NorsePlay.

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...