NYC Heathens Present: The Lay of Thrym!

I have not posted much as of late, as to be honest with you all I just do not have the mental or emotional energy lately to do much at all. My continued lack of a purpose and feeling of being trapped has not ebbed, and it's getting me way down. Also I've been working on a secret project, and also also I just got back from vacationing in Boston (hopefully I'll be able to find enough motivation to write that trip up sooner rather than later)

I have certainly been busy since getting back. I've been working long hours (since I have my regular shifts and I'm covering someone who is also on vacation) and I've also done a few things with the other NYC Heathens. And one of the fun things we did recently?

A group of us got together and did a performance in Battery Park of the Lay of Thrym, aka the best of all the Norse myths. It was a little bit religious drama, a little bit comedic improv, a little bit fantasy LARPing, and a whole lotta fun! (This is, after all, one of the more comedic myths.)

Naturally, I played the genderbending trickster god Loki (if any of you are at all surprised by that please read the rest of this blog's archives). Other players were Heimdall (who, as a god who sees all, was also the narrator), the beautiful and desirable Freyja, the king of the frost giants Thrym, and of course the mighty Thor.

The myth begins when Thor loses his hammer.

The performance begins with Heimdall the narrator explaining to the audience just what the fuck is happening, because for SOME REASON Norse myths aren't as well known as Greek ones, harrumph harrumph

Thor wakes one morning and notices his hammer missing, and assumes at first that Loki is responsible, which is... honestly not out of character for Loki. Except that this time it really wasn't Loki. Not wanting to be the target of Thor's anger, and probably (let's be real) wanting to clear his own name, Loki goes to Freyja to borrow her famed falcon feather cloak, which will allow him to fly all over the 9 realms in search of the hammer Mjolnir. And luckily for Loki, he does find out where it is when he touches down in Jotunheim and asks Thrym, king of the frost giants, if he's seen it!

Thrym is the one who took the hammer. And he's hidden it underground in his own kingdom.

Thrym agrees to return the hammer on one condition, the same condition given by other giants in other myths. Like everyone else in the world, he wishes to marry the fair lady Freyja, the most beautiful and sexual of all the goddesses, as well as one of the most powerful.

And unlucky Loki is tasked with telling her the good news - she's gonna get married to a powerful king!

As you can imagine, fierce feminist Freyja is not pleased.

"Freyja. Look. Listen. Look and listen."

She refuses to marry Thrym. Refuses! Our actress for Freyja did a fantastic job here, really channeling a lot of rage as she stomped forwards toward me, bellowing about how if she were to marry Thrym, they would call her man-mad! A whore! (As Loki, it was terrifying. As a lesbian, it was honestly kinda hot. Don't @ me.)

Now at this point, Loki is pretty tired of everyone yelling at him and making him go back and forth between the worlds on behalf of a theft that he had literally nothing to do with. (He didn't even get the fun of stealing it!) And so the gods assemble and try to figure out what exactly they're gonna do about all of this.

Now Thor, of course, thinks Freyja should take one for the team and go, and a lot of the other gods agree. I do love Thor, but this is not one of his shining moments. But without the hammer, Asgard is defenseless, as it is one of the only weapons that has any power against the Jotun, the enemies of the Asgardians, so I mean he is coming from somewhere.

It is Heimdall, he who can see all possible future outcomes of an event (he's basically got Garnet's "future-vision" from "Steven Universe"), who gets an amazing idea. Since it is Thor's hammer, Thor must go retrieve it. And since Thrym is expecting Freyja, Thor must go disguised as Freyja, in full womanly finery. A dress, jewelry, the traditional ring of keys worn by Viking wives - the works!

Thor is the only one who does not think this is the best plan ever.

By the way, if some of you are looking at this all through a Freudian lens by now - Thor loses his hammer (wink wink) and then becomes a woman (snicker snicker) - you're totally valid, as that's an incredibly popular scholarly interpretation of this myth. (After all, as Captain Hammer once said in Doctor Horrible's Sing-Along Blog, "the hammer is my penis")

So once Thor is serving drag realness, Loki decides he wants to be a woman too because of course he does. And besides, Thor will need a handmaiden and bridesmaid, will he not?  So he shapeshifts into a woman, and the pair gallivants off to Jotunheim.

Thrym, of course, is pretty pleased even if Freyja seems a lot taller than he thought she would be. As she is a fierce warrior goddess, though, it seems to check out. And here the myth becomes a bit fairy-tale like. You're going to see some shades of "Little Red Riding Hood" here.

Thrym has set out a feast for his lovely new bride, and Thor eats enough to feed an entire large midwestern family.

"My, Freyja, what a big appetite you have!" says Thrym, not sure whether to be scared or turned on.

Loki, as quick-thinking and silver-tongued as any good trickster should be, informs Thrym that Freyja has been so excited and anxious to marry a king as well renowned as Thrym, that she hasn't eaten anything for a week, so he'll have to forgive her for making up for it now. Meanwhile, Thor is in the process of washing down his meal with entire barrels of mead.

"My, Freyja, what a mighty thirst you have!" says Thrym, definitely more scared than turned on at this point.

Loki explains that Freyja, of course, hasn't been able to drink for a week either, so Thrym will have to excuse her thirst now. Thrym, satisfied with this explanation, leans in for a kiss of his lovely new bride - and suddenly jumps back!

"My, Freyja, what fierce and angry eyes you have!" says Thrym, entirely terrified and not at all turned on.

Loki doesn't miss a beat in explaining that, of course, Freyja has been far too excited about her upcoming nupitals to get a wink of sleep over the past week, thus why her eyes are so bloodshot now. Thrym buys it, and decides that - since she's so excited and eager - they'd best not delay any further. He calls for the hammer to be brought out so he can set it in his new wife's lap in order to bless the marriage.

If you know anything about Thor, you probably know what happens next.

With a few swings of the mighty hammer, Thrym and his court are defeated, and Thor and Loki return to Asgard victorious and ready for their next adventures.

We had a lot of fun performing this, and even managed to gather a small audience! It's great fun getting to step into Loki's shoes and skirt, since by nature I can be pretty timid. Everyone did a fantastic job, and I think we all got some new insight into this story that we may not have had before.

And it has always been my firm belief that this is how the myth is meant to be perceived. We have no archaeological evidence of this that I am aware of, but we do have textual evidence that - especially during the long winter months (when in much of Scandinavia, the sun doesn't even rise) - it wasn't uncommon for people at this time to entertain each other around the fire with epic poetry, bawdy songs, and - yes - reenactments of myths. And this myth - with its physical comedy and its fairy-tale esque presentation and its small core cast - seems tailor made for such performances. So I like to think that we did the ancestors proud.

Hope the ancestors like the Freudian interpretation of Thor's hammer

Honestly, doing this made me so happy. I adore my fellow NYC heathens. I really am lucky to know them and to get to do things like this, to approach our beliefs with a sense of fun instead of just being hoity-toity academics all the time. (Not that we don't do that sometimes, too.)

And admit it, doesn't this look incredibly fun? I promise you it was just as fun as it looks.

-Nym