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The Impudent Edda
Paperback
Publisher Price: $20.00
Publisher: Puffin Carcass
Published: Nov 22 2023
Pages: 254
Weight: 0.53
Height: 0.63 Width: 5.25 Depth: 8.00
Language: English
The text throughout is caustic, demotic and profanity-laden, as though our narrator isn't some hoary-bearded viking bard sitting by the fireside but a modern guy shooting the breeze with buddies over a beer. The result is a smart, lovingly rendered blend of academia and pastiche. -Financial Times
Picking up where the original, medieval sources of Norse mythology - The Poetic Edda and The Prose Edda - left off, The Impudent Edda not only introduces readers to a fresh, new perspective on both familiar and previously unknown narratives about the Norse gods, but also brings the world's foremost epic fantasy series to its inevitable and fateful conclusion: in a dank alleyway behind a dive bar in Boston. Told from the point of view of an irate but profoundly wise drunkard, this easy-to-read compilation of unique and archaic lore offers readers a highly accessible journey through fun and classic tales that range from Odin's unprovoked murder of an ancient witch to Freyja's voluntary experiment as a prostitute among lecherous dwarves to Thor's drunken and petty act of larceny on the eve of Ragnarok, the final world-shattering battle of the gods.
Only available in paperback, The Impudent Edda includes 44 black-and-white photos, 227 highly informative footnotes (providing important background information on ancient Scandinavian transmogrifiers, the functional capabilities of Odin's magical toilet, and Tyr's virtuoso guitar-playing skills, among many other nuanced facets of ancient Nordic lore), and 33 mythological chapters with such illuminating titles as:
- Middle-Earth is Just an Eyelash on the Celestial Gallows Pole
- How Not to Get Away with Witch Murder
- Bad Poets Drink Bird Shit
- Never Go Apple-Picking with a Bad God
- Thor's Cross-Dressing Misadventure
- Odin Experiments with Public Vagrancy
- Hostile Cattle Decapitation Day
- Everyone and Everything Dies
The book also contains extensive front and end matter including an incredibly educational Foreword by Eirik Storesund (Brute Norse) and glorious cover art by Matt Smith (Barbarian Lord, Hellboy: The Bones of Giants). In the May 2025 episode of the Grimfrost podcast, The Impudent Edda was even seen being waved around by Johan Hegg (Amon Amarth), so there's also that.
Start with a deeply layered set of myths. Invite the best storyteller you know in the greater Boston area. Add alcohol (even more than the myths already contain), and you get The Impudent Edda. Geirsson combines deep knowledge of Norse mythology and a skeptical irreverence for its norms (and norns), building a world of Chevy-driving, street-brawling, and bar-crawling Massachus- sir that remains delightfully familiar to fans of the vikings and their tales. -John Sexton, Professor of English at Bridgewater State University and co-host of the Saga Thing podcast
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