The Children of Odin: Nordic Gods and Heroes (Barnes & Noble Library of Essential Reading) »

Padraic Colum was born in 1881 at Collumbkille, County Longford, Ireland, and was the oldest of eight children. He was active in the Gaelic League and Irish Republican Army, and wrote plays for the Abbey Theatre, the premiere dramatic venue for Irish playwrights at the turn of the twentieth century. He was acquainted with the prime movers of the Irish literary renaissance, including James Joyce, William Butler Yeats, and Lady Gregory. In 1914, he emigrated from Ireland and settled in the United States, where he began a new career writing storybooks for children. By the end of his career, he had published over fifty works. He died in 1972.

The Children of Odin: Nordic Gods and Heroes (1920) is a lyrical introduction to the myths and epic legends of the ancient Scandinavians. Fusing the disparate mythic accounts of his medieval sources, Irish-American poet Padraic Colum fashions a powerful tale of the divine adventures of gods and men, locked in an inexorable march of fate. Written in a style accessible to both children and adults, Colum's work offers a haunting and evocative portrait of the mythic world of the Viking Age.