Zeus Grants Stupid Wishes: A No-Bullshit Guide to World Mythology (7 page)

So Thor’s sleeping one night

prolly dreaming about lightning and murder

and he wakes up like “Man, that was a good dream.

’Bout to go make it a reality with the help of my trusty OH SHIT

WHERE IS MY HAMMER??

LOOOOKIIII”

and Loki shows up like “I didn’t do it.

I mean . . . Hey, Thor, what’s good?”

And Thor’s like “SOMEONE STOLE MY HAMMER.”

And Loki is like “Wow. I actually seriously am not responsible for once.

Here, dude, let me help you find it.”

So they go see Freyja

and Freyja is like “Hey, Thor, what’s good?”

And Thor is like “SOMEONE STOLE MY HAMMER.

WAAAAHHHH.”

and Freya is like “Shut the fuck up, man.

We can solve this mystery.

Loki, did you steal the hammer?”

And Loki is like “Nope.”

And Freyja is like “Well, I’m out of ideas.”

and Loki is like “I know, right?

But how about this:

how about you lend me your cloak of feathers that lets you fly

so I can fly over to the land of the giants

and ask them where they hid Thor’s hammer

because as you know

if it wasn’t me, it was definitely the giants.”

And Freyja is like “Sure, man

take my super valuable cloak.”

So Loki takes it

and COMPLETELY FAILS TO STEAL IT all the way to Jotunheim.

and he glides right up to some really rich giant named Thrym

who is just sitting up on a mountain with some hounds on gold leashes

and he is like “Yo, Loki, my man, what’s good?”

and Loki is like “You didn’t happen to steal Mjolnir, did you?”

and Thrym is like “HAHA, YOU GOT ME

I STOLE IT AND THEN I BURIED IT

AND I’LL NEVER GIVE IT BACK UNLESS I GET TO MARRY FREYJA

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.”

So Loki flies back to Freyja and Thor

who are both like “HOLY SHIT, LOKI

Did you forget to steal that cloak or something?

It’s like you’re suddenly respecting people’s possessions. It’s creepy.”

And Loki is like “I KNOW, RIGHT?

Look, I can get Mjolnir back super easy.

Here, Freyja, just put on this wedding dress

and Freyja is just like “HELLLLLLLL

NO.

What do you think I am some kind of slut who trades sex for treasure?

Make Thor do it.”

And Thor is like “NOOOOOOOO WAY, JOSÉ.

What do I look like some kind of cross-dressing motherfucker?

Bitch you could not find a vagina on me if you CUT ONE INTO MY FLESH.

SHIT WOULD GROW BACK.

I AM A VIRILE DYNAMO WITH THE HEALING POWERS OF WOLVERINE.”

and Freyja is like “Yes, Thor, we all understand.

But if you don’t get that hammer back who is going to kill all the giants?

Those giants are going to remain woefully unkilled.”

And Thor is like “Fine, I’ll put on the dress.”

So they pull out ALL the fucking stops

this is like
Pimp My Ride
for drag queens right here.

They give him a veil and a dress

and Freyja’s pretty necklace and some house keys

’cause apparently there is some Norse wedding tradition

where they lock you out of a house and you have to get inside or else you’re divorced

and Thor just feels SOOOO PRETTY

but he won’t let anyone know

’cause he’s Thor, all right?

And then Loki gets jealous of how pretty Thor is

and is like “I wanna dress up too.”

And Freyja is like “All right.

You can be her—I mean HIS wingman or whatever.”

Hey, is there a female version of wingman?

Wingwoman sounds awkward.

I’m coining a new phrase:

Titcaptain.

Tell your friends.

So Loki and Thor show up at Thrym’s place

and Thrym makes the colossal mistake of inviting Thor to have dinner with him

so Thor eats an entire ox, and then eight salmon

and all the little cakes and shit they can bring him

and chugs a ton of mead

until Thrym is like “Whoa, baby.

Might wanna slow down there.”

And Loki is like “No, man, it’s totally cool.

She hasn’t eaten in EIGHT DAYS

’cause she was SO EXCITED ABOUT YOUR DICK.”

So Thrym is like “Oh okay.”

But then he’s like “Man I really wanna kiss my bride right now”

so he lifts up her delicate veil and WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS?

Here come Thor’s furious eyeballs, flaming with pure black hatred

and that is NOT what Thrym was looking for

and he is like “MY, WHAT BIG EYES YOU HAVE”

and Loki is like “No, man, it’s fine.

She just hasn’t slept for the last eight days

’cause she was so excited about your dick, like I said.

Honestly I don’t know how she’s even alive

except for the whole immortality thing, I guess.”

So then this random chick busts into the room

one of Thrym’s daughters or something

and is like “FREYJA, GIVE ME A WEDDING GIFT

EVEN THOUGH I AM NOT GETTING MARRIED.

GIVE ME RINGS OF RED GOLD.”

and Thor is like “Fuck your red gold.

What do I look like, some kind of red dwarf?

Hey, Thrym, I want a wedding gift actually. I want Mjolnir.”

and Thrym is like “ANYTHING YOU SAY, HONEY.”

and goes and digs up Mjolnir and gives it to Thor

and Thor is like “OH, IT IS PARTY TIME NOW, MOTHERFUCKERS.”

So he kills Thrym

and then all of Thrym’s dudes

and then that chick who asked him for gold, just for good measure

and then he’s like “WHO’S THE MAN?

WHO’S THE MAN?

ME RIGHT?

’CAUSE THIS WHOLE THING KINDA MADE ME QUESTION MY SEXUALITY.”

So the moral of the story is

if at first you don’t succeed

try cross-dressing.

Odin is constantly doing weird shit for secrets.

Like every morning, he sends out his two ravens—Hugin and Munin—to go fly around

and then in the evening they come back and tell him what’s up.

But DISASTER STRIKES

because one day

instead of telling him all the shit they saw

all the birds will say is “OHH SHIT. GOT SOME FOREBODING SHADOWS UP IN THIS BITCH.”

And Odin is like “FOREBODING SHADOWS?

THOSE ARE THE WORST KIND OF SHADOWS!”

At which point his wife, Frigga, busts in like “HUSBAND, STOP YELLING”

and Odin is like “HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO STOP YELLING

WHEN THERE ARE FOREBODING SHADOWS GOING ON ALL OVER THE PLACE??”

And Frigga is like “Okay, tell you what

how about we go hit up these chicks called the Norns

who live at the bottom of Yggdrassil—

THE TREE OF LIFE—

and look into their eyes for a bit and see the future?”

And Odin is like “Okay, I GUESS.”

So Odin gets all his buddies together

them being Tyr, the one-armed badass murder convention

Baldur the prettiest and best loved of all the gods

and Thor, who has a hammer.

They all walk over to this fabulous rainbow bridge

that connects Asgard to the base of Yggdrassil

and Odin goes up to Heimdall who is the keeper of the gate of Asgard

and also has a sweet gold grill

and Heimdall opens up the gate

and Odin walks through, and Tyr walks through, and Baldur walks through

and Thor tries to walk through and Heimdall is like “NOPE, NO THORS ALLOWED.”

and Thor who is the god of getting real pissed real fast

is all “DON’T MAKE ME COME OVER TO YOUR HOUSE AND BEAT YOUR WIFE.

OH WAIT, YOU DON’T HAVE A WIFE

SO I GUESS I AM GOING TO HAVE TO WAIT

UNTIL SOME POOR SKANK FINDS YOUR WEAK-ASS GOLD GRILL ALLURING

AND THEN WHEN YOU ARE CUTTING THE CAKE AT YOUR WEDDING

I WILL BUST OUT OF THE CAKE

AND CLOCK YOUR NEW WIFE IN THE JAW WITH MY HAMMER

BECAUSE IF THERE IS ONE THING THAT DEFINES ME AS A PERSON

IT IS MY MASSIVE FUCKING HAMMER.”

And Heimdall is like “Actually your hammer is kind of the problem

the weight of your hammer combined with the weight of your fat, fat ass

would break the rainbow bridge.

So I’m sorry, dude but you’re going to have to stay home.

UNLESS you want to wade across these two smothering miserable cloud rivers

and meet your bros on the other side.”

and Thor is like “SOUNDS AWESOME.”

So nine hours later, Thor finally catches up to everyone at the base of Yggdrassil

and then Odin goes over to stare at the Norns for a bit.

There are three Norns:

Urda, the old one

Verdandi, the hot one

and Skulda, the emo one

and in their eyes Odin can see the future

and I dunno exactly what it is

but it’s apparently pretty depressing

and then Frigga shows up

with Sif (Thor’s wife)

and Nanna (Baldur’s wife. Lucky bitch)

and she looks at the Norns for a bit

and then looks real sad at Baldur, who is her son

presumably because she saw him die in the future or some shit.

Who knows?

(Spoiler alert: He totally dies.)

So Odin turns around like “Hey, guys I need to go to Midgard for a bit.

I need to drink from the well of Mimir

because it is fortified with wisdom and shit

and all these foreboding shadows are going wayyy over my head.”

And then Thor has to figure out how to get back home.

So Odin trades in his spear, and all his armor and his eight-legged horse, and his name

for a blue cloak and a staff and a big floppy hat

and the name VEGTAM THE WANDERER

and he starts walking through Jotunheim looking for giants.

Pretty soon he sees him a giant

So he walks up to this giant like “Hey, bro, what’s your name?”

and the giant is like “I AM VAFTHRUDNIR WISEST GIANT EVER.”

Odin has heard about this dude

and he knows that he is not bullshitting

so he is like “Oh damn, I am in luck.

Wanna hook me up with some wisdom?”

and Vafthrudnir is like “OKAY, BUT FIRST ANSWER SOME RANDOM TRIVIA

AND IF YOU ANSWER WRONG I GET TO CUT OFF YOUR HEAD.”

This may seem strange

but actually this is just how they play trivial pursuit in Sweden.

So Vafthrudnir tosses out a bunch of questions

but his quiz is actually super weak sauce

because like 100 percent of the answers can be readily found on Wikipedia

so Odin proceeds to hand him his ass

and Vafthrudnir is like “Aww dang.

Now you gotta ask ME a question.”

and Odin is like “How about this one:

WHAT ARE THE LAST WORDS THAT ODIN WILL SAY TO HIS SON BALDUR?”

And Vafthrudnir is like “COME ON, THAT IS ENTIRELY UNFAIR

ONLY ODIN WOULD KNOW THE ANSWER TO—Waaait a second.

You’re Odin, aren’t you?

You motherfucker.

Okay, what kind of wisdom did you want to get hooked up with?”

And Odin is like “I just wanna know how much it costs to drink from Mimir’s well.”

and Vafthrudnir is like “Oh damn, is that all? You probably could have just asked Mimir.

He generally just charges people THEIR RIGHT EYE.”

And Odin is like “Really?”

And Vafthrudnir is like “Yup.”

And Odin is like “Does he ever charge . . . anything else?”

And Vafthrudnir is like “Nope.”

So Odin is like “Fuuuuck, man

I need my right eye

for like, depth perception

and keeping bacteria out of my bleeding eye socket.

Maybe I shouldn’t go through with this.”

But then he remembers that he’s not a huge wuss

so he goes to Mimir’s well

and he’s like “Hey, Mimir

hook it up.”

And Mimir looks at him and is like “You know how much it costs, right?

’Cause a lot of people show up here like ‘GIMME SOME WISDOM’

and I’m always like ‘Sure. One eyeball, please.’

And they are like ‘NOOOO WAYYYY.’

I mean, I know you’re not gonna pussy out

because I drink from this wisdom well all the time and I’m wise as shit

but I still gotta ask for legal reasons: You down to give me your right eye?”

and Odin is like “OH HELLS YES.”

So Mimir gives him the water of knowledge right away

which strikes me as an incredibly unwise move

because Odin could have just drunk all the water

and then left without giving away any of his eyeballs

and in fact if that water had really given him ultimate wisdom

that’s probably exactly what he would have done.

But no, he drinks the water

and he sees what he has to do to mitigate the horrible foreboding shadow

not that it can be stopped or anything because Norse mythology is pretty gloomy

and then he puts down the drinking horn and he plucks out his eye

and he puts his still-warm bleeding eyeball in Mimir’s well

proving once and for all

that the Norse may not have been a very smart people

or a very happy people

but no matter what

THEY WERE ALWAYS METAL.