Lauren Ducommun

Since this year’s reading challenge is reading books from throughout the centuries, I thought I would take a shot at reading though the books chronologically as much as possible. It will be interesting to see how stories build on each other and take part in the Great Conversation.

The first category was mythology. I had just read in a biography about J.R.R. Tolkien of the great influence Norse mythology had on his and C.S. Lewis’s writing. This was enough to spark interest in myths I’ve never really read before.

The book I chose for this category was a book by Padraic Colum, who is a superb story teller!

Main Book

You can find a free PDF or ePub version of this book here.
You can also listen to the audiobook for free on Librivox.

Supplemental Reading:

There were several other great options for Norse myths. Here are some contenders, and ones that I will try to read or listen to in between books.

Primary Texts:

If you’d like to read some of the primary sources for retellings of Norse myths, then here are two from the 13th century.

Lectures:

To better understand the culture in which Norse myths came from, I hope to listen to some lectures from Michael Drout that came highly recommended.