‘Absolutely not,’ I said. ‘I mean, what would you do with them?’

‘Thialfi could carry my weapons,’ said Thor. ‘Roskva could cook and clean for us. Come on, Loki. They’re only kids. Besides, they think the Worlds of us.’

I pointed out that his last two kids had ended up as goat stew. Thor laughed uproariously.

‘That’s so Loki,’ he exclaimed. ‘Trust me, this is going to be fun.’

And that was how the two of us acquired a pair of followers. Thialfi was Thor’s number-one fan, and Roskva was Yours Truly’s. But in retrospect, I think you’ll agree that it wasn’t the wisest move ever made to take them with us into the unknown. Fans are as fickle as fame itself, and when we allow them to get too close, we risk revealing our feet of clay. First to the followers, then to the foe. And then we all come tumbling down.

Lesson 8 The Midnight Sun

LESSON 8

The Midnight Sun

The place in which the sun never sets is a place where anything is possible.

Lokabrenna

MEANWHILE, we were still wandering in the middle of nowhere. Mist had rolled thickly off the moors, and although at this time of year in the North the sun barely ever left the sky, it was cold, and bleak, and cheerless. I for one was beginning to wish for my hearth and Sigyn’s home cooking but Thor was keen to make an impression on his eager new followers, and even I was reluctant to go back without putting on a bit of a show.

And so the four of us made our way over one last necklace of glaciers until we reached a strip of sea, beyond which we could see forest and a dizzying chain of white mountains.

This was Utgard – the Furthest North. We knew it by reputation, although as far as we knew, even Odin had never actually been there. For six months in the year, we’d heard, the sun never clipped the horizon; everything was frozen, and Northlights danced across the dark-blue winter sky. The summer was brief – barely three months – but during that time, Chaos reigned: the sun never set; monsters roamed; the vegetation grew rampant and, according to the legends, anything was possible.

To me, it sounded like a good place to avoid, but Thialfi and Roskva were watching us, their eyes like stars, and we felt their expectation – their love – like the weight of a yoke on our backs.

I suppose we both got carried away. I don’t know how else to explain it. We were drunk on celebrity; willing to run the most foolish of risks rather than let down our worshippers. By the shore, we found an old boat, bleached white as bone, but still intact and, leaving Thor’s chariot behind, we decided to cross the sea into the land of the Northlights.