the Vanir; a shapeshifter; a worker in runes; an oracle; a wielder of glam. She frightened them a little, I think, except perhaps for Odin, who watched her show off her powers with increasing amazement and jealousy.

She came to them as a beautiful woman, clothed from head to foot in gold. Gold was in her unbound hair, and gold were the rings on her fingers and toes. She was the very glow and incarnation of Desire – and when she walked into the room, even Odin wanted her. She showed him the runes of the Elder Script tattooed on the palms of her hands and how she could use them to write his name on a sliver of stone, and then she showed him what else they could do, and promised to teach him – for a price.

Well, with Gullveig, nothing came free. Greed was in her nature. The price of peace with the Vanir was gold; every scrap the Aesir possessed. Otherwise, said the Sorceress, the Vanir would use their glam – their runes – to raze Asgard to the ground. And then Gullveig changed her Aspect from that of a beautiful woman to that of a grinning, gap-toothed crone, and laughed in their faces, and said to them:

‘So which one will it be, boys? The golden girl or the viper-snake? I’m warning you, they both have teeth, and not where you’re expecting them.’