NorsePlay.

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...

A friend who frequents the charmingly small but vibrant historical city of Bisbee, AZ, USA, spotted this very random runestone perched in front of a house: My friend was also good enough to leave my card & a note of inquiry at the house whose sidewalk this happens to be on and I was contacted by Ben, the property owner, who was kind enough to tell me what he happened to know about it, the information which I've integrated into the following investigation. [Note that I'm only working from two photos my friend took, and the by-text interview that Ben, it's current owner, gave me. At some point I know I'll be back in Bisbee and have a firsthand look at it myself, but felt it was more important to report this curiosity secondhand in a timely manner rather than wait on an indeterminate future road trip.] Objective Observations: Ben reports that it's a granite stone weighing "300 pounds" at ~26" tall with a ~13" diameter. The above photo shows thre...

While on my way to this year's Southwest Frith Moot , I decided to take a detour to go to my Map Of Midgard 's stickpin for The Mogollon Troll and have a proactive investigative mythologist looksee both for the monster that makes this central Arizona highland rim its home, and a hidden cave potentially filled with legendary giant-kin treasures! [ Map Of Midgard rollover for The Mogollon Troll stickpin from the Jötnar data layer!] Known as "The Mogollon Monster", given his physical description in the screencap above, if we lens him through the Norse Lore this totally makes him a troll, so I've used that recontextualization & worldview to place him on my map as The Mogollon Troll. As I drove up, it started to rain. At first intermittently, then for wetter spates. While I'd read online the unpaved road was an unchallenging washboard, the reality was somewhat rougher than that, took slower going, and had logging truck traffic that if mistimed around some cor...

I know what you're thinking: a runestone in eastern Oklahoma?!? Yet if the Norse traveled east to the Black Sea, maybe even further into Asia via the spice roads, why not the same reach past Leif's Camp in Newfoundland and extending into America via coastal circumnavigation, rivers, and portages? [detail from park sign with proposed river route & location.] So I, as a proactive Investigative Norse Mythologist , used this legendary stickpin from my Map Of Midgard Project data to go take a firsthand look at the contested Heavener Runestone. [runes with me for scale.] Objective Observations: Out in small vale of the wilderlands of Heavener stands a 9' x 9' x 2' slab of sandstone, like a huge billboard facing west. From the collapsed layers of rock behind it, it seems to have detached and neatly planted itself upright in the earth. Whether that's incidental, or it was raised, or detached by force, and even possibly carved first then erected, one can't say,...

During a far too short stop of my recent cross-Atlantic trip in Reykjavik, I went to investigate the Map Of Midgard site of The Stone Of The Hidden Man! Tucked behind a strip of shops at 32 Ármúli Street is an elf stone, the Huldumannssteinn (literally "Hidden Man Stone"). This stone was originally bigger and partly demolished, but this large portion was left. The then-owner was visited in a dream by its resident alfar, who asked him to leave his remaining home alone or else bad luck & misfortune would come of it, so he did. [Looking through the split.] According to Terry Gunnell's The Hidden People of Iceland (2008 CE), some bakers later bought this property to open a chicken farm whose chickens wouldn't lay once they bore holes into the remaining stone for demolition. When they figured out this cause, they spared the rock and the chickens resumed laying eggs again the next day. My cabbie, a Reykjavik Icelander for over 30 years, said he had no idea that this ...

While in Norway's Bergen, during my recent cross-Atlantic trip, I went to investigate the Map Of Midgard sites of The Giants Grim & Godmund's Golden Horns: Above's the current day Alrekstad Skole, the site where Álreksstaðir, King Olaf Tryggvason's residence, once stood. Odds are this long building probably sits squarely where the royal hall used to be, so it's easy to imagine it being there. The story of the Giants' Grim & Godmund's Golden Horns from Helga þáttr  þ órissonar tells of two giants both named Grim entering Olaf's hall bearing the gift of a pair of golden drinking horns from their Jötunn King Godmund. Olaf has the giants served, and being the hardcore convert that he is, blesses their drinks. The giants, being Heathen supernatural creatures, find they now cannot drink them, and are angered at this seeming turn of backhanded hospitality. They cast darkness in the hall, kill three of his men, and leave via a mountain pass, which beca...

After starting the Map Of Midgard Project, I took note when Viking Metal band Týr's lead singer Heri Joensen mentioned an Álfar rock in his Faroe Islands' childhood home during an interview, and I personally made an investigative foray to go see it during my recent Scandinavian cross-Atlantic trip. According to Joensen, at fishing village Lamba's harborside on Eysturoy,  sits a rock inhabited by hulderfolk which no one dares move for fear of fierce retribution. The cabbie had never heard of the rock, and stopped a senior Lamba resident out on his afternoon walk to ask and check my story. The sock beanied man in the insulated track suit nodded & pointed down the road, confirming that we were headed in the right direction. At road's end a private property sign on chainlink fence blocked off the dock where the stone was, but the cabbie asked a forklift operator moving a huge tub of fish if we could go in to have a look, and he said yes while laughing a little, which ...