Unlike the Greco-Roman pantheon, which featured a host of immortal gods and goddesses whose blithe existence on Mount Olympus left them free to follow their basest whims, the gods and goddesses of Norse mythology were bound to a much grimmer vision of the world: one born of violent, visceral acts and steeped in the doom of unavoidable prophecy. The “Norsemen,” or Vikings, believed that before the gods were born, the world was a dim twilight containing the fiery realm of Muspellsheim and the icy region of Niflheim (Hel’s future domain). In the Norse creation myth, an ice-giant named Ymir, a personification of the icebound ocean, comes into being. He and other primordial beings give birth to warring factions of giants, one of whom creates Odin and his brothers Vili and Ve, who then slay the ice-giant Ymir and banish the other giants to Jotunheim.

Odin, his brothers, and his other companions (collectively known as the Aesir) then fashion the world from Ymir’s corpse. The giant’s body becomes Midgard (middle garden), where humanity will later dwell. Ymir’s blood and sweat create the ocean, his skull become the skies, and his brains form the clouds. In the world’s final form, existence itself is divided into distinctly different realms that are connected by the world-ash, Yggdrasil. In the lowest regions, at the massive tree’s roots, are Muspellsheim and Niflheim. Midgard sits in the center of the tree, and Asgard, the realm of the gods, rests in the highest reaches of the world-ash. There, Odin, the “All-Father,” rules with the other Aesir, sometimes warring with the recalcitrant giants and the rival Vanir and traveling the worlds in search of deep knowledge and prophecies about the gods’ final days. After many years of searching and several personal sacrifices, Odin gains the prophetic knowledge of Ragnarok and learns of the fated death of his beloved son, Baldur. In an attempt to avert the prophecy, he makes every living thing promise never to harm his son, but he forgets to petition the mistletoe.

In addition to Odin, other prominent Aesir residing in Asgard include Thor, the god of thunder, and Tyr, the god of war, both of whom make an appearance in The Witch’s Heart. Also among the gods is the trickster Loki, a giant and a shapeshifter who frequently takes it upon himself to make mischief for the Aesir and then devise clever ways to get them out of trouble. Loki is married to the goddess Sigyn and the giantess Angrboda, the latter of whom gives birth to the wolf Fenrir, the serpent Jormungand, and the sinister Hel, the goddess of death. Knowing of the apocalyptic roles that Loki’s children by Angrboda will play, Odin casts Jormungand into the sea, where the serpent encircles the earth. Tyr binds Fenrir with a magical rope, losing his own hand in the process, and Hel is relegated to Niflheim.

As the eons pass, Loki’s influence in Asgard grows ever more malevolent. One day, he orchestrates the death of Odin’s much-loved son, Baldur, by manipulating the blind god Hod into throwing a spear of mistletoe that fatally wounds the young god. Banished, bound, and tortured for this crime, Loki languishes in a remote cave until the cataclysm of Ragnarok begins, at which point he captains Naglfar, a ship made from the fingernails of the dead, and joins the giants in the final battle against the gods. During the struggle, Jormungand dies by Thor’s hand, while Fenrir is slain soon after killing Tyr. Loki kills the Aesir’s watchman, Heimdall, and the flame-giant Surt destroys the world in fire as wolves consume the sun and moon. In the aftermath, a new world arises, and Baldur lives again. Some scholars theorize that the images of a renewed world and Baldur’s resurrection stand as evidence of foreign Christian influences on the original Norse myths.

Throughout The Witch’s Heart, Loki often brings Angrboda word of his various doings in the realm of Asgard, and each wild story is an oblique reference to one of the many myths that are featured in the Norse Eddas and Sagas. From the demise of the giant Thjazi (Skadi’s father) to the theft of the goddess Idun’s magic apples and the cutting of the goddess Sif’s beautiful hair, Gornichec pays homage to the original myths while simultaneously crafting a unique narrative that honors the marginalized female figures standing at the very edges of Norse tradition.