NorsePlay.

  Every winter holiday season the memes roll out about Thor & his goats or Odin & Sleipnir as being the ancient origins for Father Christmas & Santa Claus and his reindeer. As easy a parallel as this is to make, many academics & others will tell you it's not true. As per the principles of NorsePlay, I would instead point out how the conversion process is being reversed in this possible bit of internet fakelore in favour of Heathenry. Given the two millennium long ownership of the winter holiday by monotheism in a long-game squatters' attempt to make Midwinter their own, the fact that these memes have become this annually re-occurring viral posting shows that the conversion has ultimately failed in terms of this re-connective & wanted polytheistic desire behind them (though always remember, there's room for everyone at this deep Winter feasting table, and no one can actually "own" a season -- it's everyone's). The simple cut & pa...

Ha! Post-conversion reversal and self-help tough love motives aside, this meme inadvertently speaks to why the hard polytheism of the Norse Gods better reflects & applies to not only the within, but to existence as a whole in the without. When we discuss the universe in operation, there's countless variables, things that are in constant conflict, that work at odds, not just the mentally & socially mentioned above, but physically & materially on a grand scale. The implication of this is that spiritually & divinely there are forces in direct & indirect opposition, which indicates not one monotheistic hand on the wheel, but many Gods pushing & pulling on that wheel in degrees of disagreement, whether that's Æsir or Vanir protectively steering, or their accursed anti-cosmic adversaries trying to just run the whole thing off the rails into final ruin. And the stories have the Gods themselves having divergent opinions/actions about how to solve problems, wh...