Talk:Asgard

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 23 August 2021 and 10 December 2021. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): John0552.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 14:50, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

Possible link to LOTR?

is this a possible inspiration for eisengard in lord of the rings, if only the name, and if so, should this be included? JRR Tolkien did take a lot of inspiration from norse mythology after all -ross616- (talk) 00:14, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

If you can find a reliable source discussing this link it should be included, otherwise this would be original research. de Bivort 20:13, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

from what i can find, gard is just a very common ending for place names in the old germanic tongue, so this is probably a coincidence, but possibly partly planned, but as i cant find any sources, i'll leave it out for now -ross616- (talk) 00:29, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Etymologically, it makes sense. Æsir /ˈaisɪr/ - Eisengard /ˈaisənˌgard/, Æsir - ir + gard = Asgard, Æsir → Æsen + gard = Eisengard. It's not such a huge jump. But that's all OR. BTW, "gard" (gård or gaard) is often found as a suffix on Scandinavian place names, and English cognates would include garden and yard (i.e. think of Kierkegaard as "Churchyard"). Wilhelm meis (talk) 06:12, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

@-ross616-, Debivort, and Wilhelm meis: No link to LotR. This is a false lead, though I can't blame you for being misled. See etymology.

In Old English, which Tolkien used to represent the language of the Rohirrim, isen is an adjective meaning 'iron, made from iron', and geard means 'enclosure' or 'dwelling'. So Isengard* means 'iron enclosure' or 'house of iron', either of which suits the place.

gard is a simplified form of geard, probably for modern readers' convenience. The similarity of those North Germanic words (gard/gård/gaard) to gard is not a coincidence, but they're not the source: they're cognates.

* Not Eisengard. Eisen means "iron" in German, not Old English.

--Thnidu (talk) 04:22, 3 October 2016 (UTC)

Locations

Tokerboy, the location and relative positioning of Urd/Asgard is a deeply vexed question in the field of Norse cosmogeny:

In some descriptions one of Yggdrasil's roots extended into Asgard and under it, Urd's well. The gods were said to have court at the well every day riding there "up over Bifrost".

One of the problems with certain descriptions of the cosmology is why would the gods ride up over Bifrost if Urd's well was in Asgard? It seems logical that Urd's well was in the netherworld, that Asgard was in the branches of the world tree, and that the gods rode down Bifrost instead of up. user:sjc

I'm not real sure, rereading my source, it's kind of ambiguous about where exactly everything was. Go ahead and change anything that isn't right, because I can't tell what this means exactly, or mention the difficulties in assigning spatial relationships with these kinds of things.

I would also like to challenge the section that states that Asgard was on Earth, and the Bifrost bridge linked Asgard to heaven. I don't think the prose states Asgard was on Earth. 'Earth' I thought was Midgard, and the Bifrost bridge connected to 'Heaven', Asgard. When (worthy) warriors died they went to Valhalla, Odin's hall in Asgard. Therefore Asgard and heaven are sort of the same; there may be some disambiguation caused by the creeping Christianity in some of the work, but I think it should be investigated. I'm sure there's a drawing of the world tree somewhere, that clears up the positioning of the layers of the Norse World.--FruitMonkey 10:22, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Wait. Did Hrimthurs build the wall or not?

"The walls surrounding Asgard were built by a giant (often mistakenly identified as Hrimthurs), in return for which he was to receive in payment the hand of Freya in marriage and the sun and the moon. This was agreed provided that the work was completed within six months. In order to avoid the payment, Loki lured away Hrimthurs' magic horse, Svadilfari, by transforming himself into a mare and luring the horse away. The job was not completed on time and the gods evaded the payment."

Digging through the page history logs, I found that this paragraph had been originally added by Sjc on September 11, 2002, and later removed (involuntarily, most likely) by someone while reverting a random edit on March 7, 2006. I restored the paragraph, taking the liberty to remove the giant's name (since this issue seems to be explained under Hrimthurs) and to do a slight copyedit. Daniel Mahu 21:44, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

"In the myth, the walls surrounding Asgard, designed to protect the Gods from the Giants, were built by a Hrimthurs, a Frost Giant, in disguise, in return for which he was to receive in payment the hand of Freya in marriage and the sun and the moon. This was agreed, provided that the work be completed within six months, and that he do it with no help. But Loki convinced the Æsir to allow the builder to let his stallion help in the building.

As the construction neared completion, the Gods regretted their contract and the solemn vows with which they had concluded it, and they threatened Loki with horrid punishment. So, in order to avoid the payment, Loki transformed himself into a mare and lured away the Giant's magic horse, Svadilfari, (the result of which was the foaling of Sleipnir, Odin's eight-legged steed, best of all horses). After chasing his horse all night, the builder could see that the job could not be completed on time. He fell into such a rage that his identification as a Giant could no longer be concealed. The Æsir therefore felt their vows were void, and they called upon Thor, who had been absent fighting Trolls. Thor promptly smashed the Giant's skull with his hammer, Mjöllnir, and sent him straight to Niflhel. (Prose Edda, Gylfaginning, Paragraph XLII)."

I put this in here for basically two reasons. First, I read the passage carefully and it nowhere says that the stronghold was Asgard; in fact, it implies that it was located in Midgard. Second, this is a relatively minor myth and there are dozens and dozens of minor myths in the chapter. But that was all there was in this article on Asgard. What I think the article needs is an overall summary on the topic of Asgard. Snorri makes it pretty clear that he thinks Asgard was Troy. Now, if more turns up on Asgard in some other work, then that material would go in a subsection on Asgard in that work. We're too scientific. There is no objective place called Asgard such that if someone describes one part of it, that description relates universal and objective truth and describes the laws of the universe in effect. Asgard is an imaginary place and whatever one author says about it is not what another would say. So, what it seems to me best to do is recapture the overall picture presented by each of the significant authors and not get hung up on the endless detail. The public wants to know what Asgard means in general terms. The stuff about the horse and the mare can go under Loki or the name of the giant. By the way, what is he saying, the stallion had a foal, or was it Loki that had it? Poets! Bah.Dave 00:34, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

Norse not Stargate

Granted, in 21st century America when people think Asgard, most think of, if anything, the race from Stargate, but this is supposed to be an article about the realm of Norse gods. Nevertheless, over two thirds of this article is about the fictional, clone-race when it shouldn't mention them at all. If one would like to know about Stargate's Asgard, then he or she can do so through the Asgard disambiguation page. I think the sections Asgard in Stargate SG-1 and Asgard in fiction should be completely deleated from this page.

~JC

- Done - User:Kingdon

I've created Asgard in popular culture - this should no longer be a problem. :bloodofox: 02:18, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

...And it was apparently deleted or I never got around to actually creating it. Whatever the case is, I've recreated it as these pages are very useful for collecting these random references that find their way on to the main article. :bloodofox: 19:28, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

Just some 'ease of reading' stuff

In the section Popular Culture the sentence referencing the golem from the game Wild Arms 3 was organized... uniquely, so I altered it for ease of reading--Arynknight 01:27, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

Also added a link to this same sentence.--Arynknight 01:29, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

Too much on Wagner

There's an unnecessary amount on Wagner in the opening paragraphs. Franknotes 00:26, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

I think that Odin is an acient shamanic figure. He talks in verse, gather inteligence from ravens, has a ship that can be rolled up like a tablecloth ( flying carpet ???? ) and has a possessions in Turkland. Very interesting. kokturks used runic alphabet like the pagan Goths. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.255.159.190 (talk) 21:10, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

Aasgaard

Under the section "Other spellings" it says that in Danish and Swedish Asgård and Aasgaard is common. I don't know about Swedish but I doubt it. In Danish a double-a is an old form of the sound å which would make it sound funny in my ears. I'm a native Dane, raised with the stories about the old gods in both school and and media. Now even Hollywood is making their own versions. But I never heard anyone say Aasgaard/Åsgård. Maybe the first double-a was a mistake. In that case you would probably be able to find the spelling Asgaard in older texts but we don't use double-a anymore and I've never ever seen double-a in Swedish. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2.110.44.130 (talk) 11:43, 24 December 2014 (UTC)

Assessment comment

The comment(s) below were originally left at Talk:Asgard/Comments, and are posted here for posterity. Following several discussions in past years, these subpages are now deprecated. The comments may be irrelevant or outdated; if so, please feel free to remove this section.

Only one in-text cite/references, so Start. With more refs, easily a C and possibly a B. ErikTheBikeMan (talk) 19:47, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

Last edited at 19:47, 20 September 2008 (UTC). Substituted at 08:24, 29 April 2016 (UTC)

Ragnarök - Apocalypse

The suggestion that part or all of the Ragnarök myth as described by Snorri is due to Christian influence should be sourced, and even if sourced, it shouldn't be presented as the only view.--94.155.68.202 (talk) 04:52, 16 September 2017 (UTC)

I'm only just now seeing the issues with this article, which I've resolved by reducing the article to a well-cited stub for now. :bloodofox: (talk) 05:41, 7 October 2019 (UTC)

Article rewritten for the university assignment

As part of my academic curriculum, I am required to expand and contribute to any Wikipedia article in the Stub category. I've adhered to the Wikipedia guidelines and standards when contributing t this article. I hope my edits should prove useful and relevant. Please, let me know if you have any feedback or comments. I will be happy to review the relevant sections of the article. :Yours.kkuznets: (talk) 18:41, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

-gard and associations of orderliness

Currently the page reads:

The latter is crucial to understanding the cultural and religious underpinnings of Norse mythology. It originates from the Germanic terms innangard ("inside the fence") and utangard ("beyond the fence").[6] Innangard represents the ordered state of existence, while utangard embodies chaos and disorder. The walls surrounding Asgard signify its orderly nature and Aesir gods' organised way of living.[7]

The way it's worded suggests that it was specifically named that way to evoke notions of orderliness. But, the word also appears in Utgard, supposedly the anti-Asgard, and Mitgard, as well as a slew of real-world locations. It looks like someone is reading way too much into a simple word.__Gamren (talk) 18:36, 5 October 2020 (UTC)

This is a classic Chaoskampf interpretation stated as fact rather than one of many theories. I've since removed it. We should cover this interpretation, but not as straightforward fact, and in a dedicated section. :bloodofox: (talk) 19:45, 5 October 2020 (UTC)

Wiki Education assignment: HUM 202 - Introduction to Mythology

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 17 January 2023 and 12 May 2023. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Dollface717 (article contribs). Peer reviewers: Jgarcia30911.

— Assignment last updated by Rockethound (talk) 22:08, 20 March 2023 (UTC)

Rewriting notice

Hi everyone, I rewrote this article a few months back in line with it being a real mess. I now think it is less of a mess. Are you happy with the removing of the request for it to be rewritten? If not, what do you think it needs changing? Ingwina (talk) 06:58, 15 May 2023 (UTC)

I think the writing is good and clear now, good job. One thing I'd say is the lead is a bit short, so it could be labelled with the template "lead fails to summarize article" but I didn't want to replace one with another, but if you have time, you might summarize the article further Dhalamh (talk) 08:22, 19 July 2023 (UTC)

Okay perfect - I'll give it a go :) Ingwina (talk) 08:44, 19 July 2023 (UTC)