Long ago in the cold and windswept lands of Northern Europe the Norsemen told each other stories of the beginning of the world. Like the ancient Greeks they thought that powerful beings, which they called gods, ruled the earth when it was young, and sometimes visited it. But unlike the Greeks, who lived in a land that was sunlit and warm, the men of the grim North believed that the gods were beset with hardships, in the shape of giants.

So they told stories of how the giants made trouble for the gods: of how Loki, the evil spirit, stole the golden hair of Sif, wife of the Thunder-God; of Thor's tremendous contest with the Giants; of how the storm giant Thiassi carried off Idun and her golden apples of youth; and many, many more.

Fourteen of the stories of the Norsemen are in this book, retold simply yet dramatically for quite young readers. It is an exciting book, full of strange adventures, and it is an especially interesting book because it shows the origin of many ideas which are expressed in music, art and literature today.

A glossary at the back gives the phonetic pronunciation as well as the meaning of difficult names in the stories.

From the dust jacket