Huginn and Muninn

I have a thing for the corvids. The Corvidae family of birds that is. You probably know the most famous member of the family, the crow. I've written about my love for crows here. Ravens, crows, rooks, magpies, and jays make up the most well known species of birds in the family. And they are all pretty cool birds.

Mythology has used crows and ravens in the past to symbolize intelligence, resourcefulness, tricksters, and sometimes death. The birds occasionally get a bad rap just because they can be scavengers. But my favorite corvid reference comes from Norse mythology. Odin was claimed to have two ravens: Huginn (Thought) and Muninn (Memory) which he sent out everyday all over Midgard (earth) to gather intelligence and collect memories. Odin is often pictured with the birds and since ravens are one of the cleverest of the birds this spy-like ability seems perfect for them.

I love the images and the idea of Huginn and Muninn. While reading some of the Norse stories I was instantly drawn to the two birds, much like I was drawn to the story of Fenrir, the wolf. But as a writer the birds have even more significance. I live in my thoughts and memories most of the time. These two concepts are central to writing. So the birds mean a lot to me. The moment I learned of them I wanted to get a tattoo of them. I'm thinking about putting them on my shoulders, one to a side. I too want to be like Odin, sending out my thoughts and memories into the world and seeing what comes back. Of course it doesn't hurt that they are corvids. Cool birds, and a cool mythology.

Guess What I'm Reading

I had the day off work and spent most of the afternoon cleaning out my back bedroom. I can now recognize that it holds a bed and even a desk. It was in pretty bad shape. While in there, I started looking over my bookcases for titles to get rid of. I do this every couple of years. I'm a bit compulsive as a book buyer. Without frequent weedings I would have no place to walk in my house. So I was looking to start a box. A huge series of books attracted my attention as possible shelf space but after glancing through them I think I'm going to keep them. They're just such fun.

Years ago my parents subscribed to the Time-Life Series of books. We would get beautiful hard bound books in the mail on every subject imaginable. My favorite then, and possibly still now, was a series called The Enchanted World. This was an illustrated collection of stories and myths broken out by subject. There are books on ogres, witches, brave knights, creation myths, christmas, and dozens of others. This 21 volume series covered every type of story imaginable. They are beautifully bound, richly illustrated, and amazingly heavy. For a fanciful child like myself, they were pure gold.

I've always loved fantasy stories and tales of the occult. I remember spending hours pouring over the book on witches and witchcraft trying to learn spells that would allow me to vanquish my enemies and make boys fall in love with me. In high school I played with tarot and palmistry, often earning me some interesting nicknames. I still love fairy tales and myths.

So I'm going back through those old stories that I may or may not have read. I started and finished The Book of Beginnings which covers creation myths and origin myths from around the world. There are Native American tales about how corn was introduced to the world. I was fascinated by the old Navajo story of the Woman Who Fell From the Sky and the Finnish story about the Princess of the Air who falls to earth and is impregnated by a clash of air and water, creating mankind. I particularly like the old Norse myths. The cover image tells an interesting tale of how animals got their tails. The section on Noah's Ark myths covered an interesting story about how cats came to be that I've never heard before.

I'm now reading Dragons. With only 150 or so pages for each book, many covered with illustrations, it shouldn't take me too read all the way through. Check out this 1985 trailer for the series. This would have come out right when I was the hungriest for stories. At nine I was desperate to still believe in magic. I wanted the world of fairies and dwarves and dragons to be real. I craved something beyond the ordinary. Funny enough I still do. These books are a treasure trove. I can't get rid of them.