Welcome to CHAPTER 60 of the Kinsmen Die podcast, home of fantasy fiction based on Norse mythology that’s written and read by me, Matt Bishop.

In this podcast I read my first novel, Kinsmen Die, one chapter at a time. And, with each episode, when it makes sense, I provide some commentary about the source materials I’ve referenced in the text.

Last week was the one year anniversary of this podcast. Thank you for continuing to listen!

There are 93 chapters in Kinsmen Die, so we’re nearly there. As you might expect, events will start coming to a head now.

This week, we’re back with Vafthrudnir. It’s been quite a while since we were with him — he’d been with the apprentice shaman Kali and then he’d gone through the doorway that Beli and the warband Helveg found within the snow bear nest.

Let’s rejoin him now.

Chapter Sixty
Vafthrudnir
An arrowhead of black clouds, lightning flickering among them, hurtled toward the Jotunn village where he’d hoped to rest for the day. Vafthrudnir spread gray wings and launched himself back into the air.
Several nights earlier, when he was with Helveg, he had stepped through a doorway into a distant land wrapped in a deep winter, just like Utgard. But that land appeared fertile, unlike Utgard, where only dwindling patches of healthy land still existed.
Lightning flashed.
And so it appeared that Ygg had sent the Thunderer against them. As expected. And, of course, his own route back to Helveg happened to cross the town Thor had chosen to destroy.
After he’d used the stars to locate the doorway’s distant exit—many of the stars were unfamiliar, but others were not—and after he explored the immediate vicinity, he stepped back through into Utgard. Then flew back toward Jotunheim to meet up with Helveg.
Which had led him here.
Thunder rumbled toward him, cart wheels against stone.
If he hurried, he might still help the villagers to safety.

***

He was too late. Smoke’s black curls were already rising above the trees. Thunder gnashed the air like a goat’s teeth above the peak into which the villagers had driven their mine shafts. He could just make out the Thunderer, made small by the distance, astride his flying cart with the storm dragging along behind him like a whipped hound.
Lightning blasted from the Thunderer’s upraised fist. A dozen ragged tendrils of fire leaped into the forest below his circling cart.
The crash of the sky reached Vafthrudnir a dozen heartbeats later. At the smell of burning wood, he knew he needed to take shelter somewhere. He folded his wings and dove toward the snow-laden treetops below, then toward the valley’s walls, hoping to find a boulder or cave. Dry as it was, the forest wouldn’t be safe.
The sky flickered and thunder crashed again, the sound bouncing off the valley’s walls. Then he was blinded by a brilliant flash of white light. A heartbeat later, the air convulsed and flung him downward, tumbling.
Instinctively he shape shifted into a long-armed, brown-haired creature like those he’d seen in Alvheim. His vision cleared in time to glimpse the bare forest below, branches rattling against each other like bones, approaching too quickly.
The air roared past him, hot, wet, and filled with debris. He was cut a dozen times—legs, chest, arms—and blood flowed.
He slammed into the rough bark of a tree limb. It snapped, and he fell further, but dragging leathery hands and feet against the trunk he slowed enough to drop to all fours on the forest floor.
The frozen ground twitched and flicked him off like a cow did a fly. Another violent crash rolled over him. He leaped back into the trembling trees, climbing fast.
Another crash, sullen and rumbling. He was high enough now to look toward the village. Dust hung in the air even as a cloud roiled toward him, faster than he could think.
He wrapped himself around the opposite side of the tree, putting what little protection he could between himself and the cataclysm, and hung on.
It hit like a sea wave, but gritty and dry. He felt the tree break, and then he was tumbling backward with it, hoping he would live.
Don’t worry, his fylgja whispered just as he sank beneath the wave.

***

He could tell his body was moving, but he wasn’t in control, and he thrashed—
Stop that, his fylgja whispered. I’m getting you to a safer place where you can watch what’s happening.
What is happening?
Look.
High above them, Thor rode in his cart pulled by two shaggy, long-horned goats.  The wheels and hooves clattered and rumbled like the wagons across a stone bridge. Vafthrudnir’s eye was drawn to Thor’s right fist, held high, where his hammer glowed as hot and red as if recently plucked from a forge.
Thor flung Mjolnir downward at—
Vafthrudnir traced the arc…it was easy to do, Mjolnir hurtled like a burning arrow toward the dominant mountain peak behind the village. It had been a peak. Now it was a broken tooth.
The hammer shot through the heavy-hanging dust and grit, and turned it a brighter red than even Muspell’s sparks during the Rising. Its arc was impossibly slow, an ingot gripped in tongs brought from forge to quenching bucket.
Just before Mjolnir finally struck, Vafthrudnir squeezed his eyes shut. White light pressed against his lids, the earth thrashed in agony and his fylgja again took control of his body. She dropped him below the forest’s shattered remains, faster than he could’ve moved on his own, and took shelter beneath the debris of ancient oaks and fir trees and broken boulders.
The roaring wave passed overhead. The earth’s twitches slowed. 
Thor had just leveled a mountain.
Framed against a gritty sky, the Thunderer rumbled around the remains of the mountain and, presumably, the devastated village nestled at its base.
Were the villagers all dead, then?
With each slow circle, the wind from the Thunderer’s passage beat down the cloud of dirt and smoke. The hooves of the goats pulling his cart added their own smithy-din to the sky, while lightning flickered like sullen children banished to a hall’s darker recesses. Cold rain fell.
Thor himself became visible, chest and shoulders wide above the bronzed rim of the cart. His red hair streamed out behind him, Mjolnir held at arm’s length, a white-hot ingot that steamed as the rain hit it. Abruptly, the Thunderer turned his cart south and rumbled away.
Yet his storm remained along with all the ruins Vafthrudnir must now investigate.

OUTRO
Well, folks, that was CHAPTER 60 of Kinsmen Die. I hope you enjoyed it.

Thor broke a mountain and presumably destroyed a Jotunn village in retaliation for the Jotunn’s surprise attack on Hals. This is the fruition of Odin’s threat many chapters ago.

This chapter wasn’t strictly necessary, but I needed a way to bring Vafthrudnir back into the narrative and I also wanted to illustrate the power difference between the Aesir and Jotunn. And I wanted to follow up on the threat Odin had made.

I also wanted to include the real Thor, not the — no offense — silly version he became in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

For me, Thor is a force of nature. He is the son of Jord — earth — and Odin. He is Odin’s firstborn son. In the myths, Odin and Thor have a contentious relationship — which I tried to illustrate during the Ithavoll scene.

Thor’s main job among the pantheon of Aesir gods is to kill Jotunn. He is usually “out east” doing just that — battling and killing Jotunn. 

I described Thor as he is in the myths — big, red-haired and red-bearded.

Mjolnir was made by two Svartalvar — in the myths they are called “dwarves” — named Sindri and Brokkr. Mjolnir exists because of Loki…and despite Loki’s efforts to sabotage its creation. Mjolnir’s handle is too short; that’s one of the details Marvel got right.

Mjolnir produces thunder and lightning. If thrown, it returns to Thor’s hand. To wield it, Thor wears iron gauntlets to protect his hands. Thor also wears a belt — I pictured it as a smith’s leather apron — because he needs something to protect himself from a super-heated Mjolnir. That belt doubles Thor’s already prodigious strength. 

He rides in a cart pulled by two goats: Toothgnasher and Toothgrinder. The rattle and bang of the cart’s wheels also produce lightning and thunder; as do their hooves and the gnashing and grinding of their teeth.

In the myths, Thor’s capabilities are a bit all over the place — from fishing up and wrestling the World Serpent, to drinking an entire sea, to losing all his strength when his “hammer” is stolen. Loki helps Thor get his hammer back. In myths, Loki and Thor are often depicted in each other’s company. And, in the Lokasenna, Loki says that Thor is the only Aesir whose word he respects.

But as much as this chapter includes Thor — and before a few revisions, there was more in this book that included Thor — this chapter is really about Vafthrudnir and his reaction to Thor. I was trying to establish the power differential between Aesir and Jotunn and to show why the Jotunn are attacking from the proverbial shadows.

This chapter also contrasts the partnership between Vafthrudnir and his fylgja versus the adversarial relationship between Vidar and his…and Odin and his. We know that Odin has a fylgja…he lost control of it way back when he fought the thing in the well and then he, Odin, attacked Frigg. I mention this because this theme will reoccur both in this book and the next two.

I’ve also written a novella which follows a couple Jotunn characters. It’s finished but not finished; I haven’t decided what I’ll do with it. Regardless, some of the events in that novella correspond with what happens in this chapter — a Jotunn warband are present inside the mountain while Thor destroys it.

And, incidentally, I’ve also written most of a novel with Sindri and Brokkr as the main characters, as well as Vafthrudnir.

But all that is neither here nor there…for now.

Next week, we’re back with Hodr.

Until then, if you have the time and inclination, please rate and/or review the podcast — that helps boost the show’s visibility. As does sharing it.
  
As always, I’m going to read from both the Bellows and Larrington translations of the Havamal, the sayings of the High One, Odin himself.

Bellows, Verse 60

Of seasoned shingles and strips of bark
For the thatch let one know his need,
And how much of wood he must have for a month,
Or in half a year he will use.

Larrington, Verse 60
Of dry wood and thatching-bark
a man can know the measure;
and of the wood which can get one through a quarter-or a half-year.

Thanks for listening.