NorsePlay.

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...

    In the some cosmological depictions of Yggdrasil, there's an awkward stretching weirdness in order to make the World Tree's roots reach up or around to get to Asgard , Jotunheim , and Niflheim. Franz Stassen's 1920 CE illustration of Yggdrasil from Hans von Wolzogen's Die Edda  has instead turned Yggdrasil into a monumental straddler, majestically arching over and into its three foundational worlds. This places those worlds level & below the axial trunk, here with Niflheim in the right foreground (with destructive Níðhöggr camped on that root), Jotunheim's tall mountains at left, and the last root reaching into Asgard at the back, though we maybe can see its gargantuan godly halls rising through the branches above. This makes for a more tree-centric & structurally elegant arrangement in some respects. Stassen was also noted for his illustrations in Wagner's Ring. If we stop to consider Yggdrasil being organic, subject to external forces, and change...

I read. I read a lot. And I wondered if in the afterworlds all my questions about the Norse Lore, the Níuverse, and everything else would be answered. † And I realized that doesn't happen. The Gods don't know everything. Odin still looks for all the things he doesn't know. And if Odin himself doesn't know then that means the Níuheimar's probably an evolving exponential mystery beyond its Æsir creators. Yggdrasil grows, it gnarls, it spreads, it bears & dies in parts, constantly. While I think I will have access to so much more amazing storehoused knowledge in the afterworlds , there will still be more in that next level to learn, travel to, have adventure, and explore. There will be people from throughout time at the tables of the ancestors to ask questions of, the books of Bragi's Hall with their stories & songs, Valkyries who've witnessed thousands of glorious & horrific battles, dwarves who may begrudgingly barter their skillsets, álfar th...

You saw something. Maybe Sunna passed by on her way overhead and snuck a flapjack off your morning breakfast plate for needed calories to burn & shine with. Perhaps Freyr helpfully left you a package of condoms to find when you needed them most. Eir got you that appointment with an impossible-to-book medical specialist. Your cat meowed & stared at a not-so-empty room's corner for two hours only to reveal your crouching  húsálfar drinking your feline's milk . You refused some change to a monocular vagrant dressed in blue before the on-ramp and then you immediately  got into a horrible car accident. You asked the sky a question and literally heard an answer within the deep growl of thunder on a rainless day. For whatever reason, totally unprovoked, accidentally seen, ritually summoned, or externally selected, you had an Unverified Personal Gnosis. No, don't straight out tell me about your UPG, because if you just start off with that to anyone, odds are its only going ...

There's a lot of  great detail in this cosmological sketch print of  Die Neun Welten / The Nine Worlds  by E. Müller-Baden, c. 1900 CE. It almost looks like Yggdrasil's tertiary root is so far away from the main body of its subterranean structure that it's pretty slim pickings for Níðhöggr, who never actually does cause critical damage on The World Tree, so perhaps this offers a reason as to why. This diagram also solves the arboreal co-identification problem by specifically making Læradr the upper portion of Yggdrasil . There's also a more geographical separation between portions of  Niflheim depending if you're an oathbreaking victim unmercifully given to  Níðhöggr 's serpentine children (#2), or if you're a regular deceased (#9), which would probably spare Hel 's broader populace the gnashing of dragon teeth & wailing of the dishonourable. Though if any of you recall where the " Egisheim" Sea is cited from, do let me know. Below is the ...