The True Sources of the Lore

The poets boiled down the accumulated experiences of the shamanic prophetesses into polished, beauteous common symbols that owe their depth to the longevity, diversity, and richness of the visionary experiences the skalds took up into their mythologizing.

The prophetesses in their great imaginal-energetic explorations of the cosmos brought back cosmographical descriptions of how the world of worlds looks. These became the foundation for poetic concretion and embellishments, and formed the backdrop for mythological bragis : metaphorical boasts of deeds and exploits worthy of the character of various spirits and divinities, gleaned from deeply-attuned and imaginally meditative and contemplative prayer. These are the Gods stepping into narrative to bespeak their character through the medium of poetic tale.

Over time these built up into a consistent, traditional archive of deeds that were interwoven with the exploits of other divinities to construct mythology. They are true, inasmuch as they reveal the character of divinities who far transcend any stories which might be told of them. They are not to be taken literally, and yet deep imaginal involvement with these tales is richly revelatory, and compresses great visionary insights that transcend their mythological form and yet are immanent and enfolded within them.