Episode 193: Norse Cosmology (with Moiya McTier)
/Science and folklore make a wonderful shot and chaser for our guest, Moiya McTier, who is here to regale us with facts about space as she maps the lands of Norse mythology onto our solar system.
Link to The Final Member documentary.
Content Warning: This episode contains conversations about or mentions of suicide, death/afterlife, mental illness, sex organs, planetary destruction, insects/hornets, and war/battles.
Housekeeping
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Guest
Moiya McTier is a New York-based astrophysicist who studies planets outside of our solar system. She’s also a folklorist who specializes in using science and logic to build fictional worlds. You can hear all about the worlds she’s built on her podcast, Exolore, where she imagines, discusses, and reviews fictional worlds, often with expert guests. You can learn more about Moiya and her work on her website, moiyamctier.com.
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Transcript
AM: Welcome to Spirits Podcast, a boozy dive into mythology, legends, and folklore. Every week we pour a drink and learn about a new story from around the world. I'm Amanda.
JS: And I'm Julia.
AM: And this is Episode 193: Norse Cosmology with Moiya McTier.
JS: Moiya was such a delight to have on. And I want to talk to her over cocktails every single day.
AM: I was so excited when she emailed us and just the words folklorist and astrophysicist in the same email made me want to be her best friend. And it absolutely lived up to the hype. We talked about Norse Cosmology and mapped it onto our own solar system. So, you'll learn a little bit about the – about Norse mythology. You'll learn a little bit about space. You'll hear both of us be like, “Holy shit. I can't believe that life is possible in those vast wilds.”
JS: Mhmm.
AM: And it's just lovely and, hopefully, a nice little break in your week.
JS: Yeah, seriously, Moiya told us a couple of facts are just like that – what? No. What? Science? No.
AM: And Moiya has a fantastic podcast that you can subscribe to when you absolutely fall in love with her in this episode. It's called Exolore. It’s so good.
JS: E-X-O-L-O-R-E. Guess what? It's about space and also lore stuff.
AM: Amazing. And do you know what is also amazing, Julia?
JS: Is it our new patrons, Amanda?
AM: Our new patrons: Grave Noise Press, Dustin, Sweet Cervidae, Blue Knight, Krysta, Denise, & Austin. Welcome. Thank you.
JS: What a good squad of well-named people.
AM: Extremely good. You join the ranks of such patrons as our supporting producer level patrons: Philip, Alicia, Debra, Hannah, Jen, Jessica, Keegan, Landon, Megan Linger, Megan Moon, Molly, Mr. Folk, Neal, Niki, Phil Fresh, Polly, Sarah, & Skyla.
JS: I have a little dance I do whenever you list off the supporting producer level patrons, because it's just like there’s such, like, a good bounce to it. Such a good rhythm.
AM: There really is. And then, of course, it would not be an episode of Spirits without thanking our legend level patrons: Audra, Avonlea, Chelsea, Clara, Donald, Drew, Eden, Frances, Jack Marie, Josie, Lada, Mark, Morgan, Necrofancy, Sarah, & Bea Me Up Scotty.
JS: Bea Me Up Scotty always coming in at the clutch at the end there.
AM: Thank you all for your support. This is our job. And you make it possible for us to do this every week. And we would not be here without you. So, thank you so much.
JS: You rock just like the rocks in space. Get it?
AM: Oh, beautiful. Julia you're a person of great taste. Would you please tell us what else you have been reading, listening to, or watching this week?
JS: Oh, man, speaking of rocks in space, Amanda --
AM: Wooh.
JS: I just finished a fantastic book called The First Sister by Linden A. Lewis. And it is like, there are meld-minding assassin pairs. There is, like, beautiful subterfuge in, like, kind of a Handmaid's Tale way but also in space and religion. My two favorite things are combining space and religion together. And it's just delightful and a great, great read. I read it in, like, two days. And it was fantastic.
AM: You also showed me the cover on a call we had the other day. And it is a beautiful book.
JS: It's so pretty. It is so pretty. I love it so much. Linden did a fantastic job. They’re excellent.
AM: So, check that out at your local Indie bookstore. And, if you want to find out the closest bookstore to you or buy it online, go to SpiritsPodcast.com/books where we have a link to all of the books we've recommended as well as books by our guests on bookshop.org, which is a fantastic website that's like a coop for Indie bookstores and kind of distributes profits amongst all of them which is amazing.
JS: I forgot the link was just books. And I was like, “Oh, there's not more of that. Yes, it's just books.” Love it.
AM: It's just books. Merch is just merch. I do my best.
JS: Great.
AM: And, speaking of great links to go to, multitude.productions/DigitalLive is one that you are going to want to check out. After we did the Multitude live online show – it was so much fun. It was incredible – we've been able to donate $1,300 to the Black Lives Matter Global Network, which is amazing. And we're going to continue to make donations, because 25 percent of all of the sales of our video of that live stream are going to be continued to be donated. So, help us raise that total. I want to get to $2,000. I think we can do it. Go to multitude.productions/DigitalLive to grab a copy of the video replay of our two-hour long live stream. There were four segments. All six multitudes were in it. It was incredible.
JS: It's a lot of – a lot of fun. I think our myth that we made for the Spirits segment was delightful. And I want to tell it around a campfire one of these days.
AM: Incredible. So, thank you everybody, who attended live and who has bought the replay. We really appreciate it. And I look forward to making, hopefully, many more donations in the future.
JS: Yes, please. And I just wanted to address something. In last week's episode, we talked a lot about suicide, because of the nature and language of the Invisible Man movie. And I used the term committed suicide. A couple of listeners pointed out that this term isn't really used anymore as it stigmatizes mental illness. And we talk a lot about mental health on the show. And suicide has impacted both of our lives. So, we weren't aware about the move away from that term, but we are now. So, moving forward, we're going to do our best to be more conscious of the way that we choose to talk about it.
AM: Absolutely. So, now, we hope that you enjoy Spirits Podcast Episode 193: Norse Cosmology with Moiya McTier.
Intro Music
AM: We have on today maybe the best combination of words I've ever heard, which is astrophysicist and folklorist, Moiya McTier. Welcome.
MM: Thank you so much for having me and responding to my, like, urgent, plea to be on your show.
JS: No, it was delightful.
AM: Yeah. The moment we saw your YouTube channel and your podcast, we were like, “This person needs to come on the show.”
MM: Oh, I'm honored.
AM: Tell us a little bit about what we are going to be learning today.
MM: Yeah. So, I'm an astrophysicist and a folklorist. And I like to combine them whenever possible. And it was one of your suggestions, but it was also something that I had been thinking about in the back of my mind for a long time. So, I'm glad we meshed on those. But, today, we're going to be talking about the various worlds of Norse Cosmology, myths. Norse Cosmogony?
JS: Whoa.
MM: Yeah.
JS: I like – I like it. Make new. Every day, we should be making new words.
MM: Yeah, exactly.
JS: We haven't touched on Norse mythology in a while. So, I'm very, very glad that you're here to give us a guide through the worlds of Norse mythology. It's a – it's a topic I need to learn more about.
MM: It's been really fun. I think that this month might just be like my Norse/Iceland month.
JS: Wooh.
MM: Because I just recently did an interview about the Iceland Penis Museum and, like, ancient Icelandic magical rituals. So, just --
JS: Okay. Tell us about the Penis Museum real quick.
AM: We need to know, please.
MM: Oh, it's – it's amazing. It's in Reykjavík. And it has 300 different penis specimens. And they range from like full penises to just like parts of penis bones. And what they've done is try to gather specimens from all of the land and sea mammals that you can find in Iceland, including humans.
JS: Ooh, fun.
AM: Wow.
MM: Yeah. Mhmm. Definitely.
JS: I hope that was like the – you know, when you're an organ donor and it says so on your driver's license. And they're like, “Well, we do need this one organ. Thank you.”
MM: Listen, there – there is an amazing documentary that you can watch, I think, on YouTube about their, like, quest to get a human specimen. I think it's called the final member.
JS: That’s perfect.
AM: Oh, my god, that is the best title I have ever heard.
JS: We'll link it in the show notes. That's very good.
MM: Great.
JS: So, Moiya, how did you get into astrophysics and also folklore? Like, how did – how did those two kind of combine? How did you start studying them? I'm very curious.
MM: I followed my stomach. So, I went to Harvard, where, when you want to study two things at once, you have to write a thesis that sits at the intersection of your two fields. So, there's actually a pre-approved list of double majors. Surprise, surprise, Astro and folklore was not on that list.
JS: Come on.
MM: But both of them are two of the smallest departments at the school. So, I went to the heads of both departments and I said, “You, you really can't afford to lose a body. So, let me study both of you. And we all win.” My thesis ended up being a science fiction novel that was set on a planet that I researched. And the plot was based on ethnography work that I did in Hawaii to cover this conflict that was going on, where astronomers are trying to build a telescope on top of a sacred mountain.
JS: Mhmm.
AM: Yeah.
MM: Yeah, the 30-meter telescope conflict. So, that, that was what I did. And, to get there, it was pizza that took me to astronomy and it was tea and cakes that took me to folklore.
JS: It's very, very good.
MM: Yeah.
JS: What a great – what a great background and a great story. I – man, now, I want to go back to college real bad. We keep interviewing guests recently where I'm just like, “I just – you make me want to go back and, like, get a graduate degree and stuff like that, please.” I don’t the budget, but please.
AM: Did you hear about the pizza and cakes though?
JS: Yes, pizza and cakes.
MM: I still get a lot of pizza as a grad student. We have pizza lunch every Tuesday in grad school.
AM: Wooh.
JS: I like that.
MM: But not as many cakes, which is disappointing.
JS: I feel like pizza is more of a – like, casual thing and cake is more celebratory. So, I can – I can understand that.
MM: Yeah, there's nowhere near as much celebration in grad school as there is in college
JS: Oh. Oh.
MM: Ouch. Sad.
AM: You just need to bring your own cakes, you know.
JS: Yeah.
MM: Mhmm.
JS: Sometimes, it's just cupcake time. Small celebrations.
MM: I love cup – cupcake time.
JS: There you go.
MM: I’m gonna make that a regular addition to my schedule.
JS: Very good.
AM: But, in terms of inventing the thing that you wish to see in the world, how about that?
MM: Ooh.
AM: I never knew I wanted to know about the astrophysics of the Norse world, but, now, I need to. So, take it away. I am – I am your student today.
MM: Oh. Oh, my. Okay. I will try to take this responsibility and, and use it wisely. So, first, when you're talking about Norse mythology, including their creation myths, most of what we know comes from the Eddas, the prose and poetic Eddas, which were collections of stories and knowledge that had been passed down from generation to generation orally for a long time but were officially written down between the 11th and 13th centuries. But I think both of them were written down by Christians. And, so, a lot of what you find in Eddas isn't necessarily, like, true, authentic Norse myths, because they were written in a Christian context for a Christian audience. And, so, there's some stuff that's definitely been changed or is missing because it just didn't fit with the Christian theme.
JS: Yeah, as we like to say on the show, LOL, it’s not pagan. It's fine. But we have the story.
MM: I want that on a t-shirt.
JS: Hmm.
MM: Actually, I don't. I really don't.
AM: I know. Like, you say it more than once and you're like, “Wait. This is a horrible sentiment. And I don't want to put it out into the world.” But, in context on the show --
MM: Mhmm.
AM: -- that is the joke.
MM: Yes. And it's so – it's so catchy. I really like the way it sounds. So, the Eddas have a lot of really cool information in them. They talk about these nine different worlds of Norse cosmology. And these worlds are – you know, it's – it’s hard to tell if they actually mean different worlds like parallel universes or planets, which is what I think of as worlds and coming from an astronomy context. But they, they use worlds or realms. And these nine worlds are attached to Yggdrasill , the, you know, origin tree, the life tree, the cosmic tree. And they're attached to the branches and the roots of Yggdrasil. And, interestingly, the Eddas don't say anything about how Yggdrasill was created. It just seems to have always been there, which is pretty cool. But they also don't explicitly mention the names of all nine worlds. So, scholars who are trying to learn more about Norse mythology have had to go back and kind of piece together based on vague mentions and references that they find in the Eddas and in other texts that are more scattered. They’ve had to piece together what the identities of these different worlds might have been. And it's – so, it's changed over time. And we'd have no way of knowing if we're totally correct.
JS: Got to love that about folklore. Just be like --
MM: Yeah.
JS: -- we think we know what we're talking about 90 percent of the time. Like, these stories have to come from somewhere.
MM: Yeah.
JS: We just don't ever have the full picture of it. And that's why studying it makes it so interesting.
MM: Exactly. Yeah. And you get cool bedtime stories to tell at night.
JS: That's always true.
MM: Fun stuff.
AM: I know. But it makes sense to me that someone wouldn't think to write down the, like, basic, obvious facts that, you know, contextualize the specific story they were telling and, and explain like – it's as if you start a – like, reading someone's journal in the middle.
MM: Mhmm.
AM: And they're like, “Oh, yes, my father, Ryan,” you know and, like, give you a helpless sign poise. Like, that's not how – that's not how records work. That's not how people's lives or people think about their lives necessarily, while they're in the middle of them.
JS: Yeah, no one's saying like, “As we all know, the Nine Realms are…” and then list them. Use the context.
MM: Yeah. And, because it was an oral tradition, as different people are telling these stories and passing on this information, they'll leave out stuff that they don't like or I – the way I like to imagine oral storytelling is like if you're just not particularly comfortable telling a part of the story, because you haven't practiced it enough, like, maybe you won't tell that part of the story when you're visiting a certain town. And, so, the people in that town just won't know that information and it'll get changed. And you'll like – there's, like, a science word where, like, you have gaps between pieces of data and you, like, figure out what the – what should bridge the gap.
AM: Oh, yeah.
MM: It starts with inter something. Interpolate. That's what it is.
JS: Ooh.
AM: Nice.
MM: You’ll, like, interpolate the data. Look at me bringing in my --
AM: Incredible.
MM: -- science background. And it was – yeah. That's – that's oral storytelling. And, when you get it written down, there's stuff missing.
JS: There you go.
MM: So, I really wanted to avoid a section of this where I was just like listing out the names of the nine worlds, but I feel like I – like I have to --
JS: Do it.
MM: -- name the nine worlds. Yeah.
AM; Nice.
JS: Someone has to. Like we just said, someone in oral history has to say all of the things so that we know about them.
MM: Yeah. And, in 1000 years when people are listening to this episode of Spirits, they'll have this information.
AM: That one.
MM: No pressure.
JS: No pressure.
AM: I, Amanda McLoughlin, co-host of Spirits in the year 2020.
JS: This is why we say our names at the beginning of each episode. You never know when something’s gonna jump in.
AM: That’s true. That’s true.
MM: Mhmm. Mhmm. All right. So, the nine worlds, the most widely known probably is Midgard. I mean, if you've seen the Thor movies from the Marvel Universe, you have likely heard of Midgard and Asgard. So, Midgard is --
AM: Right. Loki fanfiction.
JS: Yes, the usual.
MM: Yes. Right. Midgard being the home of the humans and that's connected to Asgard by the bridge – the Rainbow Bridge called Bifrost. And Asgard is the home of the Aesir, which is just one of the tribes of gods which I didn't know before I started researching for this episode. So, that was really cool. There's another group of gods called the Vanir. And they live in Vanaheim. The Vanir are gods of things like wisdom and healing. And they also have the ability to see into the future.
JS: Wooh.
MM: Which is pretty dope. When – if I had to choose which one I'd want to be, I'd probably choose Vanir.
JS: You know, but then you're burdened with the knowledge of what is to come. And, you know, I think about how, like, precognition is probably, like, the worst superpower you could have, because you can't really change things. And, anyway, I could go on.
MM: Just like quick aside, the way I see that is, if I suddenly had the ability to see the future as like the only human who could do that, I think that would be really sucky.
JS: Yeah.
MM: But, if I came from a whole group of people, who, culturally, knew how to deal with that burden and knowledge, I think that that would be pretty great.
JS: That is a good point. I'm used to, like, X-Men style where it's like, “I am burdened with this gift, but a whole society knowing what the future is going to be is probably really nice.
MM: Yeah, you're prepared for everything.
AM: I know. That's giving me, like, strong The Giver vibes. And a society that has infrastructure around something like that is a thing I would read many novels about.
JS: Yeah.
MM: Yeah.
Midroll Music
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AM: Aww.
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MM: So, the other realms are Muspelheim. Also, if I'm pronouncing these incorrectly, which is highly likely, I apologize, but I'm not – I'm not Icelandic, or Swedish, or anything. I don't have that tongue.
JS: That’s okay.
MM: Muspelheim is the land of primordial fire and chaos. It’s where demons come from. You have Alfheim, which is the land of the elves. Svartalfheim, the home of the dwarves. Jotunheim, the home of the giants. Helheim, the home of the dishonorable dead.
JS: Oh.
AM: Ooh.
MM: The Honorable dead are kept in Asgard with Odin and the other Aesir. And then there's Niflheim, which is one of the – is the second primordial world. And it's the world of ice and fog. So, it's the polar opposite of Muspelheim.
JS: Gotcha. The fire will land the Iceland. Got it.
MM: Yeah.
JS: Elemental planes. I like it.
MM: Exactly. So, when I look at these nine worlds, I like to see parallels to the bodies in our solar system. Although, it's – it's important to note that these Germanic people didn't have information about the details of the planets. I mean only five of them are visible with the unaided eyes. So, if you have, like, really good eyesight, you can see Uranus, but you can't really see Neptune. You definitely can't see Pluto, which isn't a planet. But, like, we're gonna count it here. And --
AM: It’s in our hearts.
MM: It’s in – yeah. I – it's on my body. I have it tattooed. Like, it's like --
JS: It counts.
MM: I love Pluto. It counts. So, they didn't have knowledge about the details of these planets. And I also think it's important to note that, even though we call the planets – like, we named the planets after Roman gods, they definitely didn't always have those names. Like, Venus wasn't always called Venus.
JS: Yeah.
MM: Mercury wasn't always called Mercury. It wasn't until the International Astronomical Union, the IAU, came together and, like, officially created the names that astronomers all over the world use for these bodies that we decided to call them these Roman names.
JS: I didn't know that was a thing, but, now that I do, I'm very happy about it. It’s very cool.
MM: Yeah.
AM: Yeah, I have my own tiny aside, which is I'm reading Cleopatra by Stacy Schiff right now, which is a wonderful book about the life of Cleopatra. And it takes place largely in the – like, the last century BCE. And I had not really understood the dynamic between Greece and Rome in that time. And sort of, as a kid, you learn about them both. It’s like, “Great old societies, we’re done.” But, at the time, there is a ton of, like, posturing and, and feeling, like, Rome is like, “Well, maybe Greece is nicer than us, but, like, fuck you guys. Like, we're better.” And just learning from her – I think Schiff is just such a wonderful historian of, like, attitude and sense and feeling and, like, using historical information to tell us you know, what it is like and what those attitudes are likely about. And, moreover, you know, like, written records are all from someone's point of view. So, she does a really great job sort of saying like, “Well, this is from Plutarch. And this was his deal. Like, Cicero was just like an angry old guy. And, you know, he liked his nephew this week and then, the next week, really hated him. And, like, that tells you what you need to know about what Cicero was like and what his judgments are. So, anyway, complete aside, but I think it is very funny from this point of view of the book that the planets end up being named after Roman gods, because, at least where I'm at in this book, Rome is just like --
JS: Uh, fuck you, Greece. Okay. Fine. We're better than you. Come on.
MM: Yeah, I guess we would – we would have – I'm trying to think of what the mnemonic device would be if we had named the planets after Greek gods instead. It would be like Hermes, Aphrodite, Earth because whatever, Aries. Like, the, the mnemonic device would just be totally different. I think that --
JS: It’s a lot more vowels.
MM: Yeah.
JS: Yeah.
MM: That should be like a – like a takeaway project that the listeners can do if they want to come up with that. JS: Also, you got a Z in there because of Zeus. That's gonna be a hot mess of a mnemonic device.
MM: Absolutely. So, like, I – you know, on kind of the path of what would life be like if we had named the planets after Greek gods instead, I would love to imagine a world where we had mapped the planets and other like celestial objects on to Norse mythology --
JS: Mhmm.
AM: Hmm.
MM: -- according to these nine worlds, which would be really fun. Um, so, to me, like, the most obvious is that – well, the most, most obvious is that Midgard is Earth.
JS: Mhmm.
MM: Because, like, duh.
JS: It always has been. It always will be, you know.
MM: Yeah. Yeah. This is where the humans are. Unless we find, like, a secret cache of humans hidden away on, on Neptune, like, that's – we are Midgard.
JS: You never know, though. You never know.
MM: You never know. That'd be so cool. The next most obvious thing, I think, is that Muspelheim should be the sun.
JS: Okay.
AM: Ooh.
MM: And, so --
JS: That’s the fire one, right?
MM: Yeah. Yeah. Muspelheim, the land of chaos and fire, although they do have a goddess named Sol or Sunna. The two have been kind of syncretized depending on – because they change the name over time. But they have this goddess who's the personification of the sun. And she has her own identity going on. There are lots of really cool stories involving Sol. And, so, Muspelheim is in no way associated with the sun in Norse mythology, but that's – this is just what I'm doing.
JS: Sure.
MM: So, the Edda say that Muspel was this, like, really dense, unapproachable realm of fire. And it was one of the first worlds to exist and the other one being Niflheim. And the – all of the other stuff, all of the life that we know of kind of sprung up from the realm in between the two, where there is this space where it was – it wasn't too hot and it wasn't too cold. It was just right. And this like primordial ooze happened between Niflheim and Muspelheim. And, and this, to me, she demonstrates that the Norse people really understood that fire doesn't just destroy. It also creates life.
JS: Yeah.
MM: And the sun is the source of all life here on earth. So, to me, Muspelheim is just, like, definitely, the sun.
JS: Love it. I love this theory. Go for it.
MM: Awesome. Some of my mapping, like, isn't – isn't quite so deep.
JS: Listen, you're our guest. You get to decide the things that you tell us.
MM: OK. Aww.
JS: I'm here for it.
MM: Great. I love that. So, the next one is Asgard, which I think should be Mars. Asgard and Midgard are really close to each other. They're connected by this bridge. There is no magical bridge that connects Earth to Mars.
AM: Yeah.
JS: Unfortunately.
MM: I'm really sorry to tell you.
JS: Mhmm.
MM: But we, we have sent a lot of robots to Mars. And, so, it is very easy to get there. And I feel like, based on the descriptions that I've read of Asgard, it seems very earth like or, at least, when you look at Asgard in the way it's been depicted in the media. Like, it's not this land of ice. It's not this land of fog. Like, it looks like Earth. And Mars, a billion years ago or 2 billion years ago, probably was much more like Earth than any of the other bodies in the solar system. It's about Earth size. It's made up of similar stuff. The only – I guess the biggest thing that makes it different is that it doesn't have this iron and nickel core that creates this really strong magnetic field.
JS: Mhmm.
MM: And that meant that Mars lost its atmosphere.
AM: Mhmm.
MM: So, the sun is constantly sending off this wind of charged particles that can strip away gas from planets. It can strip away atmospheres. And Mars, because it didn't have that protective magnetic field, lost its atmosphere. So, now, it doesn't look anything like Earth. But I feel like – especially since myths talk about things that happened long ago, we can imagine that Mars should be Asgard, because it was kind of similar to our planet. Did that make sense?
JS: Yes, absolutely. That was very, very cool.
MM: Okay.
AM: Yeah.
MM: All right.
AM: No, it totally does. And I, I think, you know, lay people like myself often think of Mars like a post-Earth. Like, when, when an atmosphere you used to have dissolves, kind of what happens to a planet. And, similarly, I feel like we are often told that like the lands of gods are what humans could get to or could aspire to. Or it's, you know, humanity like accelerated and more virtuous. So, it makes total sense to me that that would be the pairing.
JS: Oh, yeah. That reminds me of one of the Mayan creation stories where they made humans and they're like, “Oh, wait. These are better than us. Hold on. [Inaudible 29:26]. We make them all over again.”
AM: Yeah.
JS: So, I can definitely see that.
MM: I love stories of gods making mistakes and then trying to backpedal and just like doing it very well.
JS: Yes. So good.
MM: Yeah.
AM: So good.
MM: Yeah. And let's go to the land of the dwarves – the home of the dwarfs, Svartalfheim. It's also sometimes called Nidavellir.
JS: Okay.
MM: Nidavellir. So, it's the, the home of the dwarves. And I think that it should be Mercury, not just because it's the smallest planet.
JS: Mhmm.
MM: But because the dwarves are masters of craft and smithing. And, so, they need to be close to the fire of the sun to actually --
JS: Wooh.
MM: -- you know, power their forges so that they can create things like Thor's hammer and, and other cool stuff that I'm sure they created. Yeah.
AM: Lots of stuff, not just gauntlets.
MM: Yes, exactly. Jotunheim, the realm of the giants is Jupiter, because it's the biggest planet.
AM: [Inaudible 30:26] planet.
JS: The big boy. Yeah.
MM: Yeah. It's the big boy. More than 1,000 Earths can fit inside Jupiter. In fact, if you took all of the planets in the solar system and you bunched them in together, they could all fit inside Jupiter.
JS: That is very cool. Jupiter is so big.
AM: Yeah, that’s wild.
JS: I can't even, like, comprehend that.
AM: Do you remember in school, Julia, when we did, like, an astronomy presentation on – like, in our – on our soccer field and we had people, like, run all the way out to where Pluto would be and saw the relative distance of all the planets?
JS: Now, I do.
AM: That was amazing, but it's even wilder when size is involved.
JS: Yes.
AM: And I feel like, yes, distance is something, but the relative size of the planets is the thing that like no diorama I've ever seen has managed to capture.
JS: Mhmm.
MM: Mhmm. Absolutely. Just, just like another scale comparison, all of the planets can also fit in between Earth and the Moon.
AM: Whoa. What?
JS: What?
MM: Yeah.
AM: No way.
MM: Yeah.
JS: What? How is that a thing? How is that possible?
AM: Wait. I need to look up the size of the moon, because I just think of --
JS: What?
AM: I just think of him as like a close little boy hanging out right there.
JS: Yeah.
MM: So, the, the moon is --
AM: Moon size.
MM: -- about a quarter of the size of Earth. And it's 250,000 miles away.
AM: Wow. I mean --
JS: How did we put a person on there?
MM: Yeah.
AM: Ooh. That's so far.
JS: That’s so far away. I know.
AM: I thought the moon was like the Hamptons. And it turns out it's like in, in Turkey.
MM: Yeah.
AM: Damn.
MM: Yeah. Wild.
JS: That’s wild. Oh, my god.
MM: Really, like, if all of these, these worlds are on this tree, it really makes you think about how big that tree must be.
JS: That’s a big tree.
MM: That’s a big fucking tree.
AM: That's very true. And I’m curious when you make --
JS: I can’t think about space for too long, because it all just starts like making me feel really small and insignificant. But I love it.
AM: I imagined it might get a little tiring for you to explain like very basic parts of your field of study to people and all of us are like, “What the fuck?”
MM: No, but I live for this.
AM: That’s how I feel.
JS: Oh, good. Okay.
MM: This is my favorite thing.
AM: Oh, good.
MM: In fact, I, I feel like I'm not doing my job if I don't blow people's minds when I talk about space.
JS: You blew our minds today. So, that's, that's really something.
AM: Yeah. You’re good. You can take the rest of the day off.
MM: Yes! Alfheim, the land of the elves I think of – so, the elves are these beings closely associated with nature and, and, like, beautiful healing nature things. And, so, I think that they would probably – Alfheim would probably map onto Saturn.
JS: Mhmm.
MM: Not just because Saturn is very pretty and has, has the rings, but also because it's named after the Roman god of, like, forests and agriculture.
JS: Mhmm.
MM: So, naturey stuff --
JS: Yeah.
MM: -- is associated with elves.
JS: Yeah.
AM: It checks out.
MM: Niflheim is Pluto. So, Niflheim is the home of this – of – the land of ice and fog.
JS: Mhmm.
MM: This super cold place. The other – the polar opposite to Muspelheim.
JS: There we go.
MM: And, so, it's the polar opposite to the sun, because it's – it's kind of the edge of the solar system. Although --
JS: So far away.
MM: -- the solar system has no edge, it just kind of fizzles out into nothingness. But, if it did have an edge, the – Pluto might be it. It's just very, very cold there. It's so dark. Sometimes, Pluto's very thin atmosphere totally freezes and then falls to the ground as snow. That's how cold it is.
AM: What?
JS: What?
MM: Yeah.
JS: What?
MM: Yes.
AM: Oh, my word. It is like the worst form of planetary dandruff. It's like your entire scalp decided to freeze and fall instead of just little parts.
MM: Yeah.
JS: I was picturing something a little more beautiful but okay. Dandruff. Sure.
AM: It's so extreme. I can’t imagine that.
MM: It is extreme. And it could have been a gassy planet. So, all of the gas giants from Jupiter out to Neptune, they have these rocky cores and then these big – they're just – they’re just super big atmospheres. But Pluto's atmosphere froze. And, so, it's this, like, rocky core and then about 30 percent of it is just ice. And then it has this thin atmosphere that, occasionally, also becomes ice.
AM: That's amazing.
JS: Very cool.
MM: Yeah. So, that's – that's Niflheim, very appropriately the land of ice and fog. Vanaheim, the home of the Vanir is Venus. I just kind of, like, shoehorned that in. Like, I don't have a great reason for it. Like, I feel like it should be close to Asgard and Midgard. So, I made it – made it Venus.
JS: Yeah. No, that makes sense --
MM: Yeah.
JS: -- because it's kind of bordering Midgard, which I imagine both godly Rome's would be. And I mean, like, I'm assuming these are, like, beautiful gods, who also see the future. So, Venus feels appropriate given the naming convention --
MM: Yeah.
JS: -- of Venus being the goddess of love. I like that.
MM: Yeah.
AM: Yeah.
JS: I’m into it.
MM: Although, I – Venus has such a dense atmosphere that you can't really see through it. And, so, I feel like this kind of is at odds with their ability to, like, see through the future. Although, maybe not, because, like, time is this, like, thick, dense fog that, like, we humans can't see through but maybe the veneer can.
JS: That was what I was trying to say.
MM: So, they are the only people who --
AM: Yeah.
MM: -- could live on Venus.
JS: I love it. Yes.
AM: And, if we look at it from a – maybe evolutionary perspective, perhaps, because their atmosphere is so dense and opaque, they developed these extra extraordinary skills to do so.
MM: Yes.
JS: It’s very cool. Let's build it out. Build that world building.
MM: Go us. And then Helheim, the home of the dishonorable dead, to me, is the Oort Cloud. So, the Oort Cloud is this giant diffused cloud of asteroids and other space rocks. It's Outside of Pluto. And it extends out to – oh, I don't know how many miles. But I'm gonna tell you it in astronomical units or AU. And remember that one AU is the distance from Earth to the Sun.
JS: That's a lot. Okay.
MM: Oort Cloud goes out to, like, 2,000 AU.
AM: Whoa.
JS: It’s a lot.
MM: Yeah, it's – it's really far. And there are a lot of rocks there. And, every once in a while, those rocks will get disturbed from the – their orbits around the sun and they'll fly into the inner solar system. And they'll actually collide with Mars and Venus. Earth – Earth's atmosphere and magnetic fields kind of protect us from the worst of it. But, yeah, they definitely collide with planets in the inner solar system. And I think that this is a good place for Helheim, because, in the story of Ragnarok, which is the end of the world in Norse mythology. Although, it's just, like, end of the world probably isn't the best way to describe it, because it's more – it's more of, like, a mass extinction event. Like, there is something after.
AM: Like a reset.
MM: Yeah.
JS: Yeah.
MM: Yeah, there's something after it
JS: Time is weirdly cyclical in Norse mythology. So, like, Ragnarok is the end of time as we know it. But then, also, after that is the beginning of time as we know it. So, it just kind of keeps happening over and over again.
MM: Nice.
JS: Yeah.
MM: Beautiful.
JS: I love it. It's so – it’s so cool.
MM: But, in the end of our time, in Ragnarok, Hel, who is the leader of Helheim, Odin’s daughter, will lead an army of the dead, the dishonorable dead, and attack the gods. And, because the gods live on Venus and Mars and because the Oort Cloud comets will come and collide with Venus and Mars, that's why it's Helheim.
JS: I love it. It's very good.
AM: That's very cool.
JS: It’s very smart.
AM: It also makes me think of, like, asteroids and space debris falling through Earth's atmosphere. [Inaudible 37:53] change names as they enter the atmosphere. So, I'm not gonna embarrass myself and say the wrong one. But I think of those, now, as hauntings and having the souls or a cast off – a physical matter of the Unquiet Dead just reminding us that they are there and striking down upon the earth.
JS: Very good.
MM: I love that so much.
AM: Thank you.
JS: It's like, you know, you just get the occasional ghost, which is also some sort of space rock. Fun. Fun.
MM: Yeah, they do have these, these ghostly tales that kind of follow them --
AM: Yeah.
MM: -- as they go around the sun, because the sun is like melting the icy comets and the – that stuff has to go somewhere. So, it just follows the core as it goes around.
JS: Oh, space is so pretty and so weird.
AM: That’s much better than ectoplasm as we think of it. I like that a lot.
JS: Yeah, for sure.
MM: Yes, those, those are the nine worlds of Norse mythology as mapped onto the, the worlds in our solar system.
JS: I love them. They're so good.
AM: Incredible.
MM: Thank you.
AM: Head canon accepted.
JS: Yes, absolutely. Just sticking it right, right there. Just – I want a book about it now.
MM: Great. I'll get started on that.
JS: Thank you. Thank you. We'll promote the shit out of it.
MM: Oh, thanks.
AM: I'm curious if there is a sort of analog to Yggdrasil, because, when you first started describing it as like the unknown and unknowable origin of all things, you know, that, to me, is a little bit like the Big Bang or about maybe stuff before the Big Bang that we're not sure about. But I'm curious if anything comes to mind for you about what an analogue for that may be.
MM: Yeah, I think there are probably a lot of analogs depending on the scale that you want to consider. Like, how localize do you want to be? If you want to consider all of time and space as we know it localized to our solar system, like, just when the sun formed, just when time started, then I would think of Yggdrasil as what astronomers call the interstellar medium or the ISM. It's the space between stars. And, even though people say that space is very empty and, like, it is a vacuum, it is very sparse, there is a lot of stuff in the space between stars. Most of it is gas and dust. And the stars form from that gas and dust that exists in that nothingness. And, so, I feel like that's probably a pretty good analog for Yggdrasil. If you want to zoom out and think of time and space as we know it as like the entire observable universe and you think of the Big Bang as the beginning of the world or of, of, like, time, then you get into some – like, the realm between physics and philosophy. Like, it's very theoretical. We really can't observe the actual Big Bang, because, at the time of the Big Bang, the universe was so dense and so hot that photons, one, didn't exist. We had to wait for photons to actually be able to form. But, even after they existed, it took several thousand years for them to be able to escape the dense cloud of the universe, because it was too dense and they just kept banging into stuff.
AM: Right.
MM: And, so, we can't see all the way back to the Big Bang, which means we don't know what existed before the Big Bang which is kind of – it's, like, very difficult to imagine. And I think that's super appropriate, because it seems like Yggdrasil has just always been there. And there was – there – it – you can't – in the ways that we think of and in the vocabulary that we have, you can't think of a time or, you know, just, like, concept that existed before Yggdrasil or before the Big Bang. So --
JS: Science just – I wish I knew more about it, because, every time I hear science facts, I'm just like, “That is the most interesting thing I've ever heard in my entire life. And I'm sure, if I, like, understood the building blocks of it, it would make total sense to me.” But just it’s --
MM: No.
JS: No.
MM: It doesn’t make total sense.
JS: No. OK. Great.
MM: I think if you ever hear someone say that they totally understand science, especially, like, quantum stuff or things at the beginning of the universe, they are either lying or way too full of themselves to be believed.
JS: I imagine probably the latter a lot of the times.
MM: Yeah.
AM: Yeah.
MM: Yeah.
AM: Oh, man, but, if no one's around to call them on it, what are they gonna do?
JS: They’re gonna win. It's as philosophical as I imagined theoretical physics and astrophysics are.
AM: What happened before time?
JS: Yeah.
MM: Yeah.
AM: Um, was there anything else that you wanted to touch on or cover?
MM: No, I don't think so. I think that, like, cosmology myths are super cool. I talked a little bit earlier about what my thesis ended up being, but I had a lot of different ideas for what my thesis in college could have been. And one of them was looking at different cosmology or creation myths from around the world and teasing out areas that were, like, weirdly accurate. And there are definitely parts of Norse cosmology that are just, like, weirdly accurate. Like, the life as we know it, springing up from this primordial ooze between Muspelheim and Niflheim, where it was just the right temperature for life to start.
AM: Yeah.
MM: Astronomers talk about the Goldilocks zone or the habitable zone around stars all the time, where the temperature is just right for liquid water to exist. And, so, that's just one instance that I can think of off the top of my head where they really got it right even though they had no way of actually observing other solar systems forming, or a star being born, or things like that.
JS: That is – it's very cool. I do love, when we talk about mythology on the show and stuff like that, the kind of idea that the human experience in a lot of ways is universal. And that's why we see the same myths told over and over across the world, depending on – no matter what the culture is. So, I, I love that idea of, like, humans understanding stuff enough to get it very close to accurate. That's one of my favorite things.
MM: Yeah.
AM: Yeah. And it, it reminds me too why, you know, poetry and science are not mutually exclusive. And, in fact, they complement each other really well. Thank you. And, when people talk sometimes about – or, like, when I describe Spirits where people are talking about, like, mythology or religion, they're like, “Oh, okay. Well, do you talk about, like, true stuff? Like, do you believe it? Do you – you know, are you debunking things?” And that is, to me, like, such an uninteresting perspective on all of this. And, instead, understanding ways in which we get at the truth in a sideways way, or we, you know, imagine our way to a real possibility, or we take inspiration from the world around us and expound upon, like, the lived and felt truth of it in a way that is poetic or invented. Like, that, to me, we're talking about a continuum and, like, different sides of one beautiful, like, multifaceted die.
JS: Which I think is a great way, Moiya, for you to plug your shows, please.
MM: Yeah, I host a podcast called Exolore. It's a portmanteau of exoplanets. Those are planets outside of our solar system and folklore. And, on each episode, I invite expert guests to help me imagine what life and culture might be like on a different alien planet each time. We go from imagining the environment to the biology. So, we've imagined like turtle people and squid people. We had a whole, like, race of sentient mushrooms.
JS: Yeah.
MM: You know, this, like, just beautiful socialist society where everyone's needs were met.
AM: Great. Great.
MM: And, like, no one was forced to do anything they didn't want to do to survive. It was – it was really nice to explore that world.
JS: I want to live on that planet. Come on.
MM: Yeah. Yeah.
AM: Well, at least, have the mushroom planet in an imagination.
MM: Exactly. And that's – that's really just what I do to keep myself happy right now.
AM: Sure.
MM: It’s imagined fictional worlds.
JS: You also have that wonderful reverse Worldbuilding on your YouTube channel.
MM: Yes, thank you. I totally forgot. Thank you. So, in the reverse Worldbuilding series, I take mythical creatures – mythical and legendary creatures. I look at their different features and characteristics. And I kind of reverse engineer what type of planet characteristics they could have evolved in. And, so, things like Pikachu, which isn't like mythical in the strictest sense, but --
AM: It is for us.
MM: Thank you. Thank you. I --
JS: Pikachu is folklore at this point. Come on.
MM: Yeah.
AM: Yes.
MM: I figured you would be like minded on that. So, like, what type of planet would you have to evolve on to, like, get the ability to store and discharge electricity from your cheeks? Or, like, why do they recharge at night instead of during the day because there are electric creatures here on Earth? Electric Eel is like a very well-known one. But there's a type of hornet that can store electricity in its back, but it charges from UV light from the sun. So, like, what – what's going on there?
AM: So cool.
JS: There's an electric hornet in the world. What?
MM: Yeah.
JS: No.
MM: It uses electricity. It's almost photosynthetic. Like, it still eats to get most of its energy, but it stores electricity to do some of its necessary bodily functions.
JS: That is so cool.
AM: Incredible.
MM: Yeah.
MM: Oh, my god. So good.
JS: And you can find links to both of those in the show notes of this episode.
MM: Thank you.
AM: Awesome. Well, Moiya, thank you so much for joining us, and teaching us, and helping us to imagine these incredible worlds and possibilities.
MM: Oh, thanks so much for having me. I've been listening to the show for so long. And it's, like, really nice to hear your voices, but have them directed at me.
JS: It makes us so happy.
MM: I’m fangirling right now. Yeah.
JS: Llisten, same.
AM: Same as well. And, everybody, remember, no matter what planet you find yourself on, just think.
JS: Stay creepy.
AM: Stay cool.
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Outro Music
AM: Spirits was created by Amanda McLoughlin, Julia Schifini, and Eric Schneider with music by Kevin MacLeod and visual design by Allyson Wakeman.
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JS: Thank you so much for listening, till next time.
Transcriptionist: Rachelle Rose Bacharo
Editor: Krizia Casi