Thjalfi is a minor character from the Prose Edda (and an even more minor character in the Poetic Edda) but Dillin took the character and definitely made him her own. She turns him into a charming farmhand who surprisingly turned out to be a deep thinker and loyal. Not to mention he sounds easy on the eyes.

 

Gwen is a hard working farm-girl who is as stubborn as the goats she milks. She’s completely independent and comfortable with her lifestyle tending to her goats, horses, chickens, and cats.

 

The two characters as a couple are very well matched. Thjalfi is very giving and Gwen is very stubborn which makes for an interesting pair. The romance starts off tentative but turns sure and sweet.

 

The goats, Blender and Masher, sealed the deal for me. They are horrible, demonic monstrosities that add so much humor to the story and actions cause emotional situations between the characters that I couldn’t help but love the beasts.

Dillin also incorporated a small guide to pronounce Icelandic/Norse words without it sounding like an information dump! Information dumps are hard for authors to avoid when need-to-know information has to make the story and somehow still be seamless.

 

Overall, Postcards From Asgard defiantly satisfied my love for Norse Mythology and in a modern, non-superhero fashion! I recommend this to anyone who is a fan of the old Norse myths and wouldn’t mind hearing them with a twist, or for paranormal romance readers in general.

 

ReadingBifrost Blog

Fascinating read for Norse Mythology.

Lovely, though I suspect the original compiler of some of these stories had a bit too much mead to drink when he told the stories.

Acknowledgements
Introduction & Notes
Further Reading
Note on the Translation
Map: The Geographical World of the 'Edda'

The Prose Edda

--Prologue
--Gylfaginning (The Deluding of Gylfi)

Skaldskaparmal (Poetic Diction)
--Mythic and Legendary Tales
--Poetic References from Skaldskaparmal (Translated by Russell Poole)

Appendices:
1. The Norse Cosmos and the World Tree
2. The Language of the Skalds: Kennings and 'Heiti'
3. Eddic Poems Used as Sources in 'Gylfaginning'

Genealogical Tables
Notes
Glossary of Names

The Edda is a collection of Norse myths, written in the 13th century by a dude named Snorri. It's where we got most of our knowledge of Norse mythology today, and it's wicked awesome. I learned, for instance, that your legs may hump each other and produce a child while you're asleep, which is something I'm going to be more careful about from now on. And that mead started as god spit, then turned into blood, and ended up being farted out of Odin's ass, which is, by a train of logic that actually kinda makes sense when you read it, why it's called the drink of poets. These are important things to know.

I also learned that much of what I learned from reading Thor comics when I was 13 isn't totally accurate. There's no mention at all of him being in the Avengers.

I enjoyed learning about the Norse poetic style of "kenning," where the point is to pile image upon image to make a complicated chain of meaning. For instance, "spurner of the bonfires of the sea," where "bonfires of the sea" refers to the sun's reflection off it, which is golden, and a spurner of gold would be: a generous man. That's cool because it's exactly what rappers do! Here's an example from the mighty Dres of Black Sheep:

I try to stay aware of the drama, it’s crazy
Plus, see I got to tell your mama that I’m Swayze

Here, Swayze refers to the late actor's classic movie Ghost, and ghost means he's gone; so Dres is saying that he's leaving your mama. Which must be sad for her.

I'm not saying that rappers were influenced by Vikings. That would be an awesome thing to say, but not a reasonable one. I'm just saying there's sortof a kinship there.

It's not every day that you get to learn about the spiritual connection between hip-hop and Vikings. This is a cool book, man.