Bragi Gossip

Bragi Gossip

Spotted... on Mount Olympus or Asgard. xoxo Gossip Shmoop

Sure, Thor, Odin, and Frigg have days of the week named after them. But they've got nothing on Bragi, who shares his name with the word for poetry itself! (Source.)

If you think being famous would be cool, imagine being turned into a god. That's what may have happened to the 9th-century court poet, or skald, Bragi Boddason. Some folks think that he's the inspiration for Bragi's depiction. (Turville-Petre, Gabriel. Myth and Religion of the North: The Religion of Ancient Scandinavia. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1964, p. 113.)

One of Bragi's duties is welcoming slain Vikings to Valhalla with praise-poems. And since the life of a Viking was usually nasty, brutish, and short, we're surprised he ever finds time for anything else. (Source.)

Bragi is also the name of a "protein visualization and modeling program," although it's not clear if the program is actually named after the god. But there's poetry in science, right? (Source.)