What does it mean to be a warrior when the odds are not in your favor and even the world seems to have turned its back on you? Welcome to the world of the heroes in Northern European myth. The divine heroes Beowulf, Sigurd, and Starkadr and the Germanic warriors who venerated them, lived in a world of stark extremes, where courage, honor, and strength were tested at every turn. Their stories weren’t just entertainment; they were guides for living boldly in a harsh and uncertain world.
While we no longer live in these warrior cultures of the past, those of us attempting to walk this path in the modern world still face the same eternal questions:
How do you live knowing that everything you love will one day die?
How do you act with honor in a world no longer believes in it?
How do you continue to fight when you feel as though the battle cannot be won?
This is the world these warriors inhabited, and through their deeds, their trials, and their defiance, we find answers to the timeless questions of how to live, act, and fight with honor today.
Laughing Shall I Die: Lives and Deaths of the Great Vikings, Tom Shippey
Saga of the Volsungs, translated by Jackson Crawford
The History of the Danes, Saxo Grammaticus (this work provide the most comprehensive treatment of the Starkad)
Beowulf, translated by Seamus Heaney
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