Norse mythology in popular culture

• 1. Introduction

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  Norse mythology in popular culture is a story of rediscovery. For centuries, the old gods of Scandinavia, Odin, Thor, Loki, and the rest of the Norse pantheon, were known mainly to scholars working with ancient Icelandic texts such as the Poetic Edda and the Prose Edda. Outside Scandinavia, most people had simply never encountered them.

  Then the 19th century changed everything. Antiquaries and writers began bringing these myths back into public view. Within a few generations, the Norse gods had traveled from dusty manuscripts into opera houses, poetry collections, and eventually comic books, blockbuster films, and video games spanning dozens of titles. Today it is nearly impossible to spend an afternoon with popular entertainment without stumbling across Yggdrasil, Ragnarok, or Mjolnir.

  How did this happen? What drew artists, composers, and storytellers back to a tradition that had been eclipsed for hundreds of years? And what does it mean that the same mythology now animates a Norwegian-language Netflix drama, a Japanese manga series, and a multi-billion-dollar film franchise simultaneously?

• 2. The 19th-Century Revival

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  George Webbe Dasent was among the antiquaries who brought Scandinavian mythology back to popular notice in Germany and England during the 19th century. That context mattered enormously. Both Germany and England had been Christianized far earlier than the Scandinavian countries, and in the process much of their own pre-Christian traditions had been lost. Norse mythology arrived for these audiences not merely as exotic folklore but as something they could recognize as the latest surviving form of their own Germanic pagan past.

  William Morris in Britain responded by composing poetry on Norse legendary subjects, including Sigurd the Volsung, and by translating Icelandic sagas into English. In Germany, the rediscovery took on a different character: Norse mythology was transformed from an art-religion context into an alternative spiritual practice, with implications that would echo well beyond the 19th century.

  Richard Wagner drew characters and themes from Norse mythology to compose the four operas that make up Der Ring des Nibelungen, though he also used medieval German sources and Germanized the names of the Norse gods in the process. Wagner's work gave the revival its most monumental artistic statement, but it was not alone. J.R.R. Tolkien later described his fantasy works, including The Hobbit (1937), The Lord of the Rings (1955), and The Silmarillion (1977), as heavily influenced by the myths of the Northern Europeans. Through the popularity of those books, conceptions of elves, dwarfs, and trolls derived from the Norse tradition became the default vocabulary of the fantasy genre itself.

• 3. Comics and Graphic Novels

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  Thor has been one of the longest-running superheroes in the Marvel Universe, and his presence in the Marvel Cinematic Universe brought Norse mythology to audiences who had never read a single comic. Alongside him came Loki as one of the franchise's most prominent antagonists, plus Odin, Freyja, Brunnhilde/Valkyrie, Heimdall, Hela, Balder, Sif, and Fenrir.

  Neil Gaiman drew on the same tradition for a very different purpose in his Sandman graphic novel series. Odin, Thor, Loki, and several other Norse beings and places appear in the Season of Mists and The Kindly Ones storylines. The Sandman spinoff Lucifer extended this further, giving prominent roles to Bergelmir, Yggdrasil, Naglfar, and Fenrir.

  Smaller-scale comics found their own footing. Erik Evensen's American graphic novel Gods of Asgard adapts several of the Norse myths directly and received a Xeric grant in 2007. The comic miniseries Hammer of the Gods, by Michael Avon Oeming and Mark Wheatley from Insight Studios Group in 2001, used the Norse mythological world as its setting. European comics contributed their own traditions: the Danish series Valhalla and the Belgian series Thorgal, which blends Norse mythology with Atlantean fantasy and science fiction, each took the old stories in different directions.

• 4. Japanese and East Asian Adaptations

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  Matantei Loki Ragnarok, loosely translated as The Mythical Detective Loki Ragnarok, placed Norse pantheon heroes at the center of a Japanese manga and anime series. The manhwa series Ragnarok, by Myung-Jin Lee, took the prophesied fall of the gods as its central premise.

  Attack on Titan drew more obliquely on the tradition, incorporating the name Ymir for the first Titan, the location Castle Utgard, and plot lines that parallel events in Norse mythology. The conflict between Titan shifters and normal humans can be compared to the wars between the Aesir and Vanir. Smaller touches ran through the series as well, including Norse runes on a can of herring label found by one character, and a giant boar killed in the second OVA of the anime.

  Oh! My Goddess! built Norse structure directly into its world: heaven's main computer is called Yggdrasil, the goddesses and demons bear names drawn from Norse gods and goddesses, and the underworld's computer is named Nidhogg. Vinland Saga, set in Iceland and 11th-century Europe, made its mythological references through historical grounding rather than fantasy framing, with Thor and Odin named within the story. Record of Ragnarok drew directly from the poems Völuspá and Grímnismál for the names of its Valkyrie characters, placing Norse gods Odin, Loki, and Thor among thirteen gods fighting against thirteen historical humans in a tournament.

• 5. Music Across Genres

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  Mats Wendt took an unusually rigorous approach when he based his neo-romantic 16-hour symphonic suite Eddan on Viktor Rydberg's chronological reconstruction of the Norse myths. At the other end of the spectrum, heavy metal embraced the same material with characteristic force.

  Manowar built an extensive catalogue around Norse themes. Beyond the 2007 concept album Gods of War, the band released Norse-referenced tracks across multiple albums stretching from 1983 to 2011, including songs on Into Glory Ride, Hail to England, Sign of the Hammer, Kings of Metal, Warriors of the World, and The Lord of Steel. Swedish symphonic metal band Therion based many of its lyrics on Norse mythology, with the 2001 concept album Secret of the Runes as a notable example. Norwegian symphonic metal band Leaves' Eyes released Vinland Saga in 2006, based on the Saga of Erik the Red, and Njord in 2009.

  The Viking metal genre defined itself by this focus, with bands including Bathory, Falkenbach, Turisas, Ensiferum, Finntroll, Týr, Amon Amarth, and Doomsword among its practitioners. Burzum, the Norwegian black metal project founded by Varg Vikernes, drew on Norse imagery in both music and writing. Wardruna, also Norwegian, oriented its work explicitly around the Futhark runes. Beyond Scandinavia, German Pagan Folk band Faun, French band Skáld, Russian band Nytt Land, international band Heilung, and Danish musician Danheim each approached Nordic folk from distinct angles. Mainstream rock contributed as well, with Led Zeppelin's Immigrant Song, Jethro Tull's Cold Wind to Valhalla, and Uriah Heep's Rainbow Demon, which references both Bifröst and Heimdallr.

• 6. Television and Film

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  The Norwegian-language Netflix drama Ragnarok centers on a boy who discovers he is Thor and battles a family of frost giants living in human form in the modern-day town of Edda. The New Zealand series The Almighty Johnsons took a parallel premise: a family whose members are all reincarnations of Norse gods. The American Gods TV series, adapting Neil Gaiman's novel, placed Odin at the center of its first season.

  Long-running genre series wove in Norse material across their runs. Stargate SG-1 featured the Asgard as a recurring alien species, with the character Thor sitting on the Asgard High Council; the ships of this race, seen from below, are shaped like Mjolnir. Supernatural gave extensive attention to Norse figures across multiple seasons, including a fifth-season episode called Hammer of the Gods, a later revelation that a character had been using Loki's identity for millennia, and an eighth-season appearance of Thor's hammer Mjolnir at a supernatural auction house. Vikings, a Canadian TV series loosely based on the legendary Viking Ragnar Lodbrok, had its characters vision Odin and pray to Thor, Freya, Freyr, and Loki.

  In film, Ingmar Bergman's The Virgin Spring (1960) used the persistence of Odin worship in medieval Christian Sweden as a meditation on the survival of old religion. The DreamWorks animated films How to Train Your Dragon (2010) and How to Train Your Dragon 2 (2014) featured Vikings who referenced Odin and Thor and showed passages written in runes. Jim Carrey's The Mask centered on the powers of the Norse god Loki, while Son of the Mask cast Alan Cumming as Loki and Bob Hoskins as Odin.

• 7. Video Games

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  The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim by Bethesda Softworks drew extensively on Norse mythology for its entire setting. The 2018 video game God of War shifted the long-running series from Greek to Norse mythology, with Baldr as the main antagonist, Freya and Mímir as allies, and Odin and Thor as background antagonists; Kratos' son Atreus carries the original name Loki. The 2022 sequel God of War Ragnarök depicted events drawn from the Ragnarok narrative and added Týr, the Norns, Freyr, Thrud, and Heimdall to the cast.

  The Final Fantasy series threaded Norse references across many entries. Final Fantasy VII placed the city of Nibelheim, Cloud Strife's hometown, and the major city of Midgar, named after Midgard, within its world. Multiple Final Fantasy games included weapons or airships named Ragnarok. Party member Freya from Final Fantasy IX takes her name from the Norse goddess. Final Fantasy XIII introduced the otherworld realm of Valhalla and the world-ending beast Ragnarok.

  In Eve Online, advanced ships associated with the Minmatar race carry Norse names including the Ragnarok-class Titan, the Sleipnir-class Command Ship, the Fenrir-class Freighter, the Loki-class Strategic Cruiser, the Naglfar-class Dreadnought, the Nidhoggur-class Carrier, and the Hel-class Supercarrier. StarCraft named four of its fifteen Zerg Broods after Fenris, Garm, Jormungand, and Surtur, and included an overlord hero unit called Yggdrasil. The puzzle platform game Munin is built entirely around Odin's raven Munin, whom Loki has transformed into a human girl and who must travel through the nine worlds of Yggdrasil to recover her missing feathers. Assassin's Creed: Valhalla featured full story arcs set in Asgard and Jotunheim alongside its Viking history framework, with Odin, Tyr, Thor, Loki, and Freyja all appearing in the narrative.

• 8. Role-Playing Games and Tabletop

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  Dungeons and Dragons has included Norse gods as optional elements since the publication of its Gods, Demi-Gods and Heroes sourcebook in 1976. Scholar Filippo Di Laurent observed that the game treats the various historical texts of Norse mythology as a coherent whole, which erases the socio-historical context of each text. That decontextualized presentation gives players a universalist version of the myths, simplified for popular culture.

  Valkyrie Profile, the tri-Ace role-playing video game, built its entire premise on Norse cosmology. The player controls a valkyrie named Lenneth, who represents Brynhild and has been commanded by Odin to gather the souls of dead warriors for the battles of Ragnarok. Depending on the path the player takes, Lenneth faces either Surt, lord of the fire giants, or Loki in combat.

  The Space Wolves chapter of Space Marines in Warhammer 40,000 took the adaptation in a science-fiction direction, with their homeworld named Fenris after Fenrir the wolf. Massive Fenrisian wolves prowl the planet's winter landscape, and the entire culture of the chapter is shaped by Norse mythological references. The Yu-Gi-Oh! Trading Card Game contributed its own take with the Nordic, Aesir, and Generaider archetypes, a series of cards built on Norse gods and mythological creatures. From the pen-and-paper tradition to tabletop card games, Norse mythology proved adaptable to nearly any structured play system that storytellers chose to build.