“Thor’s Visit to Utgard,” a chapter in Myths of the Norsemen: Retold from the Old Norse Poems and Tales
Free download: "Thor's Visit to Utgard," a chapter in Roger L. Green's Myths of the Norsemen: Retold from Old Norse Poems and Tales
A NOTE TO TEACHERS AND OUR INDUSTRY PARTNERS, APRIL 2021:
The students had to use their knowledge of the Middle Ages and their knowledge of the texts we read in class to creatively produce materials following the Ontario Curriculum. I initially was hoping to assign one book to each group; however, with COVID19 restrictions students did not have access to RMS reserved texts at the library, and I was only able to copy 10% of the text to share with students from each book. We decided to work on chapters that could be taught independantly, such as Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and The Knight’s Tale. Thor was a special request by our industry partners, and we all thought it would be wonderful to provide younger readers with a female knight!
Ten students in the Education Concurrent Department co-led these five groups; they have background in the Ontario Curriculum for Primary and Secondary Education. In addition, with advice from Caroline Attard-Portelli and Angela Sciabbarrasi, I provided training on the types of materials teachers could use to teach the Middle Ages in High School and Elementary. We hope to speak to more teachers in the future as the project grows.
For the story of Thor, we decided to use the edition of Roger L. Green's Myths of the Norsemen: Retold from the Old Norse Poems and Tales since he worked from the original medieval sources of Old Norse poems and tales (the Poetic Edda and Prose Edda). Students not only draw from this text but discuss Thor in pop culture and comics; they also draw from sports and the Olympic Games of hammer throwing! Read more about Green, the medieval authors, and the medieval text of Old Norse mythology in the packet! We hope to produce more packets in the future from Green's text like the story of Freya, a goddess in Old Norse mythology who in pop culture also takes up the sword!
Feel free to download the resource and share the packet with other teachers, directing them to our omeka site and TMA for other resources.
How to Cite this resource:
Russo, Teresa and Elizabeth Colantoni, Lucia Di Pietro, Anastasia Donahue-White, Austin Evans, Lex Fournier, Kiara LeBlanc, Julia Schultz. “Thor’s Visit to Utgard,” a chapter in Roger L. Green’s Myths of the Norsemen: Retold from the Old Norse Poems and Tales. Vol. 1.1 of Teaching the Middle Ages through Novel Study, Educational Resources of RMA. Supvr. Teresa Russo and edited by Lucia G. Di Pietro and Teresa Russo. Niagara: Brock University, April 2021.
Schultz, Julia. “Giants attack the people of Midgard” In “Thor’s Visit to Utgard,” a chapter in Roger L. Green’s Myths of the Norsemen: Retold from the Old Norse Poems and Tales. Vol. 1.1 of Teaching the Middle Ages through Novel Study, Educational Resources of RMA. Supvr. Teresa Russo and edited by Lucia G. Di Pietro and Teresa Russo. Niagara: Brock University, April 2021, p. 32.