NorsePlay.

Within the comedic aspects of Norse Mythology with its stories of humbling trickery and characters being forced to act against type both for plot & laughs, we relate and are entertained ... but then we also forget the cosmic scale & functions of the divine and their monstrous adversaries that are mind-numbingly beyond human experience. When we find a NorsePlay that wanders into this Lovecraftian territory it reminds us of the awe & terror we can feel in encounters with the numinous , and the implications of living in a Níuverse that has a doomed-filled Ragnarök potentially awaiting it with a fingernail-ship filled with the dead , human-eating jötnar , a world encircling oceanic serpent , a sky & ground touching abyss-mouthed wolf , and a burning giant who longs to set all of existence ablaze with his black flaming sword.   In John Langan's Children of the Fang and Other Genealogies 2020 CE, there's a NorsePlay that explores the cosmological construction ...

Slow forward the NorseSpotting to 25-years-later of  Twin Peaks ' Season 3 , we see Dougie Jones-addled Dale Cooper toddling into The Silver Mustang Casino to behold the flames with the Black Lodge within them hovering over all the slot machines that are about to pay out. In European folklore, there's stories of foxfires/ignis fatuus/will-o'-the-wisps that can indicate the location of buried treasure , and specifically in the Icelandic Grettir's Saga : Now one night very late, as Grettir made ready to go home, he saw a great fire burst out on a ness to the north of Audun's farm. Grettir asked what new thing this might be. Audun said that he need be in no haste to know that. "It would be said," quoth Grettir, "if that were seen in our land, that the flame burned above hid treasure." ~  Grettir's Saga , ch18  Grettir, also being a hero who confronts undead  draugr , could perhaps be an influence for Cooper who is essentially hunting otherworldl...

While hitting a local comic book shop to look for a jötnar-filled Hellboy story arc to potentially review for NorsePlay , I happened across a large format graphic novel hardback Viking: The Long Cold Fire , a series that Image published back in 2010 CE. Of course you don't know until you look at the interiors, but the book was factory wrapped, so I didn't get a chance to qualitatively compare it to Vertigo's  Northlanders , which is what it most resembled, the implication probably being a  Saga-period  retrofitted  ScandiNoir . Have any of you read this? Is it great, or not? Leave your critically constructive & insightfully reasoned thoughts in comments below! #     #    # Guillermo Maytorena IV knew there was something special in  the Norse Lore when he picked up a copy of the d'Aulaires'  Norse Gods and Giants  at age seven. Since t hen he's been fascinated by the truthful potency of Norse Mythology, passionately read ...

After some necessary condensing of space & fixtures at Nexus Occult Books , NorsePlay is happy to announce that the  Óðinnsvegr: The Path Of Odin map has moved back into its first retail home again ! More specifically, once you enter the front door, go to their SE corner, and on the bottom two shelves of the pictured above wood hutch on the east wall, you'll find the prestigiously framed version for $75 or individual prints below it for $25. Pick some up for the Norse Nerds in your life! Note that the map is also available at both Tucson Bookmans locations , but there's a special place in my heart for Nexus as an impressive & wonderful niche local venue, so do consider shopping them for my map if that's convenient (plus you can see all their weird objects & grimoires, and meet their winning & knowledgeable staff, too). For those of you reading about this map for the first time, this special 11" x 17" parchment patterned map tracks Odin's ap...