Although these stories have been made to convey different meanings over the centuries, serving the needs and fuelling the aspirations of a whole range of societies and cultural groups, we must remember that they represent the fragments of a strange and resonant storyworld mediated through the writings of medieval Christians, and that there are limits to the immanent and universal significations that we can ascribe to them. The myths refuse to be tied down to particular ideologies, for when those eddic manuscripts left Iceland back in the 17th century they became part of world literature - and they now belong to us all.
Carolyne Larrington, The Norse Myths That Shape the Way We Think
