While I mentioned way back at the inception of this blog that on occasion the books I’m reading have eerie cross-overs, I realised that none of them have been significant enough for me to actually write a post – until now.
The connection I found was between three books I am currently reading/just finished reading: The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern; American Gods by Neil Gaiman and The Raven’s Heart by Jesse Blackadder, and are references to Norse God Odin’s twin ravens, Huginn (Thought) and Muninn (Memory).
Odin with Huginn and Muninn
I’m aware that Norse Mythology isn’t always widely known, so if you’ve never heard of Huginn and Muninn or Odin in general this site is a pretty good one for all things Norse and Mythic 😉
The first reference was in The Night Circus. One of the main characters Celia Bowen, the illusionist at the circus has a raven which she uses in her act called Huginn and in one scene her father says that she should get another one – “a Muninn to complete the set” to which she replied “I prefer thought to memory, Papa.” This gave me a bit of a giggle, as I enjoy Mythological references slipped into books, it was an insightful sentiment and it made me think of a game I sometimes play on Facebook (Ravenwood fair) which also has a Huginn and a Muninn, but I didn’t give it much more thought until they popped up in another book – American Gods.
The reference in American Gods came about because one of the main characters was revealed as being Odin (this isn’t really a 
spoiler as it happens fairly early on, and with a title like American Gods it shouldn’t be a huge surprise that Gods will feature). I thought it was pretty neat that two books I was reading at the same time referenced the same thing, but not too odd because after all they are both Fantasy novels so it’s not a huge stretch of the imagination that they would both include Mythology in some form, and in my reading adventures I have found that when reading so many books at once, similarities can, and do pop up.
When I read the third reference in The Raven’s Heart, I laughed out loud. In hindsight it shouldn’t come as a huge surprise considering the book’s title, but it did take me by surprise when in this Historical novel, Mary Queen of Scots started to tell the book’s protagonist, Alison/Robert the story of Odin and his ravens to illustrate that she wanted her to be her spy in the kingdom.
I doubt that Huginn and Muninn will make an appearance in any of my other current books, but if they do I’ll make sure to share the weird coincidence 🙂
Also, this post is a bit of a milestone – it is Book Polygamist’s 100th post! *cheers and applause ensue!* 😀
Thank you to those of you that have been reading from the beginning, and also thank you to readers that have only just started to read – without you all I doubt I would have had the effort to last 100 posts 🙂
Another milestone is coming up very soon – the first anniversary of Book Polygamist, which is on the 5th of March – so perhaps I will do a special post on that day to celebrate.
For now ‘tho, thank you for reading and as always:
Happy Reading!
Book Polygamist 