American Gods

“When the people came to America they brought us with them. They brought me, and Loki and Thor,
Anansi and the Lion-God, Leprechauns and Kobolds and Banshees, Kubera and Frau Holle and
Ashtaroth, and they brought you. We rode here in their minds, and we took root. We traveled with the
settlers to the new lands across the ocean.
“The land is vast. Soon enough, our people abandoned us, remembered us only as creatures of the old
land, as things that had not come with them to the new. Our true believers passed on, or stopped
believing, and we were left, lost and scared and dispossessed, only what little smidgens of worship or
belief we could find. And to get by as best we could.
“So that’s what we’ve done, gotten by, out on the edges of things, where no one was watching us too
closely.
“We have, let us face it and admit it, little influence. We prey on them, and we take from them, and we
get by; we strip and we whore and we drink too much; we pump gas and we steal and we cheat and
we exist in the cracks at the edges of society. Old gods, here in this new land without gods.”
Wednesday paused. He looked from one to another of his listeners, grave and statesmanlike. They
stared back at him impassively, their faces masklike and unreadable. Wednesday cleared his throat,
and he spat, hard into the fire. It flared and flamed, illuminating the inside of the hall.
“Now, as all of you will have had reason aplenty to discover for yourselves, there are new gods
growing in America, clinging to growing knots of belief: gods of credit card and freeway, of Internet
and telephone, of radio and hospital and television, gods of plastic and of beeper and of neon. Proud
gods, fat and foolish creatures, puffed up with their own newness and importance.
“They are aware of us, and they fear us, and they hate us,” said Odin. “You are fooling yourselves if
you believe otherwise. They will destroy us, if they can. It is time for us to band together. It is time for
us to act.”