"Michael Jan Friedman - The Seekers and the Sword" - читать интересную книгу автора (Friedman Michael Jan)

Aye, my lordsтАФnine worlds. Nine realms that the
Aesir trod, some of them friendly, some brooding and
some that held death for them.

First, there was Asaheim, where Odin ruled from his
high seat in Asgard by the sea- This was where the Aesir
lived, honing their swords for conquest.

Next there was AlfheimтАФthe elfworld, the ancient,
where trees grew tall and green and fair. There walked
the golden-haired lyos, proud lords of the forests and the
searoads.

1 Jotunheim was the blighted home of the hrimthursar,
the giants, where no man could endure the eternal cold.
Here were fortresses of stone, indistinguishable from the
windy crags and the storm-gutted hollows.

Vanaheim was a fair land with broad meadows, gently
rolling hills and laughing rivers. The Vanir held sway
here in their halls of white stone, reaping a generous
harvest.

MICHAEL JAN FRIEDMAN

Midgard you knowтАФwith its greed and its lust, its
bravery and its openhandedness, its cruelty and its devo-
tion. Here too the Aesir walked, in search of men willing
to fight their wars.

Niflheim was a place apart, all but unknown- Odin
named it a world of fog and misery, decay and corrup-
tion, where the lights in the sky had died long-ago.

Svartheim was where the dark elves lived, a honey-
comb of tunnels, where they mined for gold and for
silver. But it was iron they forged into weapons for the

Aesir.

Utgard, it is said, was set spinning in the void by Odin
himself. Here, he mixed mortal men and elves and giants
in a cauldron of war for his pleasure.

And finally there was NidavellirтАФwhere nothing
might live, for the mountains here never stopped vomit-
ing lava over the black and tortured terrain. The sky was
a roiling fury of smoke and ash and fire.

The Aesir ranged far and wide across these nine