E6: The Legacy of the All-Father V – Saeming, the Aesir/Vanir War, and Norway’s Mythic Origins

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 daughter Skadi demands compensation, somehow ending up in the horrible marriage with the Vanir sea god, Njord, a marriage supposedly meant as an apology for her father's death.

From there we move into the Aesir and Vanir war, its shaky aftermath, and a treaty that, for obvious reasons to everyone except me, required everyone to spit into a vat to mark the truce and exchange of hostages. That didn’t go very well, leading to a hostage uncle getting his head cut off, another hostage born from the spit to be brutally killed by dwarves, resulting in a potential rivalry between Odin and Njord, which results in Odin sleeping with Njord's wife and Saeming being born. We then discuss Saeming and trace his supposed descendants through the Earls of Lade, where one conveniently marries Harald Fairhair, linking Odin’s family tree directly to Norway’s first historical king through another family line.

Sources Used:

• The Prose Edda: Norse Mythology (Penguin Classics) - translations by Jesse Byock
• Heimskringla or The Lives of the Norse Kings (Dover Publications)
• The Poetic Edda (Hackett Publishing) - Translations by Jackson Crawford
• Haleygjatal - Russell Poole 2012

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