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.
THE END OF THE NORSE WORLD AS WE KNOW IT
Bad news, guys. In this myth all the Norse gods die.
Yeah, this is the big one:
RAGNAROK
THE END OF THE GODDAMN WORLD.
So basically the first thing that’s gonna tip everyone off that the world is ending
is this thing called Fimbulvetr
which just means THE WINTER OF WINTERS
and that is exactly what it is.
It is a winter
MADE OF MULTIPLE WINTERS
like, there is going to be a winter
and then once that winter is finished there will be ANOTHER WINTER.
And then after that maybe it will be spring?
Think again, son.
MORE WINTER.
The whole point of this endless winter is just to put everyone in a really bad mood
to prepare them for the next stage of the apocalypse
which is CEASELESS WARS.
Which is funny because that is also the Norse idea of heaven.
Like, that is seriously what everyone is doing in Valhalla all the time.
But then finally after that goes on for a while
this wolf Skoll
who is one of the sons of Fenrir
is gonna eat the sun.
Then Fenrir’s other kid, Hati, will eat the moon, because he’s a fucking copydog.
Then the cock Fjalar will crow to the giants
all like “TIME FOR WAR, MOTHERFUCKERS”
and the golden cock Gullinkambi will yell the same thing at the gods
and then a third cock will raise the dead.
Hehe, cock.
THEN
there’s gonna be A WHOLE BUNCH OF EARTHQUAKES
and this is going to have the effect
of finally releasing that evil wolf bastard Fenrir
and his bottom jaw is gonna touch the earth
and his top jaw is gonna touch the sky
and his eyes are going to be on FIRE
and there’s gonna be a whole bunch of tsunamis and shit too
because the Midgard serpent, who holds up the world
(and is also another one of Loki’s horrible children)
is going to start having seizures all over the ocean
on its way to fuck up the land.
And not only that
but he’s going to breathe poison all over everything constantly
completely destroying all the air
and all the land.
And all the waves caused by the serpent
are gonna set free this ship called Naglfar
full of giants who are ready to romp and stomp everyone
and another ship is gonna set sail from hell
with all the dead people on it
and Loki is gonna be driving it
because the gods sure as shit want nothing to do with him at this point
and guess who else is coming to the party?
FIRE GIANTS.
What are fire giants you ask?
Oh, I don’t know, maybe giants MADE OF FIRE
the sole purpose of whom is to show up at this EXACT MOMENT
led by this guy SURT
and fucking set fire to EVERYTHING.
So this is when Heimdall is going to blow his horn
signaling that SHIT is finally about to get REAL
and Odin and all the other gods
and all the elves, dwarves, demons and basically just anything ever
are going to ride onto this one battlefield called Vigrid
which means BATTLESHAKER
and they are going to tear each other to pieces in the following order:
Odin is going to fight Fenrir
and Fenrir is going to eat Odin
and then Odin’s son Vidar is gonna be like “NOOOO.”
and run up and rip Fenrir’s jaw in half
which is pretty appropriate because Vidar is the god of revenge
not that he has anything to really be vengeful about because Odin is EVERYONE’S dad.
Meanwhile, Thor is gonna fight the Midgard serpent
and he is gonna kill it
but then its poison is gonna kill HIM.
And Surt is just gonna pick the weakest-looking god
Freyr
who is the god of the sun and elves and shit
and just kill him straight up
because Freyr is a tremendous pussy
who actually FORGOT TO BRING A SWORD TO THE APOCALYPSE.
Then Tyr is gonna look around like “Shit I need to kill someone to prove I’m a badass.
How about this terrible wolf, GARM?!”
and he kills it, despite the fact he only has one hand
but then Garm also kills him. Boo.
Also, Heimdall kills Loki, FINALLY
but Loki also kills Heimdall, so that will suck.
And on top of ALL OF THAT
Surt is gonna just start chucking fire in every direction
burning everything
so it won’t even really matter if you survive the epic battle
because everyone is catching fire anyway
except for these two people
Lif and Lifthrasir
a dude and a chick who will just be sleeping in the indestructible forest.
Wait, there’s an INDESTRUCTIBLE FOREST??
Why doesn’t everyone just evacuate there?
That would seriously minimize some casualties.
Anyway, when it’s all over
and the earth dives underwater to try and put out all the fire
and then comes back up again all fresh and new
Lif and Lifthrasir are gonna repopulate the world
and everything is going to be great forever.
So the moral of the story
is that when the going gets tough
the tough get going
but the SMART get inside the invincible forest.
EGYPTIAN
You might not guess from their tame 2-D cave paintings
but the ancient Egyptians liked to tell some seriously messed-up myths
they’ve got all the essentials:
booze, blood, and jerkin’ it
(if you thought that the essentials were food, water, and shelter
then you, my friend have been reading the wrong myths)
and if any mortals actually managed to survive the constant barrage of nonsense from above
Egyptian lore says you had to get your soul weighed against a FUCKING FEATHER
by a pitiless demon with a dog for a head
and if your soul is heavier than the feather
YOU GO TO HELL.
So I hope you can hear me in hell, every dude who ever lived in ancient Egypt
because I am about to seriously bastardize your canon up in here.
RA HAS SEX WITH HIMSELF
So there is this dude named Ra.
This dude does not exist
At least not at the beginning of the story.
All there is is this totally boring infinite water called Nu
but then Ra
who—remember—doesn’t exist
is like “This sucks.
How about I CREATE MYSELF USING PURE WILLPOWER!??”
So now Ra is standing around
except actually he is not standing.
He hasn’t invented standing yet and anyway there is no place to stand
so Ra is like “Okay, time for some terrain features.
Let’s start with the ones that look the most like tits.”
So he makes a hill
and he stands on it
and later someone builds a temple BUT LET’S NOT GET AHEAD OF OURSELVES.
So Ra gets pretty bored
seeing as all there is in the ENTIRE GODDAMN UNIVERSE is a hill and some water.
So he hangs out on the hill for a bit
waiting for other awesome dudes to will themselves into being
but they don’t
so he’s like “MAN, YOU GUYS ARE SOOOO LAZY
FINE, I’LL MAKE MY OWN FRIENDS.”
But there is a problem
because, although Ra can make hills
and also HIMSELF
he apparently can’t make people.
Sexual reproduction is ruining everything, as usual.
But Ra does not even give a shit
he just goes right ahead and FUCKS HIS OWN SHADOW UNTIL HE GETS PREGNANT.
THEN HE GIVES BIRTH TO KIDS OUT OF HIS MOUTH
IN THE TWO LEAST CLASSY WAYS POSSIBLE. Yes, guys.
If Egypt is to be believed
you are all either descended from spit or puke
(depending on whether you are a boy or a girl).
See, Ra has two kids.
The phlegm kid is this dude called Shu
the god of air and stuff
meanwhile the vomit kid is a chick named Tefnut
goddess of moisture
not water mind you, but moisture
which makes sense with the whole vomit thing, I guess.
Anyway, Shu and Tefnut get together
and by their powers combined
manage to be exponentially more bored than even their omnipotent father could have imagined.
So they are sitting around and they are like “Hey
wanna hit each other with bricks?
Oh wait, bricks don’t exist. Just like absolutely everything else other than hills.
Fuck it, let’s make up some codes of laws and then get lost.”
So they make up some laws and then they get lost in the middle of an endless ocean fiasco
which is kind of like SeaWorld
if SeaWorld was everything everywhere
and there was no Shamu
and there was no amusement park
or hot dogs or whatever.
It is actually just the water part of SeaWorld.
And there are only three people there
and two of them are lost
and they are made of spit and vomit.
Actually, that last part sounds a lot like SeaWorld.
So Ra is like “GUYYSSSS
I fucked my own SHADOW so I wouldn’t be lonely.
Come baaaack.”
And then he takes out his one eye
(by the way, he only has one eye)
and he is like “Hey, eye
go find my kids.”
So it does, and it brings them back to Ra
and he starts crying
either because he is so happy to have his kids back or because now he has to raise kids
but the myth is not clear on whether he puts his eye back in before he does this
or whether it is just this weird floating sadness orb
but that is not important at all.
What is important is that those tears hit the hill Ra made
and they turn into people
and then Shu and Tefnut start boning
like siblings do.
They pop out this kid Geb, the earth
and Nut, the sky
(those are extremely large babies, no lie).
Then later, Geb and Nut give birth to all the trendy gods
like Isis and Osiris and whatever
and things proceed pretty much as would be expected
with a lot of murder and sex and stuff.
So basically what it all comes down to
is that we are made of tears
from the disembodied eyeball
of a guy who fucks his own shadow and surrounds himself with spit and puke.
I’m gonna go cry now.
I hope it doesn’t turn it into babies.
RA AND SEKHMET, OR: HOW BEER SAVED THE UNIVERSE
So Ra creates the world.
Sure, great
but just because you create the world
doesn’t mean you get to just be king of it forever.
I mean you get to be king of it for a while
(like for example what Ra does
is as soon as he’s done creating everything
he turns into a dude and becomes king of Egypt)
but the problem with dudes is that they get old
and the problem with old dudes is that they are constantly getting guff
from ALL DIRECTIONS
and the problem with being a god
is that you are constitutionally incapable of taking ANY GUFF WHATSOEVER
so naturally
when everybody starts laughing at Ra’s old hair and senility
he gets real pissed
and when you are a god
and you are real pissed
there is only one solution, my friends:
GENOCIDE.
So basically what Ra does
is he turns around and gives Egypt the world’s DEADLIEST STINKEYE
this eye is so stinky
it produces an entire brand new goddess
the goddess is named Sekhmet
and she is basically like a lioness
with chainsaws for legs
SEKHMET
:
THE ORIGINAL THUNDERCAT.
Sekhmet’s job is simple:
KILL.
EVERYONE.
So that is what she does.
She just tears all around everywhere
mauling the ever-loving crap out of people until the ground is like
permanent red
which is disconcertingly tacky.
Eventually Ra wakes up from his old-man sleep
and he’s like “WHOA
WHERE DID ALL THE PEOPLE GO?
Damn, I feel kinda bad now.”
Gods are always doing things like this if you haven’t noticed.
But the problem is that by now Sekhmet is an unstoppable murder engine.
But the good news
is that there is ONE THING
with the power to stop an unstoppable murder engine
and that thing
is BOOZE.
So what Ra does
is he gathers up all this really good beer
and all this really good red food coloring
and he mixes it all together
and he dumps it all over the fields that Sekhmet has scheduled for murdering the next day
so that when she shows up
she just sees a big lake of what she can only assume is blood
blood that smells like booze
so, like
the blood of really drunk people?
and she’s like “ALL RIGHT
LOOKS LIKE MURDERING IS DONE EARLY TODAY
TIME FOR MY SECOND FAVORITE PASTIME:
DEVOURING THE BLOOD OF THE INNOCENT.”
So Sekhmet just dives right in and starts slurping the boozeblood
which is such good shit that everybody calls it “THE SLEEPMAKER”
and because of that she ends up passing out pretty quick
and she wakes up all hung over
and Ra is like “HaHAAAA
from now on you will be known as Hathor
and the only thing you will kill people with
is KINDNESS.”
And basically whatever Ra says just immediately happens
so that’s who Sekhmet becomes from then on.
So obviously the moral of the story
is that the best way to deal with a rampaging psychopath
is to get them really, really drunk.
ISIS HAS BAD TASTE IN JEWELRY
So time passes, and now Osiris is the king of the gods
he thinks he’s hot shit, with his godly appendages up whole vast swathes of blouse.
But meanwhile there’s this dick Set.