It was Christmas Eve, the most magical evening of them all. I was holding Grandpa´s hand tight, as we walked across the white covered garden. The frosty smoke flew like clouds from my lips, and created imaginary paintings. I could feel the cold coming through my pantyhose, but was too excited to care. We were headed for the barn, Grandpa and I, for our annual tradition.

- Do you think we´ll see him?, I asked with anticipation. Grandpa just smiled.

- No, little girl. You never see the nisse.

I was puzzled.

- But how can you know he´s there if you´ve never seen him?

- Oh, I´ve seen him. I´ve seen him sneaking around here, that little trickster.

- How come you´ve seen him, and I cannot?

- The nisse and I have been friends for years. I give him porridge, and he helps me around the farm.

The door to the barn opened with a squeaking sound. Grandpa held up the flashlight to guide our way inside. I squeezed his hand harder. The barn was such a scary place to begin with, even more creepy for a young child in the dark.

- Does he really live here?

Grandpa nodded.

- He must be really cold, I said and shivered.

Grandpa chuckled.

- Grandma knitted a new sweater for him this autumn. He´ll be fine.  And here we are, you can place the plate here.

I did as he said, but hurried to grab grandpa´s hand again.

- Tomorrow, girl. Tomorrow you will see it´s all gone.

Grandpa was right. The next morning we found nothing but an empty plate in the barn.  There could be no other explanation for it than the nisse.

King Olaf Haraldsson christened Norway at the end of the Viking Age. He took his people up to a mountain side, held one and one of them over the cliff and asked: “Do you believe in God and Jesus Christ?”

If they said no, he would throw them over. So they said yes. And the moment they said it, eight of the nine Norse worlds faded. Only Middle Earth – the land of men – was left. Nearly one thousand years later, we believe Middle Earth is the land of the hobbits and the elves. It never was.

Odin, Thor, Sif, Loki and all the others were betrayed, but their legacy will never die. The gods became legends. The giants became trolls. They just transferred.

I crawled up on Grandpa´s lap. The thunderstorm above us made me tremble and my heart pounded heavily in my chest. Grandpa laid his arms protective around me.

- It is just Thor who is riding across the clouds, he explained.

- Thor?, I asked with a trembling voice.

- Thor, son of Odin and the Earth.

I was afraid to ask, but had to anyway.

- Where does he live?

- He lives in Asgard, along with his father and the great gods, grandpa explained.

- Up… up there?, I asked with wide eyes.

Grandpa nodded. All the way up there.

- But why does he make such a noise?

- He´s out chasing in anger again. It´s probably Loki. That trickster is never up to anything good.

Grandpa stroked a finger over my cheek.

- You see, Thor is chasing the giants in a chariot led by two goats, Tanngrisnir and Tanngnostr. The rumble you hear is caused by their hooves. And the lightening comes from Thor´s hammer Mjollnir.

A new thunder shook the walls, and I wailed.

- He must be very mad, I cried.

- So so… Thor and Loki have their fights, but they stand together for the causes they believe in.

- Like you and me, Grandpa?

He smiled, moved his face closer and whispered:

- Just like you and me. And you know, it is Thursday today. It´s Thor´s day. Thor is our guardian.

He blinked reassuringly, and I believed him. I believed in his story about Thor. And I strongly disagreed when the teachers later tried to tell me that thunder and lightening was caused by temperature in the clouds.

Grandma said the Lord´s Prayer every night before bedtime. Grandpa did not. He believed in the Norse gods and goddesses. He believed in the giants and the trolls. He believed in the fairies and the elves, and his respect for their existence formed his life and his belief. And he passed their stories on to me. “Respect”, he said. “It is all about respect, so we can live in coexistence.”

Grandpa had seen the fairy many times by the mountain lake. He was in awe by her beauty, and spoke of her as graceful. “She craves love”, he explained. “She craves someone to love her. Only marriage with a Christian man can free her from the curse. First when he says his “I do”, her tail will fall off.”

Grandma said I should´t listen to Grandpa´s fairy tails. She taught me the Lord´s prayer and asked me to fold my hands. At age three I was kicked out of Sunday school, after expressing my genuine confusion. “Who is this Jesus guy we´re always talking about? I don´t know him, and my mum said never talk to strangers”. I was too young to understand the concept of religion, whether it was Jesus or Thor. But Thor was powerful and true. He had red hair and beard like my dad, while Jesus wore a dress.

“Nature belongs to the creatures of the forest”, Grandpa said. “We can reap from it, but only what we need to survive. If you misuse it, disrespect it or steal from them, their revenge will fall terribly on you. Remember that, girl, you remember that.”

I will always remember that. Respect the creatures of the forest. Once I picked a cup full of wild strawberries, but my belly was too small for all of them. I emptied the cup by the roadside. The next day, Grandpa´s ladder was missing. “It´s my fault”, I wept. I had shown disrespect, and Grandpa had paid my debt to the little trolls. I learned my lesson.

Grandpa said “watch out” before pouring hot water on the ground, so the little trolls who were living underground would have time to move. He never feared the trolls in the mountains, because they only chased Christian men and young virgins. But he gave me explicit orders not to go down to the lake on my own, because the Nixie was always waiting for little girls like me.

- And if you hear his violin play, you cover your ears. You hear me? You cover your ears, or he´ll lure you into the water!

- What happens in the water, Grandpa?

- You will have to stay there forever, in his underwater castle.

He bent and stroked my hair.

- And I can´t protect you there. Do you understand?

I nodded. I never went to the lake by myself. I understood. I still understand. When I was playing in the forest, I could see the contours of the creates in the formation of the trees and the locations of the rocks. I still see that. But seeing it and believing in it are two different things. Grandpa never asked me to believe. He taught me to respect it, and I always have – always will. The Norse mythology and their transformation into the Christian era is a part of our history and our tradition. It is the foundation of our ancestors. Their faith and conviction was build on respect for the earth;, it was their time´s conservation.

Middle Earth was the land of men, situated in the middle of the nine Norse worlds. The gods and light elves above, the dark elves and the giants underneath. There were no hobbits, no Rivendell. Middle Earth is known to be the adventurous fantasy world of Tolkien, but is indeed the earth we disrespectfully misuse in real life. I grew up by the roots of Jotunheimen – once the land of the giants; today a nature reservation that consist of Norway´s 29 highest mountains. Up there you can see it and almost believe it, that it was shaped by Loki and the Norse Giants. Up there you want to fight for it, like Aragorn and co fought against Sauron. “There are still good things in this world that are worth fighting for.” Tolkien said it, and was inspired by the old myth.

Thor was the guardian of the human kind and the Gods. He was never a symbol of disrespect, racism or nazism, as he often is today. We still honor the fourth day of the week with his name, but associate him with a modern conviction developed by confused people who have chosen to judge people based on religious faith and skin color. I wear my Mjollner-pendant with pride. It is a hammer, not a cross. It is certainly not a symbol of the devil, but a symbol of respect for something that once was and someone I will always carry with me in my heart.

In the poem Þrymskviða, Thor wakes and finds that his powerful hammer, Mjollnir is missing. Thor turns to Loki first, and tells him that nobody knows that the hammer has been stolen. The two then go to the court of the goddess Freyja, and Thor asks her if he may borrow her feather cloak so that he may attempt to find Mjöllnir. Freyja agrees, saying she’d lend it even if it were made of silver and gold, and Loki flies off, the feather cloak whistling.

Grandpa never asked me to believe in the Gods, and I never have. But I respect them and the Scandinavian folklore. In honor of his memory I will pass his stories on. I believe that the world consists of Thors and Lokis. We have our fights, but we should stand together for the causes we believe in – and for our Middle Earth.