Sagas w/Shawn - Gods and Kings

In this episode, Shawn returns to his non-existent roots and once again discusses gods and kings. Specifically, Eric Bloodaxe, King of Norway (and later Northumbria), who according to the saga sources can trace his ancestry back to the Norse gods Odin, Freyr, and Njörðr.  The discussion begins with the rise of his father, Harald Fairhair, and the world he left behind for his many sons (Eric includ...

In our final episode of our series on Thor, Shawn wraps up Thor's non-existent story arc, tying the Zelda I mean Norse timeline up in a way that makes sense to tell his story for the podcast. Thor continues to confront his own limits navigating life despite all of his strength. In doing so, he understands a couple very human traits of his, that he will never be perfect, and he will die.  The...

Ignore the part of the episode where I stated the "Magog and Gomer, Father's of Ireland" in the title. Love, Shawn. In this St. Patrick’s Day episode of Sagas w/ Shawn - Gods and Kings , we dive into one of the most fascinating medieval texts in Irish tradition, the Lebor Gabála Érenn, also known as the Book of Invasions. The text attempts to explain the origins of Ireland and its p...

In Part II of our series on Thor, we dive into the story of Utgarða-Loki and the two versions of Thor’s fishing trip, uncovering more of the limits of the mighty god. Specifically, the limits of the very things he claims to be best at. He may confidently declare, "“I drink and I kill things.” Tyrion Lannister I mean, Thor the Charioteer". But as it turns out, that résumé does not guarant...

In this episode, we follow Thor across a string of myths that repeatedly undermine the idea that strength alone is all he needs in life. We start with Odin and Thor trading insults (though completely 1 sided), where Thor learns that brute force does not win every contest, especially when language and experience are involved. From there, we see Thor used as a blunt instrument against giants, praise...

In this episode, Shawn once again obsesses over the parallels between Tolkien’s work and the Norse myths he drew inspiration from, and once again attempts (with mixed results, by his own admission) to make the decisions of gods, wizards, and hobbits feel uncomfortably relatable to modern life. Along the way, he looks at two chapters from The Hobbit where Gandalf repeatedly proves that timing, pres...

In this episode, Shawn, still pretending he is an early teenager in 2001 pretending he would fit just right in with the fellowship of the ring, once again dives into Middle-Earth to talk about Bilbo Baggins, and his riddle contest in the dark with the creature Gollum resulting in him bearing the one ring, but NOT before Shawn goes over 2 similar situations with the god Odin, who also gets into a c...

In this episode, Shawn covers the ring-bearers of the cursed ring of fate, Andvaranaut. From dwarfs to gods to dragons to princesses to kings, this ring, influenced by the true power in the Norse world, the Norns, guides the fates of those who wield it. And it never turns out well for those who do. The ring is what Tolkien drew inspiration from when crafting the one true ring from his works in &qu...

In this episode, Shawn discusses the mythic origins of the Merovingians, in one part using their very loose parallels to the Volsungs (Sigeberht/Sigurd and Brunhilda/Brynhild), in an effort to link them to Odin. Whether the Merovingians or Volsungs, their habits of killing their in-laws would make for a hilarious 90s sitcom Shawn also discusses another figure with Merovingian Blood, that descends...

Before Ragnar Lodbrok and his sons set out to conquer the Viking world, there was Ivar the Wide Fathom, Ragnar's great-great-grandfather who decided that one kingdom simply was not enough. In this episode, Shawn explores how Ivar toppled (well, sort of) two of the most powerful dynasties in Norse legend, the Ynglings of Sweden and the Skjoldungs of Denmark, drawing from the Ynglinga Saga, Sag...

In this episode, Shawn looks at yet another son of Odin, who supposedly served as the ancestor of the legendary kings of Norway. This time it’s Saeming, born from Odin’s affair with the goddess Skadi. Since the sources don’t give us much on Saeming himself, we detour (as usual) into chaos: Thjazi the giant steals the apples of youth, the gods start to age and get pissed off, Thjazi dies, and his d...

The Legacy of the All-Father (Part 4): The House of Skjoldung In this episode, Shawn heads back to Denmark to discuss the legendary Kings of Denmark all the way back to its supposed founding, with the House of Skjoldung. Since the completed Skjoldung Saga isn't available, we need to look at 7 different sources to track its family line, with roughly half of them showing Skjold, the family&apos...

The Legacy of the All-Father (Part 3): The Anglo-Saxon Kings of England In this episode, Shawn sails west across the North Sea to follow Odin’s bloodline into the early kingdoms of England. Here the stories shift from distant myth to accounts recorded only a few generations after the events they describe, where royal genealogies boldly claim descent from Woden, the Anglo-Saxon name for the All-Fat...

 In this episode, Shawn returns back to Midgard, where the influence of the All-Father shifts from mythic creation to shaping the destinies of men. As seen in Grímnismál , Odin shows he meddles in royal succession, punishing cruel kings and rewarding their kinder sons. That same divine interference sets the stage for Odin’s legacy to flow through human bloodlines, shaping the earliest monarchies o...

 The Legacy of the All-Father (Part 1): The Mythical Sons of Odin  In this episode, Shawn ventures deeper into Norse Mythology to explore the sons of the god nearly at the top of the family tree, Odin, as told in Snorri Sturluson's Prose Edda. Using the first 3 parts of the edda, you have a list of 10 gods mentioned as being the son of the All-Father (one also being his grandson funny enough)...

The Divine Ancestry of Harald Fairhair. In the first episode of "Sagas w/Shawn - Gods and Kings" Shawn dives into the ancestry of Harald Fairhair, the first King of a Unified Norway (872 ce). Was Harald truly descended from the Norse gods Freyr, Niord, and even the All-Father Odin himself? Or did later authors fabricate these supposed connections to elevate the status of their own cultur...