Hay Festival 2017: Neil Gaiman and Stephen Fry - Myth Makers

ladies and gentlemen good afternoon thank you very much for being here there will be a book signing of this fantastic book at the end of this session which will incorporate not only two fantastic storytellers but the Children's Laureate Chris Riddell who will be live drawing during this session and you'll be able to see up on the screen some of the images that you create that will follow not only the conversation on stage but also you the audience these are stories from across the world which have travelled across time and space because they're absolutely true to talk about them we have two of our favorite and best loved a festival guests please give a very warm welcome to Chris Riddell to Stephen Fry and to Neil Gaiman oh I would welcome that night good well funky completely ah golly well me oh how wonderful it is to sit with you I have to tell you donors I haven't told you this yet but I I almost had my bowels fall out about about eight months ago I was in the middle of writing a book which is going to come out in November and it's a retelling of the Greek myths and I heard from someone excitedly saying who didn't know I was doing this Oh have you heard Neil Gaiman Scott this book of Norse myths coming out and rather than thinking hooray a new Neil Gaiman which is of course what I would normally think I thought what shot is he doing a series oh no and I did I called up my agent I said oh god please can you find out if Neil Gaiman is planning to do them Greek and other myths because it's ears I'm going to stick a trusty knife in my guts and end it all but fortunately you apparently have no plans to expand in Europe as you were Hitler would have put it but I have to say I've read your book you obviously read magazine not out yet that is just miraculous can you just start by telling tell me about the genesis of it why you chose Norseman's have you always been addicted to them as it were I've always been addicted to Norse myth I discovered Norse myths aged seven maybe six in originally interesting the reprints of The Adventures of the Mighty Thor in an English clique called fantastic which was just black and white reprints and I just remember a crippled doctor Don Blake with his stick in the back of a cave that was their description not mine and he's trapped in this cave by aliens as you would see but he and his own stick has been broken but he finds a stick and he bangs it against the rock and it transforms into Mjolnir the the hammer of Thor and he becomes store and I spent the rest of my childhood finding sticks and just doing because you can never be too sure you can and from there it was roger lancelyn green oh my goodness already oh my god heaven he's thanking me oh my word though so roger lancelyn green admitted the Northman and and i went to them driven by the comics because i thought okay well that the solid is as god is a is a planet or something the whole world aureus or back then it was a sort of science fictional world it was very science fictiony i just wanted to know more about what where this stuff came from and what i discovered was something else entirely the roger lancelyn green retellings you're up somewhere in the frozen north sand and there are giants and loki is not this evil god of mischief he's much more complicated and thor is not this mighty good-looking blondie superhero he's a little bit more in yeah and Odin is not this sort of glorious father figure he seems to have various agenda of the weaknesses and and it's some kind of weird agenda so I I love that um and that was really where it began for me but where the book began was was armed 2008 I even know the date which I never do normally it was November the 10th 2008 my birthday it was lunchtime and a lovely American editor Norton's from had lunch with me in to say have you ever thought about I know you you love the Norse myths they crop up in Sandman they crop up in America goggles arm you did that old in the frost giants book where you sort of do them for kids that Kris so gloriously Illustrated um although chrysalis wouldn't be for like eight years in the future and Amy could not see the future I that was an interpolation by me her own I'm just good making that jealously so but Amy things it would you do this and I it took me several years of thinking about it trying to figure out the voice that I would sell them the voice was was like the retelling was easy the voice it was a soggy bed isn't it as to whether what's wonderful is I'm Rhea I know if our child I would adore this book it's not it's not add up but on the other hand it doesn't fall down at all and the other thing which I found so important in trying to write them is not trying to explain them just tell the story don't say even if it's obvious I mean the Greek myths for example one of the great stories that Ovid tells is he calls it Cupid and Psyche and whipping was Eros and Psyche and it's obvious to think of that as an allegory you know there's the soul psyche and there's physical love eros and they get together and that's the Greeks surely telling us about how true love must be a mixture of body and soul but actually it's much better if you just tell us a story and let the reader think that and I found that with yours you don't ever belabor a story and make it about Vikings or about history but if you try and explain them they get left ok don't get more that's a pom if you try and said the more you add in the less they become they um so you you have to figure out a way to tell them for me it was incredibly important to write in a voice that children could cope with yeah um it also became important to watch the stories kind of tell themselves or an example of that is there's one story in the editor which is known to us as Loki's flighting and it's basically Loki insulting everybody he's having dinner with one by one and he's sort of saying you did this appalling thing and they are appalling and then the person insulted the next person along would say but yes but I done that if they know but you did this and they're just going backwards and forwards and I was looking forward to doing that doing the whole of Loki's fighting the whole of the book and I got to the point where it was and I went oh hang on if I stop here and do four pages of you know of Freya they found you in bed with your brother and when they stared at you you farted at them yeah I may be schooled in Americans call it throwing shade isn't it exactly uh yeah doing the dozens yeah I am when I got to that point with all I actually can't do this hello oh it's cute it's like it doesn't actually work dramatically in telling it and I just did a paragraph saying he insulted everybody and so you give another side of leg which I loved I never knew about this because the slightly apologetic but seriously unapologetic vogner and in me knew of lugar who is mentioned in actually as a separate God in that illusory Palace Eocene who's the god of fire but in Varna locally and logo become one then they but you have do tell the story of how in order to entertain the feast he tortures himself essentially so josy has a good side why what a way of doing it to you doesn't really have a good sign you just never has any any the great thing about Lowe saves himself by Loki is the most interesting character in Norse mythology at least to me because over and over again he gets everybody into trouble by being the smartest person in the room but not as clever as he thinks he is yeah and then once they're in trouble Merson oh wow he is the person who the God say you got us into this yeah and you now have to get us out of it and there is one one point where he has to make a goddess smile she's a giant s she's come to for reasons all of which having to do with Loki she has lost her father and he's been murdered by the gods and they come and she comes and they negotiate the fascinating thing about North cultures is every life had value it's vaguely assumed that people are probably going to get murdered and it's also assumed that if you murder somebody they come to you and you give them a bag of gold and a goat or whatever because that's what happens when you murder somebody um so she negotiates that having lost her father the gods are going to give her a husband and they're going to make sure her her father is never forgotten and they're going to make her laugh again because she has not smiled or laughed so they they find her a husband and at one point they actually take her dead father's eyes and throw them up into the sky where they shine like stars for the rest of time but for making her laugh and again this is something that tells you a lot about as well you can try it at home it tells you a lot about what the north found funny and I'm interested to find out whether or not Chris is going to draws it exactly but what happens is um Loki who knows that he has to make her laugh or he will lose his life goes and gets a goat ties one end of the rope to this billy goats beard and the other ends he ties to his private bits and then goes out and engages in a game of tug-of-war yeah with the goat the imagined is feasting hall where he's just entertaining everybody and the goat is going backwards and putting goat eating is dancing and he is yanking and there was an awful lot of screaming and finally the rope breaks Loki screaming and clutching his nether regions tumbles through the air and Scotty laughs yes and now you know everything you ever wanted to know about like maybe it is the weird and wonderful thing though about the Vikings and I don't know if you found this writing about the Greek um oh oh she's smiling hooray the guilt that's big damage quick is me quick and we never told him that story backstage he just directed one of the things about the the North that you realize that makes them very different there are a couple of things that make them it's very different to the Greek mayor um one of which is the in hospice ability of the world they're in yes exactly nobody is hanging around not wearing very much staring at their reflection in pool don't you say a word against narcissus I I wouldn't and nor ignore is anybody sort of flicking through woodland ELLs in over the future of anybody right it's all much more why don't you tell that fabulous story we've got here of well I won't say what off you couldn't you've got a bit to read I think it's just so wonderful and everyone's gonna love this ah can I have a little light over here so this is from a longer story about the children of Loki Loki had three children and that the gods had to go off into giant land and bring back and this is about the third of Loki's children when they had brought the third and smallest of Loki's children back from the land of the Giants it have been poppy sized and tear had scratched its neck and its head and played with it removing its willow muzzle first it was a wolf cub gray and black with eyes the color of dark amber the wolf's cub ate its meat raw but it spoke as a man would speak in the language of men and the gods and it was proud the little beast was called Fenrir it's - was growing fast one day it was the size of a wolf the next the size of a cave bear and the size of a great elk the gods were intimidated by it all except here he still played with it and romped with it and he alone said the wolf it's meat each day and each day the Beast ate more than the day before and each day it grew and it became fiercer and stronger Odin watched the wolf child grow with foreboding so in his dreams the wolf had been there at the end of everything and the last things Odin had seen in any of his dreams of the future were the Topaz eyes and the sharp white teeth of Fenris wolf the gods had a council and resolved at that council that they would bind Fenrir they crafted heavy chains and shekels in the forges of the Gods and they carried the shackles défendre here said the gods as if suggesting a new game you have grown so fast Fenrir it is time to test your strength we have here the heaviest chains and shackles you think you could break them I think I can said Fenris wolf bind me the guards wrapped the huge chains around Fenrir and shackled his paws he waited motionless while they did this the gods smiled at each other as they changed the enormous wolf now shouted Thor Fenrir strained and stretched the muscles of his legs and the chains like dry twigs the Great Wolf howled the moon a howl of triumph and joy I broke your chains he said do not forget this we will not forget said the gods the next a tear went to take the wolf his meat I broke the fetters said Fenrir I broke them easily you did said tear do you think they will test me again I grow and I grow stronger with every day they will test you again I would rage a wager my right hand on it said tear the wolf was still growing and the gods were in the smithee's forging a new set of chains each link in the chain was too heavy for a normal man to lift the metal of the chains was the strongest metal that the gods could find iron from the earth mixed with iron that had fallen from the sky they called these chains to rami the gods hold the chains to where Fenrir slept the wolf opened his eyes again he said if you can escape from these chains said the gods then your renown and your strength will be known to all the world's glory will be yours if chains like this cannot hold you then your strength will be greater than that of any of the gods or the Giants Henry nodded at this and looked at the chains called draw me bigger than any chains had ever been stronger than the strongest of bounds there is no glory without danger said the wolf after some moments I believe I can break these bindings chained me up they chained him the Great Wolf stretched and strained but the chains held the gods looked at each other and there was the beginning of triumph in their eyes but now the huge wolf began to twist and to rise to kick out his legs and strain in every muscle and every sinew his eyes flashed and his teeth flashed and his jaws foamed he growled as he arrived struggled with all his might the gods moved back involuntarily and it was good that they did so for the chains fractured and then broke with such violence that the pieces were thrown far into the air and for years to come the gods would find lumps of shattered shackles embedded in the sides of huge trees or the side of a mountain yes shouted Fenrir and howled in his victory like a wolf and like a man the gods who had watched the struggle did not seem the wolf observed to delight in his victory not even tear finra Loki's child brooded on this and on other matters and Fenris wolf grew huger and hungrier with each day that passed Odin brooded and he pondered and he thought all the wisdom of Mimas world was his and the wisdom he had gained from hanging from the world tree a sacrifice to himself at last he called the light elf scanner phrase messenger to his side and he described the chain called Glick near scanner rode his horse across the Rainbow Bridge to start Alfheim with instructions to the dwarfs for how to create a chain unlike anything ever made before the dwarfs listened to scanner described their Commission and they shivered and they named their price scanner agreed if he had been instructed to do by Odin although the dwarfs price was high the door scattered the ingredients they would need to make Glick near these were the six things the dwarves gathered for firstly the footsteps of a cat for secondly the beard of a woman for thirdly the roots of a mountain for fourthly the sinews of a bear for fifthly the breath of a fish for sixth and lastly the spittle of a bird each of these things was used to make Clayton air you say you have not seen these things of course you have not the dwarfs used them in their crafting when the dwarfs had finished their crafting they gave scare narrow wooden box inside the box was something that looked like a long silken ribbon smooth and soft to the touch it was almost transparent and weighed next to nothing Scania Road back to Asgard with his box at his side he arrived late in the evening after the Sun had set he showed the gods what he brought back from the workshop of the dwarfs and they were amazed to see it the gods went together to the shores of the Black Lake and they called Fenrir by name he came at a run as a dog will come when it is called and the gods marveled to see how big he was and how powerful what's happening asked the wolf we have obtained the strongest bondable they told him not even you will be able to break it the wolf puffed himself up I can burst any chains he told them proudly Odin opened his hand to display glade near it shimmered in the moonlight that said the wolf that is nothing the gods pulled on it to show him how strong it was we cannot break it they told him the wolf squinted at the silken band that they held between them glimmering like a snail's trail of the moonlight on the waves and he turned away uninterested No he said bring me real chains real setters heavy ones huge ones and let me show my strength this is Glade there said Odin it is stronger than any chains or fetters are you scared Fenrir scared not at all but what happens if I break a thin ribbon like that do you think I will get renown and fame that people will gather together and say do you know how strong and powerful Fenris wolf is he is so powerful he bro because silken ribbon there will be no glory for me and breaking lake near you're scared said Odin the Great Beast Smith's the air I sense treachery and trickery said the wolf his amber eyes flashing in the moonlight and although I think your Glen near may only be a ribbon I will not consent to be tied up by it you you who broke the strongest biggest chains that ever were you're scared by this band said the door I am scared of nothing growled the wolf I think it is rather that you little creatures are scared of me Odin scratched his bearded chin you are not stupid from where there is no treachery here but I understand your reluctance it would take a brave warrior to consent to be tied up with bonds he could not break I assure you as the father of the gods that if you cannot break a band like this a veritable silken ribbon as you say then we gods will have no reason to be afraid of you and we will set you free and let you go your own way along growl from the wolf ah you lie or father you lie in the way that some folk breathe if you were to tie me up in bonds I could not escape from then I do not believe you would free me I think you would leave me here I think you plan to abandon me and to betray me I do not consent to have that ribbon placed on me fine words and brave words said Odin words to cover your fear at being proved a coward Fenris wolf you're afraid to be tied with the silken ribbon no need for more explanations the wolf's tongue lolled from his mouth and he laughed them showing sharp teeth each the size of a man's arm rather than question my courage I challenge you to prove there is no treachery planned you can tie me up if one of you will place his hand in my mouth I will gently close my teeth upon it but I will not bite down if there is no treachery afoot I will open my mouth when I have escaped the ribbon or when you have freed me and his hand will be unharmed there I swear if I have a hand in my mouth you can tie me with your ribbon so whose hand will it be the gods look at each other Balder looked at Thor hemdale looked at Odin Honea looked at fray but none of them made a move then tear Odin's son side and step forward and raised his right hand I will put my hand in your mouth Fenrir said tear fan relay on his side and tear put his right hand into Fenriz Malph just as he had done when Fenrir was a puppy and they had played together Fenrir closed his piece gently until they hells tears hand at the wrist without breaking the skin and he closed his eyes the gods bound him with Gleb near a shimmering snails trail wrapped the enormous wolf tying his legs rendering him a mobile there said Odin now Fenris wolf break your bonds show us all how powerful you are the wolf stretched and struggled it pushed and strained every nerve and muscle to snap the ribbon that bound it but with every struggle the task seemed harder and with every strain the glimmering ribbon became stronger at first the gods sniggered then the gods chuckled finally when they were certain that the Beast had been immobilized and that they were in no danger the gods laughed only tear was silence he did not laugh he could feel the sharpness of Fenris wolf teeth against his wrist the wetness and warmth of Fenris wolf tongue against his palm and his fingers Fenris stopped struggling he lay there unmoving if the gods were going to free him they would do it now but the gods only laughed the harder Thor's booming guffaw reach louder than a thunderclap mingled with Odin's dry after with boulders bell-like laughter Henry looked at tear tear looked at him bravely and care closed his eyes and nodded to it he whispered fen Reb bits down on tears wrist chair made no sound he simply wrapped his left hand around the stump of his right and squeezed it as hard as he could to slow the spurt of blood to a news Sanrio watched the gods take one end of glade Nia and thread it through a stone as big as a mountain and fasten it under the ground then he watched as they took another Rock and he used it to hammer the stone deeper into the ground than the deepest ocean treacherous Odin called the wolf if you had not lied to me I would have been a friend to the gods that your fear has betrayed you I will kill you father of the gods I will wait until the end of all things and I will eat the Sun and I will eat the moon but I will take the most pleasure in killing you the gods were careful not to get within reach of Fenriz jaws but as they were driving the rock deeper Fenrir twisted and smash at them the god nearest him with presence of mind thrust his sword into the roof of Fenris wolf smelt the hilt of the sword jammed in the wolf's lower jaw wedging the jaw open and preventing it from ever closing the wolf growled inarticulately and saliva poured from its mouth forming a river if you did not know it was a wolf he might have thought it a small mountain with a river flowing from a cave mouth the gods left that place with a river of saliva flow down into the dark lake and they did not speak but once they were far enough away they laughed some more and clapped each other on the back and smiled the huge smiles of those who believe they have done something very clever indeed tear did not smile and he did not laugh he bounded the stump of his wrist tightly with a cloth and he walked beside the gods back to Asgard and he kept council these then were the children of Loki that's a great story fantastic thank you so much well then turn to Greece for a quick while yeah yeah I like you I grew up on as you grew up on North myths I grew up on Greek medicine Robert Graves in particular was a constant companion and I just felt somehow that I'd known these stories almost before I read them you know they had that they worked inside me and obviously there's a there's a more I don't know there's a difference of a timeline in great methods a beginning which is he said the in his Theogony writes about chaos being the first thing it's very like the Big Bang really do like modern physics as this emptiness chaos doesn't quite mean what we think it means today and where we use chaos it means a sort of abyss a yawning gap and nothingness and then dark and then everything just some somehow appeared and and and of course the North would have would have mocked you for the something everything would have just appeared because the North knew everything was linked into being by an enormous cow yes I know I like that that's another what I'm sure would have known that you how unscientific those Greeks were they left the cow out I love that so extraordinary seems Iran Macau licked you didn't lick the ice and out came all kinds of creatures and I mean it's there's so many there's so many remarkable similarities in some respects between awesome Greek mythology there are kind of there are similarities of some you know some types of myth but the Greeks like the notes I think didn't trust the gods that's what's so pleasing about the stories is the gods of treacherous the gods betray the gods are not to be relied upon and they are as wicked as capricious as lustful as humans and in that sense it's very different from the myths that they grew out of and they're very very human they look very human but the story I'm going to read is one that may be familiar to people but I'm going to read the second part of it it's the story of my desk the king of Phrygia and you probably know about my des and his golden touch he did a favor to an old man who appeared in his rose garden he loved roses more than anything in the world my desk rather nice King and this old man turned out to be Salinas who was a friend the great friend and companion of dionysus and so dionyse has offered him a wish and as you probably know he chose that everything he touched turned to gold that all went very badly as I'm sure you know he turned his roses to go and then he turned his wife and his daughter to gold and then the food and the wine turned gold and he couldn't drink he couldn't eat and eventually Dionysus took pity on him and and and he was able to wash in a river and and he was rid of the curse that he had thought was a gift but you may not be less familiar some of you with what happened to miners after after this and it's an interesting story I think it's going to be particularly interesting if I find it because obviously I'm not here we go yeah come on there you go oh yeah car did God sorry that's it there we are thank you so um here we are beg your pardon it's it this is problem with not having a book printed yet thank you alright you would think that Midas had learned his lesson by now the lesson that repeats and repeats throughout the story of man don't mess with the gods don't trust the gods don't anger the gods don't barter with the gods don't compete with the gods leave the gods well alone treat all blessings as a curse and all promises as a trap above all never insult to God ever in one respect my death had certainly changed he now spurned not just gold but all riches and possessions shortly after Dionysus lifted the curse he became a devoted follower of path the goat footed god of nature forms meadows and all the wild things of the world with flowers in his hair sandals on his feet and the merest suggestion of clothing covering his modesty Midas left his wife and daughter in charge of Phrygia and devoted himself to a hippie happy life of simple bucolic virtue all might have been well had not his master pan taken it into his head to challenge Apollo to a competition to determine which was the superior the lyre or the pipes in a meadow one afternoon before an audience of formed satyrs dryads nymphs assorted demigods and other lesser immortals pan put the syrinx to his lips a coarse but likable air in the Lydian mode emerged it seemed to summon barking deer rushing waters gambling rabbits rutting stags and galloping horses the rough rustic tune delighted the audience especially my dads who really did worship an and all the frolicking mirth and madness that the goat foot represented when Apollo stood and sounded the first notes of his lyre a hush fell from his strings arose visions of universal love harmony and happiness a deep abiding joy in life and a sense of heaven itself when he had finished the audience rose as one to applaud Tomales the deity of the mountain called out the lyre of the Great Lord Apollo wins all agreed I I roared the satyrs and fauns Apollo Apollo tried the nymphs and dryads one lone voice demurred no no dozens of heads turned to see who could have dared descent my death rode to his feet rose to his feet I disagree I say the pipes of pan produced the better sound even pan was astonished apollo quietly put down his lyre and walked towards my desk say that again he it could at least be said of my density had the courage of his convictions he swallowed twice before repeating I I say the pipes make a better sound their music is more exciting more artistic Apollo must have been in a soft moon that day for he did not blast my desta atoms on the spot he did not peel the skin from him layer by layers he had done to Marcia's when that unfortunate that had the temerity to challenge him he did not cause my death even the slightest amount of pain but just said softly you honestly think pan played better than me I do well in that case said Apollo with a laugh you must have the ears of an ass no sooner were these words out of the God's mouth then my dad felt something strange and warm and rough going on in his scalp and he put his hands to his head to feel what was happening howls and hoots and screams and screeches of mocking laughter started to come from the assembled throng they could see what my desk could not a pair of large grey donkey ears had pushed their way through his hair and when was now pitching and flicking back and forth for all the world see seems I was right and upon her you do indeed have the ears of an ass crimsoning with shame and mortification might has turned and fled the meadow the taunts and jeers of the crowd sounding all the more clearly in his great furry ears his life as a camp follower of pan was over tying his head in a kind of turban he returned to his wife and family in the palace of gaudium and his carefree experiment in country living decidedly over settled back down into the life of a king the only person who saw his ass's ears was necessarily the servant who cut his hair every month no one else in Phrygia knew the terrible secret and midas was determined it should stay that way here is the deal midas told the barber i give you a bigger salary and or generous pension than any other member of the palace staff and you keep quiet about what you have seen if however you breathe a word to anyone I slaughter your family before your eyes cut out your tongue and leave you to wander the world in mute poverty and exile understood the frightened bother nodded for three years each side kept to the bargain the barbers wife and family waxed fat and happy on the extra money that came in and no one found out about the Kings asinine auditory appendages turbines in the Midas style caught on throughout Phrygia Thrace Lydia and beyond all was well but secrets are terrible things to have to keep especially such juicy ones as that to which the royal bother was privy every day he would wake up and feel that the knowledge was rising and pushing and swelling inside him the barber loved his wife and family and was in any case loyal enough to his monarch not to have any wish to humiliate or embarrass him but that bulging ballooning secret had to be released somehow before he burst no unmilled cow with swollen others no mother of overdue twins no gut stuffed gastronomes straining on the Privy could ever feel such a desperate need for relief from their Agony's than this poor barber finally he hit upon a scheme which he felt sure would rid him of his burden without endangering his family awaking from a tortured night in which he had dreamed that he revealed the secret to the gaping populace of gaudium from a balcony in the main square he went out at first light deep into the remote countryside in a lonely place by a stream he dug a deep trench in the ground looking around him in all directions to make sure that he was alone and that there was no possibility of being overheard he knelt down cupped his hands around his mouth and called these words into the hole my death has as his ears scrambling frantically to close up the hole before the word could escape he failed to notice a tiny seed floating down and settling at the bottom when the back filling was done the barber stamped fiercely up and down on the earth to seal in the dreadful secret he skipped all the way back to gaudium headed straight for his favorite tavern and ordered a flagon of the houses best wine he could drink now without fear that the wine might loosen his tongue It was as if he had been Atlas and the sky had finally been lifted from his shoulders meanwhile over the next few weeks back in the remote field by the stream that tiny seed warmed by the soft breath of Gaia below began to germinate soon the delicate little reed was shouldering its way through the topsoil and pushing its delicate head into the air as the breeze caught it the reed softly whispered Midas s it is the faint words reached the rushes and sedges that fringed the river bank my dad says s is here's the saturation of rushes and the hiss of sedges was swept on by the grasses and leaves of the trees and swiftly the sowing and suffering of psychosis and sallows sent the sound to the breeze came by dasa desa tears sides the branches my dad says ass's ears sang the birds and at last the news reached the city Midas has ass's ears king midas woke with a start there was laughter and shouting in the street outside the palace he crept to the window crouched down and listened the humiliation was too much for him to bear without stopping to wreak his vengeance on the barber and the barbers family he mixed a poisonous draught of ox blood raised his eyes heaven woods gave a bitter laugh and a shrug drained the drink and died poor Midas his name will always mean fortunate and rich but truly he was unlucky and poor if only he had kept to his roses green fingers are better than gold thank you wonderful I'm sure you found part of the joy of this adventure is going through the very sources the various poems and in Greek case you know there's Apollodorus and Homer obviously and Ovid in the Latin poem many other new had the prose edda and various argos did you basically I decide I made a sort of choice at the beginning to go pretty much only with the prose edda in the poetic Edda right and to go okay this is the stuff that we know is left over from the Viking era that was preserved into it after that there are there later sagas and later things but yeah they seemed Agia and then once you get into sort of the Valyrian issues you're in yeah they're in something and I should hang on an edge buckin that the yeah so it was it so I would occasionally wander from a version that's in the poetic Edda into the prose edda and back again or it's a cherry picker base I'll be sure you take a bit and go you know I don't like this bit of the mess um but you bit yeah there wasn't the the amount of room that you have um in in Greek and Roman myths of just different retellings to go I can yagan I like this in collage yeah really it was just how do I tell this story pretty straight yes I mean there are famous Greek myth for example one of the metamorphoses of Ovid is that of Arachne the Weaver who who you know boasted that she could weave even better than the goddess Athena was a got one of her you know with the goddess of crafts and handicrafts including weaving of course and and and this little old lady comes and they have a competition and as everyone knows I think Arachne lost and was turned into a spider to weave for the rest of her life hence arachnids obviously and in some versions its Athena's taking pity on her and saying you can read and in other versions it's a punishment and you should have to make a choice bandage its there there is a kind of you have that and you also have the weirdness of older versions of things so you can yeah you get into the Greeks and Romans we actually can go excavating stories there there are there are versions of Orpheus and Eurydice in which he got her back yet the other earliest versions it's just a very straightforward summer and winter story of you go in and she winds up having to do the this little more Persephone ish kind of thing as we stay down there for a while and then kinda then somewhere along the line someone when he no it's just a better story if he looked back and she stays there forever I love the fact also there's a version ways he when he dies his heads his heads preserved in a cave and people go and visit it it just reminds me of that future armor and Richard Nixon in there you know that sort was it going to the office but we can't we've gotta get audiences in but I should Justin quite quickly want to say one of the most wonderful things some of the audience may be an able to see it is you're one of your masterpieces is a extraordinaire bug called American Gods in which you you quite brilliantly had I mean you must have hugged yourself when you had the idea that you know all the immigrants into America and the existing population America have their gods and had their gods according to their civilization the culture and country they came from so that all the Swedes and Norwegians you went to Wisconsin and very celebrated in New York and so you have it that those God's came with them to do ah and anyway just people may know that this has just been translated damn him very good people make know that this has been translated into a an Amazon in the UK and all around the world except for America it's just on Amazon Prime video if you go to Amazon Prime video I think with five episodes in with you no shame and as was 20 billion McShane with gillian anderson as media one of the new gods of media and she gets to portray embody characters like Lucille Ball David Bowie and Marilyn Monroe and whenever she appears as a famous it's um it's i watering lee violent in places i thought but and hilarious and brilliant as is the book i mean an amazing fable but we ought to open this up to to our audience i'm sure many questions to be had and i'm sure you want to be drawn by christian down with asses ears or who knows what coming out of you so if anyone like show their hand we should have people with microphones who are going to come and so that excellent we've got the first one there if you'd like and you keep your hand up and someone else will come to you i'm sure and which is the norse gods you most identify with personally how to the north we most identify with you which of the gods do I most identify with um they're very very hard to identify with um because you never you never do that thing going I wish I was you because um we have a better life than they do even now in this world of brexit trump and madness we have it better than them they have full on Ragnarok to contend with this is an American journalist actually said to me have we would each peak Ragnarok yes they know we're we're still on the slopes um but I think if I if I identify with anybody I'm terribly fond of classier who is an almost unknown God who gets murdered by some door and his his blood is used to make the mead of poetry and then because nobody ever gets to stay dead very long and these stories he pops up right at the end and does some Sherlock Holmes Ian deduction which was great fun to write and I think he's the one that I'm sort of wound up most fond of because he doesn't do anything appalling at any point which puts him one-up on pretty much everybody in the entire book there's one over that question for you actually Stephen even what you've learned about Midas and the recent threat of legal trouble in Ireland where do you stand on insulting God fees yes okay hit you hit you you can't cause himself anything you don't believe in but it was I was asked I was asked by a journalist you know a hypothetical question if suppose you were wrong and there was the kind of God that is presented in you know kind of the old-fashioned way the omnipotent omniscient God or the what would you what would you say if you suddenly found yourself dead and I obviously would have been very cross with absolutely God I would have tried to call him or her to account for various of the miseries and sufferings that go on the world for know the unearned ones and even to animals even if you ignore what humans go through intervening bone cancer in children what kind of an idea is that but look at the animals how much they almost all animals are totally under a sense of stress and and and pain and die miserably and if I regard that's not I would make a university but if it's such a global possible but I would make it like that if it was unwound in the way that Darwin and others suggested okay but oh dear I'm I'm in trouble young Buse on the other hand I think I would definitely shake my fist at and he would throw Thunderbolts but the Greeks too were very angry at the gods just as you know I pretended to be in that interview because you know because they punish man for the theft of fire which is the great Prometheus myth but good question so else this one down at the front edge then we follow that we follow we hello the hire but there we go back because they got the microphone yes power - hello oh Jesus wow that's a whole other myth [Applause] there you are mr. gay men and there's a brief mention of gwyddion in American Gods a Welsh Guards whichever either of you ever consider writing Welsh mythology um I think if I went back and did another volume of mythology and there are several adult novels several children's novels and a bunch of weird little projects that I need to make first I would find myself torn between visiting the hello visiting the sort of the Assyrians and the Fertile Crescent and some of those weird things and heading off into into Wales and doing the monarchy and and some of the old the more sort of Celtic mattarah Brittany I think also given what you've done to your spell checker by doing north authority go straight to Welsh after that give it a rest you know there's stuff to do but I would love to Oh wherever there I think [Laughter] dami is good yes over there and this is a question for all three of you if Chris would like to jump in well and write the answer or draw it and when you're writing or drawing when you're creating and sometimes transforming and maybe even destroying do you feel like a god yourself sometimes you know I've only ever felt like a god writing twice the first time was actually knowing that I was about to write a Doctor Who script and writing interior TARDIS ah I was pretty good and it was at all this must be what God feels like and the other moment was probably almost thirty years before that which was the first time I got to write make Batman say something in a comic and the feeling of power was 82 I was like yes I I can make Batman say anything I want so that I feel more like a devil and a goblin I write in some ways but there is a you know in it not exactly a serious way but there is a feeling sometimes when you write that you are the kind of lord of the time and space which is a marvelous feeling the knowledge that you can change things there's a there was a competition with screenwriting as to who could ride the shortest and most expensive stage direction which is the kind of godlike thing with you you know because when you write a stage direction you never really think about it I remember once in a play script writing something like he he sits at a Louis Quinze escritoire you know writing you know as I wanted a fancy desk and and the props person six months later calls me and says we've got we've got a Louis quatorze it's guitar or a Louis Quinze Bureau but we haven't gotten do we Kansas we thought okay oh it doesn't matter but anyway the most expensive the one that won the Hollywood prize for the most expensive stage direction with only two words it about three words it just said the flea meat is that fabulous to be able to write that and know that that's going to be two years work for someone defeats me the Chris have you oh he's good oh hello he's a Buddhist not not a god oh so this man answers yeah now listen I asked me if we could do this because you may not oh yeah oh yeah very good we're coming we're coming to the end now and um I asked as a special favor I came across on the wonderful Braden pickings org website a fabulous poem that that Neil had written for his wife Amanda it's a poem about how science began with Woman's Day I wouldn't say any more than that and Amanda's going to come on and read it so there we are they wanna see me seem to quit okay cool [Applause] hello so Neil actually wrote this for an occasion in New York City our friend Murray at the Pogo who runs the web site brain pickings did an evening of poetry about science which was actually not boring it was really good and I do think Neil is a fantastic writer he's okay and lately he's he's proven himself to be a really fantastic father but but lately I'm actually even though I'm proud that he's a fantastic writer and a fantastic father because the world seems to need it now more than ever I'm really proud that he's a fantastic feminist you can be specific [Applause] syan if you know science of you know my little one is the study of the nature and behavior of the universe it's based on observation on experiment and measurement and the formulation of laws to describe the facts revealed in the old time they say the men came already fitted with brains designed to follow flesh beasts that a run to hurtle blindly into the unknown and then define their way back home when lost with a slain antelope to carry between them or on bad hunting days nothing the women who did not need to run down prey had brains that spotted landmarks and made path between them left at the thorn bush and across the scree and looked down in the bowl of the half fallen tree because sometimes there are mushrooms before the Flint Club or the Flint butcher's tools the first tool of all with a sling for the baby to keep our hands-free and something to put the berries in the mushrooms in the root and the good leaves the seed and the crawlers then a flint pestle to smash to crush to grind to break and sometimes men would chase the beef into the deep woods and never came back some mushrooms will kill you while some will show you God and some will feed the hunger in our bellies identify others will kill us if we eat them all and kill us again if we cook them once but if we boil them up in spring water and pour the water away and boil them once more and pour the water away only then can we eat them safely observe observe childbirth measure the swell of bellies and the shapes of breath and through experience discover how to bring babies safely into the world observe everything and the mushroom hunters walk the way as they walk and watch the world and see what they observe and some of them would thrive and lick their lips while others clutched their stomachs and expired so laws are made and handed down on what is safe formulate the tools we make to build our lives our clothes our food our path home all these things we based on observation on experiment on measurement on truth and science you remember little one is the study of the nature and behavior of the universe based on observations experiment and measurement and the formulation of laws to describe these facts the race continues an early scientist draws these upon the walls of caves to show her sisters children now all fat on mushrooms and on berries what would be safe to hunt the men go on running after eath the scientists walk more slowly over to the brow of the hill and down to the water's edge and past the place where the red clay run they're carrying their babies and the slings they made freeing their hands to pick the mushroom oh and I'm healing Stephen are going to be signing just amazing amazing thank you so much thank you thank you thank you liquid I'll come here at risk come on run away all right okay thank you

Channel: Alexei Yurenko

Views: 130,891

Rating: 4.9173293 out of 5

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Id: ldeWcG-Yfjo

Length: 62min 44sec (3764 seconds)

Published: Tue Jun 20 2017