The US writer Mark Twain famously wrote: "There is no such thing as a new idea. We simply take a lot of old ideas and put them into a sort of mental kaleidoscope. We give them a turn and they make new and curious combinations." This is particularly true of storytelling. I am a novelist, and teach creative writing. In this discipline, the premise that there are seven basic plots (as outlined in a book of the same name by Christopher Booker) holds sway.
美国作家马克吐温曾说过一句非常著名的话：“没有所谓的新点子。我们只是把一些旧点子放进精神的万花筒里，让万花筒转一下就会生成新的有趣的组合。”故事创作尤是如此。我是一名小说家，同时也教授创造性写作。在这门学科中，故事的写作大纲有七种基本情节（具体在Christopher Booker的同名书中有阐述）。
A new book, The Norse Myths that Shape the Way We Think by Carolyne Larrington, a professor at Oxford University, explores the contemporary resonances of Norse myths, and examines their reimagining in popular culture. "The Norse myths are important because they take place in a landscape which for people in Britain and the English-speaking world, we recognise as being like our own," Professor Larrington tells BBC Culture. "And unlike Greek and Roman myths, they portray a world which is finite. Its inhabitants are marching towards the end of time. So they have a note of pessimism which resonates in a more secular world."
牛津大学教授Carolyne Larrington的新书《塑造我们思考方式的挪威神话》探讨了挪威神话在当代社会的共鸣，并探讨了它们在流行文化中的新形象。Larrington告诉BBC Culture说：“挪威神话很重要，因为它们诞生于英国的土地和说英语的社会环境中，这就让我们对挪威神话更加感同身受。”；“与希腊和罗马神话不同，它们描绘了一个有限的世界。它的居民正在走向时间的尽头。因此，整个神话故事都带有一种悲伤的情绪氛围，更能与出于世俗世界中的我们产生共鸣。”
Despite this, they are not without hope or enlightenment. From an elegiac exploration of the environment, musings on masculinity and a reckoning with existence, these ancient Nordic myths underpin many of the ways we think today.
尽管如此，故事本身并不是没有希望或是启发的。从对于环境的探索、到对于男子气概的沉思和对存在的反思，这些历史悠久的北欧神话塑造了我们如今的许多思考方式。
1. Green myth
Where biblical texts and other legends attributed floods, plagues and pestilence to the wrath of God or the gods, the story of Yggdrasill resonates more in a world that is alert to the impact of man. A version of the tree of life, Yggdrasill stands at the centre of the Old Norse universe. Its branches reach up into the heavens; its roots go down into the world of the dead and frost giants. The animals that live on it both thrive and damage it. When the end of the world comes, the tree groans and totters but we are not told whether it will fall.
圣经和其他传说中将洪水和瘟疫等灾害归因于上帝或终身的愤怒。而Yggdrasill的故事则更多的是在提醒人们人类能对环境造成的影响。Yggdrasill，也即是生命之树的一个存在版本，位于古挪威宇宙的世界中心。它的树枝伸向天空；它的根一直延伸到死亡和霜冻巨人的世界。生活在树上的动物既为它带来了生机同时又对它产生了破坏。当世界末日来临时，这棵树会呻吟和摇晃，但神话中并未告诉我们树是否会倒下。
"Yggdrasill is a model for our environment that we would do well to think about," says Larrington. "It represents a natural world that is giving but cannot be taken for granted: a symbiotic system that may – or may not – withstand all the depredations that humanity inflicts upon it."
“Yggdrasill就像是我们目前环境的一个模型，值得我们进行沉思，”Larrington说，“它代表了一个正在给予但它的给予不能被视为理所当然的自然世界：一个共生系统，它可能——或者不能——能够承受人类对它造成的所有破坏。”
The Valkyrie (1869), a painting by Peter Nicolai Arbo
The implicit warning is especially pertinent now, given that Yggdrasill is not just any tree but an ash tree. "It was silver-grey," writes Neil Gaiman in his myth-infused 2001 novel American Gods. "Spectral and yet utterly real." You have only to walk through one of the many forests across the globe recently ravaged by ash dieback disease, to see vast ghostly clearings, where utterly real silver-grey trees recently stood.
考虑到Yggdrasill并不是泛指所有树，而是有特定的树种——白蜡树，其中所隐含的警告在如今社会尤值得注意。在Neil Gaiman于2001年出版的小说《美国众神》中描述这种树为“银灰色的”而且“颜色如光谱版变幻但又十分真实”。只要你去近年被灰死病肆虐过的遍布全球的森林中漫步一番，不难看到巨大的如幽灵过境般的空地上，矗立着这种“十分真实”的银灰色树木。
2. Myth of undying fame
Valhalla (or Valhǫll) is a magnificent hall, ruled by the god Odin, where deceased warriors live alongside kings and other legendary figures. When Ragnarök (the end of the world) arrives, they will be called to fight the Jotnar (giants). It is a hall of fame for a heroic society, a place where those who have died in battle live on. Valhalla has lived on, too.
Valhalla（也被称为Valhǫll）是一座宏伟的大厅，由奥丁神统治，已故的战士和国王还有其他传奇人物一起居住于此。当Ragnarök（即挪威神话中的世界末日）来临时，其中的众人都将被召唤回来与Jotnar（巨人族）作战。这是一个英雄人物的名人堂，战死的人们得以在此继续存在。Valhalla也会一直继续存在。
Henry Fuseli's 18th-Century etching depicts the Norse god Odin in the underworld
In 1830, Crown Prince Ludwig of Bavaria commissioned the building of a Valhalla temple near Regensburg, Germany. Here, pan-Germanic heroes were celebrated to strengthen the German unification project. At around the same time, August Smith created a Valhalla museum at Tresco Abbey Gardens on the Isles of Scilly, to house the figureheads from local shipwrecks. The mythical hall of fame is also depicted in Richard Wagner's Ring Cycle operas, numerous paintings and in the writing of Hunter S Thompson. Elton John, Led Zeppelin and Jethro Tull all refer to Valhalla in their songs.
1830年，在巴伐利亚王储Ludwig的授意下，德国雷根斯堡附近建造了一座Valhalla神庙。在这里，人们赞美着泛日耳曼英雄，以加强德国的统一计划。大约同一时间，August Smith在锡利群岛的Tresco Abbey Gardens创建了一个Valhalla博物馆，用来存放当地沉船事故中的艏饰像。Richard Wagner的尼伯龙根的指环剧目、数不清的画作和Hunter S Thompson的笔下都描绘了这个神话中的名人堂。Elton John、Led Zeppelin和Jethro Tull也在他们的歌曲中提到了Valhalla。
"In pre-Christian societies, especially Germanic ones, the only way to survive after your death is by achieving fame," says Professor Larrington, explaining the myth's enduring appeal. "Now that there is less cultural confidence in the idea of life after death, people cling to the idea of being famous and impressing themselves on the world in some way. Valhalla is our 15 minutes of fame."
“在前基督教社会，尤其是日耳曼社会中，如果想在死后继续‘活着’，唯一的途径就是成名，”Larrington教授在解释这个神话元素的吸引力时说，“现在，人们对于死后的生活越来越缺乏文化自信，人们执着于出名的想法，并想以某种方式在世界上留下深刻的印象。Valhalla就是种短暂出名的方式。”
Thor, shown here in a painting by Mårten Eskil Winge, has been reinvented by Marvel Comics as the Mighty Thor
3. Myth of the end
Ragnarök (the doom of the gods) is the Norse end of the world, clearly echoed in the Christian Armageddon. In Norse mythology, Ragnarök culminates in a final battle between gods and the demons and giants, ending in the death of the gods. The world ends in fire and ice.
Ragnarök（众神末日）是北欧世界的末日，与基督教的世界末日Armageddon相对应。挪威神话中，Ragnarök在众神与恶魔和巨人族之间的最后一场战斗中达到了高潮，并以众神的死亡为结尾。世界在火与冰之中灭亡。
It's George RR Martin's "Winter is Coming". The saying in Game of Thrones is House Stark's motto – it is situated in the North of Westeros and often hit hardest by cold winters – but is also a general warning that bad things are going to happen. And Ragnarök is also a popular theme in Scandinavian death metal or Viking Metal, which draws on Norse mythology.
George RR Martin所写的“凛冬将至”。这句话是《权力的游戏》中Stark家族的座右铭——这个家族位于Westero大陆北部，经常受到寒冷冬季的严重打击——但这句话也是对于即将到来的坏事的预警。Ragnarök也是Scandinavian死亡金属和维京金属的一个流行主题，这个主题也来源于北欧神话。
In Ragnarök, the older generation of gods will be destroyed. "There is an inevitability to this," writes Larrington in her book. "Even the warriors in Valhalla can't defeat the cosmic forces. After this mythical end the world will rise again. But the question remains, will it be an improvement on the old?" The new generation of gods repeat the same moves, and history repeats itself. Ragnarök is both in the future – and in the past.
在Ragnarök中，上一代的神都将逝去。“这是无可避免的，”Larrington在她的书中写道，“即便是瓦尔哈拉的战士也无法与这股宇宙之力相抗衡。在这场神话般的末日之后，世界将再次崛起。但问题是，这场灾难会是对旧世界的改进吗？”新一代的神重复着旧神的事迹，历史在重演。Ragnarök既在未来，也在过去。
