NorsePlay.

Let's start with The Boneless Mercies (2018 CE), and far more importantly, let's lead with why using a band of traveling female assisted honour-suicide deathbringers who want to become glorious heroes is a very important NorsePlay , after which we'll get into a standard critical teardown of the novel. With the identification of the Birka Viking Warrior's high-prestige grave (Bj 581) as a woman in 2017 CE, and the subsequent re-examination of other graves previously thought to be men also getting re-gendered as result, we then become curious as to why there's a lack of Eddic Goddess myths and Saga Literature that feature bold female protagonists to reflect that ( †) . Sure, we get wintery huntress Skaði and awesome tomboy adventuress  Herv ǫ r Angantýrsdottir , but that's about it beyond mentions of Valkyries harvesting the dead and Hel keeping hers. That leaves a vacuum that was probably filled with stories we no longer have (and I would hope will one da...

If you don't happen to ever be near Nexus Occult Books , and/or are "trade rich", you can now go get NorsePlay's new The Map Of The Norse Gods at Bookmans River! [River also still carries the Óðinnsvegr map at left!] Head over to the jewelry bay along the south wall just past the cashiers, then look west and up on the slat wall above the cases to behold the Norse Lore-based cartographical glory! This second map will be the largest in the Map Of Midgard series at an impressive 20"x30", printed on heavy 65# acid-free parchment paper with archival ink, this map is of heirloom quality that should last for five generations at least. Prints are $60 USD each, and a prestigious glass & wood framed version is $120 USD (which should be available from River next month [but if you want it now, do go to Nexus!]). Note that map purchase includes complimentary Gmail account access to a matching digital map with source data and even more GPS coordinates! One example fr...

After years of reading, then 10+ years of data aggregation for the Map Of Midgard Project , and then applying that into 8 months of art direction, NorsePlay is so pleased to announce the  Norðreginskort: The Map Of The Norse Gods is finally available, premiering for sale at Nexus Books in Tucson! Look up for it on the Nexus' east wall above the shelves! This second map in this series will be the largest at 20"x30", printed on heavy 65# acid-free parchment paper with archival ink, and is of heirloom quality that should last at least a century. Prints are $60 USD each, and a prestigious glass & wood framed version is $120 USD. Note that map purchase includes complimentary Gmail account access to the matching digital map with rollover story/source data and even more GPS coordinates! For one example from the 143 digital stickpins: With the above information, if you wanted to go see the island where Thor's animate statue faces off in a tug-of-war with Olaf Trygvasson,...

NorsePlay has dug into Rick Riordan's Magnus Chase series before and found it somewhat wanting , though we were grateful at the time to see Young Adult contemporary fantasy offerings that forayed into Norse Mythology at all, but still it was with some hesitance we returned to read its companion post-trilogy storybook collection  9 From the Nine Worlds (2018 CE). The literal running gag is that Thor's taking a jog through all the Níu Heimar to log in enough mileage to win a cameo spot on his favourite TV show (yes, that's as ridiculous as it sounds), and to incidentally cross his path are the nine short stories each featuring a Magnus Chase supporting castmember, each one now upgraded to a main character, having to deal with a problem in each world. This unexpectedly gave them as individuals a moment to shine and show how they would do things as opposed to (the now-absent) Magnus taking care of business. One of the tropes of contemporary fantasy is juxtaposing the magic...

So there's a pretty popular kids' book series called Who Would Win? where different wild animals get pitted against each other which compares the aggressive factors and stats of each animal before delivering a conclusion. But what if a publisher then decided to use this face-off bout format with the Gods? It seems Capstone has enlisted authors Claudia Oviedo and Lydia Lukidis to do just that, and 5 of the 8 books are Norse versus Hellenic deities, which gives us: [Odin would mop the floor with Ares!] [wait, not Freyja in a "Battle Of The Beauties"?] Yet if we look temporally further back there's common Indo-European roots for these Gods before the chariots rolled northwest or south depending on their different migrations, and these Gods separated out, changed, and distilled into different figures as those people found new lands, so some of these are the later regional versions of the same God/dess, well, fighting themselves. While I haven't read any of the ~3...

In Skáldskaparmál §5  Snorri Sturluson quotes the example of poet Ulf Uggason using " the god of lamentations " kenning for Baldr. While we have the universe-stabilizing presence of Baldr's handsome light while he's alive, Hel 's request that all things weep for his return explains this characterization shrouded in the sadness of loss. [the stones, grasses, and flowers weep tears of dew and condensation for Baldr. (prompts by me, produced by Gemini.)] Yet, what if there's more to this? Could this kenning potentially refer to a ritual to Baldr where worshippers must lament to recreate the mythic event in the Baldrs draumar narrative? And would it be too much to say that such a ritual would grant the space and grace of participants to mourn the loss of their own sons, daughters, kin , and pets as a purposeful function? The loss of the brightness Baldr grants clearly mirrors all loss of love and companionship taken by death, tilting one's personal world...

While reading the Faulkes' translation of the Prose Edda , there's some hard numerical facts being thrown at King Gylfi by High, Just As High, and Third. In using these exact figures, it lends a level of concrete certainty and reportage to their account of things, which as readers and potential participants/victims of this fate, is unsettling. So to give ourselves an idea of the exact scale of The Twilight Of The Gods , and hopefully some sort of edge when the time comes, let's do some pre-doomsday math crunching so we know what to expect. When the three start speaking about Ragnarök , the scale of Vígríðr, the plain where this final battle unfolds, is brought up and given as 200 by 200 leagues, so this makes it 600 by 600 land miles, which means this becomes 360,000 square miles! To compare historically, we've only got WW2's Battle of Moscow which had a front of 373 miles, or if we go naval there's WW2's Battle of Leyte Gulf that spread over 100,000 square...

Inspired by the dark, dark Icelandic magical practice of making a pact with someone who will allow you to dig their body up, flawlessly skin their lower half and immediately wear that second epidermis over your own, then activate that skin by stealing a coin from a poor widow to place in its scrotum with a magic stave which will then always generate more coins invisibly stolen from those around you, the ritual of which the Necro Pants pedal grabs its name from. Known as the Nábrók from the 17th century Icelandic grimoire  Galdrabók , this effects pedal 's namesake and artful outline is taken from the hanging legs at the Galdrasýning á Ströndum (Museum of Sorcery & Witchcraft) in Hólmavík, where the exhibit has a reproduction of the necropants in a case. While one might perhaps imagine a semi- draugr -like dry skin-rubbing/chafing shuffle sound from wearing them, this effect pedal's been characterized as a filthy ripped speaker garage fuzz sound, which also seems invasivel...

Looking at the Norse Mythology themed art of Milivoj Ćeran , it takes one back to the core classic fantasy artists: the Brothers Hildebrandt, Frazetta , Vallejo, Lee , Elmore , and Howe. Ćeran's technique is flawless, the depictions are stylistically on point, and beyond this there's a reflexive integration of high fantasy's modern visual tradition which acknowledges those tropes' roots in the Norse Lore, which mirrors what one discovers when looking at the fantasy literature it comes from. You gamers might recognize Ćeran's brush as he's also done work for Wizards of the Coast, Fasa, Monte Cooke, Privateer Press, Fantasy Flight, and others. Hopefully the "Art Book 1" in the above title means there's more of his Norse-themed work on the way. [check out his other gallery selections and shop the above book and prints here !] #     #    # Guillermo Maytorena IV knew there was something special in  the Norse Lore when he picked up a copy of the d'A...

I've presented a theory before about curative flowers potentially associated with the Healing Goddess Eir , and recently ran across yet another Norse God attached by name to a plant. While most of the Gods are spoken of as handsome, it's Baldr the Bright who gets made into an exceptional standard, so when things get named after him this quality transitively becomes a namesaking compliment and reflexive reference to the Bright God. From  Gylfaginning §22: "A certain herb is so white that it is likened to Baldr's brow; of all grasses it is whitest, and by it thou mayest judge his fairness, both in hair and in body." This gives us the Icelandic Baldursbrá, or Baldr's Brow (but this can also translate to be his eyelashes), which is the sea mayweed : [Tripleurospermum maritimum] Like the Eirflower being used as an anti-inflammatory, Baldursbrá also has herbal medicinal properties: it's good for regulating menses, which is a very thank-the-Gods aspect, and may...

NorsePlay was proud to help crowdfund When The Wolf Comes , the tabletop role-playing game based on the Vikingverse novels , and was glad to see it surpass its needed monetary goals to get to publication in 2024 CE. Only now have I recently had time to sit down and give my shiny hardback copy the reading it deserves. [Because in the Vikingverse's Hulfviðr Torga , I'm the center square! Photo from a 2024 CE Shieldwall backer mosaic.] Forwarding context: I'm writing this review only after reading the core rulebook without having ran it, so I'm not addressing the mechanics (which use  Shadow of the Demon Lord ) or playability, just the contents. If you want the flavour of how it does play, author/creator Ian Stuart Sharpe did a 23-episode gaming podcast called Vikings & Valkyries that was superfun to listen to, and had great cybervikingsphere guests like Saga Thing podcast hosts John Sexton & Andy Pfrenger, and exceptionally talented Heathen Artist  Sam Flegal ...

This amazing depiction of Heimdall's Nine Mothers (2021 CE) by Brazil-based illustrator Runar Hall has so much going for it. The merging of early petroglyphic Sunna symbol with later runestone curlicue-jointed figures, the brave integration of a Hollywood Bathing Beauties film choreography as a still in the daughters' arrangement, and the just enough modern linear shaping & speckle work is so brilliant, plus the breaking of the 2D wall with the boat coming out toward the viewer to ferry all that mythic past into the artistic present as a single package is a serious delivery and achievement. We have to presume Odin's being handed infant Heimdallr, and it's likely this specific visual identity cue that we can't see the boatman's left eye , and the Prose Edda 's  Skáldskaparmál  §8 does attribute Odin as his father, otherwise some posit that he's a Vanic deity from his qualities mentioned in Þrymskviða  §14, but these could also accounted for by Odin ...

So many of you have asked if you can order the  Óðinnsvegr: The Path Of Odin  map online since you're nowhere near a retailer in Tucson. Well, now you can globally via Nexus Books' eBay Store! The  current direct listing's here , or if this one's sold by the time you read this, here's the search link for the "Óðinnsvegr" from Nexus' eBay Storefront here  for when they relist! There will also be a separate listing for framed prints forthcoming! Note that the listing's photos (like the one here) have been watermarked & partly altered to protect the intellectual property of the image, but know you're purchasing a whole map that's nicely printed and visually intact. The map's on thicker #65 stock, reproduced from its hand-drawn original and scripted in period-correct Carolingian Insular, which is the same script used in both primary Norse Mythology sources, the Edda s! For those of you reading about  this map  for the first time, this s...

Last year I flew to Minnesota and went on many adventures with some old friends who were willing to road trip to all extreme points of their wonderful state for the NorsePlay Investigates series of entries . This is the first entry about that trip, so stay tuned for more! While NorsePlay has posted before about the 1965 CE World's Fair fiberglass statue that is Big Ole in Alexandria, MN , there's nothing like seeing the kitch Scandi-majesty of this roadside attraction firsthand. [Big Ole & I raising our spears! Hails brother!] Ole is supposed to measure at 28-feet tall, but in real life, he seems to tower wayyyy larger. At its most basic, there's a sort of mini-golf quality sculpture about Big Ole -- a fiberglass hollowness, the bright enamel paint, theme park/casino lobby play deco, that pronounced stagey winged-helmet Wagnerian hyper-Viking image -- but Ole transcends all that. [my pal 'Stine at right for scale.] There's too much meaning & history pinned...