Reykjavík Grapevine - 05.07.2019, Side 52

EDDA RECAP
Þrymskviða
The Poem of Þrymur
Words: Grayson Del Faro Photo: Lóa Hjálmtýsdóttir
This poem is one of the shortest,
sweetest, and funniest things to
ever happen to Old Norse soci-
ety. It’s about Þórr and his zany
hijinks, but, most importantly,
it features something that even
the mainstream world of basic
bitches has finally welcomed with
open arms: drag queens! (Thanks,
RuPaul’s Drag Race! And more
importantly, thanks Drag-Súgur!)
It’s a good year to be Þrymskviða.
Gentlemen, start
your engines
One day, Þórr wakes to find
his special hammer missing.
He throws a tantrum like the
manchild that he is, yelling at
Loki to go and find the hammer
for him. Loki borrows a magic
shirt from Freyja that allows him
to fly. Since Þórr has a bad habit
of brutally butchering giants for
shits and giggles, he figures Gi-
antland is a good place to look. He
flies straight up to a giant named
Þrymur and asks, “Did you steal
Þórr’s hammer?”
“Sure did,” the smug bastard
tells him. “And he won't get it
back again until the goddess
Freyja marries me!”
Loki flies back to share the
news with Þórr and Freyja. Þórr
says, “Well, Freyja, put on your
dress already. We have a wed-
ding to get to!” Insulted, Freyja
retorts, “I would never fuck a
giant! Gross.” (She cannot say the
same of dwarves, however, as she
once rode four of them in a row in
exchange for a necklace.)
And may the best
woman win
Although he objects as well, their
only option is to dress Þórr up in
Freyja’s wedding clothes, com-
plete with the aforementioned
necklace. Loki is low-key super
jealous and offers to dress as a
handmaid in order to accompany
Þórr to his “wedding.” So there
you have it. Two super macho
Norse gods waltz up into Giant-
land in full drag, serving bridal
realness. And Þrymur is liiiiiving
for it.
They sit down to feast and
Þrymur is a little bit put off that
“Freyja” has eaten a whole cow,
eight salmon, every single des-
sert, and chugged three whole
barrels of mead. “Damn, she
hungry!” he says. Her “maid”
explains that she was so excited
that she didn’t eat for days
before coming. Þrymur peeks
under “Freyja’s” veil and is
gagged. “Damn, she ugly too!”
he says. Her “maid” explains
that she is so excited she hasn’t
slept either.
Þrymur makes his sister
bring in Mjölnir so they can
swear their marital oath over it.
Þórr grabs the hammer, crushes
the skulls of Þrymur and his
sister, slaughters all the other
guests, does a sickening death
drop, and sashays away. Talk
about a red wedding, henny.
Morals of the story:
1. Drag is art.
2. Weddings always end in disap-
pointment.
TV GODDESS
Grimm Pickings
Lóa takes on the world of TV
Words: Lóa Hlín Hjálmtýsdóttir
A few nights ago I was scavenging
Netflix for anything I could have
playing in the background while
working.
My criteria are simple: a series
to have more than two seasons, it
must be somewhat entertaining,
and it can't have anything to do
with sexual predators.
After rummaging around for a
while, I came across Grimm. Six
seasons, non-sexual monsters, 89%
on Rotten Tomatoes, whoop! Re-
lieved, I lowered my butt into the
butt-shaped groove I’ve diligently
fashioned in the sofa and hit play,
At first, the show reminded my
of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and I
got excited, but then I remembered
there's no Buffy and no Spike. More
importantly, there are no jokes.
The two things the series have in
common are visual effects where
people's faces turn into monsters
and the stories are entertaining.
The premise of the show is a
spin on the classic fairytales by the
Brothers Grimm—the monsters
and gore are lovely. There is even
a book with pencil drawings of all
sorts of creatures that the main
character is leafing through to read
up on the weirdness he's dealing
with. I can't tell you more about
him except he's a cop in Portland
named Nick Burkhardt and he's got
American hair.
I can't tell you more about the
monsters except they are called
Wesen, which I found funny be-
cause the word “vesen” in Icelandic
means “a minor nuisance.”
I couldn't for the life of me name
a single actor or actress. In fact, all
the cast looks like they are some
famous actor's uncle or sister. I
wish someone would remake this
with a better script and better ac-
tors. I wish I had the number of Joss
Whedon so I could ignore time
zones and annoy him in the mid-
dle of the night with this “great
idea."
52The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 10 — 2018
In this series, we illuminate
the individual poems of the
Edda–that most famous, epic
masterpiece of Icelandic literary
tradition–with humour, vulgarity
and modern realness. If you're
still confused, Google 'Saga
Recap.'
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