In June 88 members attended the monthly meeting, which given the beautiful weather and the alternative attraction of the Lincolnshire Show was a very good turnout indeed!

Our guest speaker was Alistair Littlewood who described himself as a professional storyteller, and whose theme was Norse Tales. He began by telling us that in April 1971 a Danish warship delivered to Iceland the oldest book of Norse Tales in existence, the Codex Regius or  Poetic Edda. This is the primary source of all the Norse tales we know today.

Alistair wove a number of tales about the main Norse gods, Odin the ruler of Valhalla and the wisest of all the gods who had to give up his right eye to secure great wisdom. Thor, the god of strength and son of Odin who was presented with a hammer by Loki. Loki, a shape-shifting god who was a trickster and often portrayed as a trouble maker, and Freya, the goddess of love and war, and one of the very few goddesses who were immortalised in story-tales.

During Anglo Saxon times he said, the names of the gods were sometimes changed, for example  Odin became Woden, and most of the Anglicised days of the week reflected the Norse gods –Tuesday after Tyr; Wednesday after Woden; Thursday after Thor, and  Friday after Freya.

The Norse tales more or less disappeared, until Richard Wagner wrote his Ring Cycle and renewed public interest. It is from Wagner, Alistair told us, that we get the idea of Vikings wearing horned helmets, which there is no other evidence for!