On a side note, some scholars have theorised that the story of Thor crossdressing to get his hammer back was actually made by early Scandinavian Christians to mock the native gods.
I think that's a really important point. All our knowledge of Norse myths is from after Christianization, so how we can tell how they were understood in their own time?
Yes, but its basically impossible to tell unless we find an earlier collection of texts, since there are essentially two significant large sources that means that at least 50% or more of Nordic mythology that we know of is already theories and speculation, it could be a later christianization but it could also just be an existing story that we dont fully understand the context for.
On a side note, some scholars have theorised that the story of Thor crossdressing to get his hammer back was actually made by early Scandinavian Christians to mock the native gods.
I think that's a really important point. All our knowledge of Norse myths is from after Christianization, so how we can tell how they were understood in their own time?
Yes, but its basically impossible to tell unless we find an earlier collection of texts, since there are essentially two significant large sources that means that at least 50% or more of Nordic mythology that we know of is already theories and speculation, it could be a later christianization but it could also just be an existing story that we dont fully understand the context for.