NorsePlay.

While browsing The Book Stop's vintage juvenilia section in homebase Tucson, I found a hardback copy of Edith Heal's Siegfried from 1930 CE, which would be a then-kids' novel adaptation of The Saga of the V ö lsungs . Printed on the flyleaves there was this handsome Map of the Siegfried Country : While some of this doesn't line up NorsePlay's placements in The Map Of Midgard Project (i.e. The Hall of the Volsungs should be in Ezinge, Netherlands, not up in Finland, or Fafnir and the "Flaming Hedge" not in Scandinavia, but down in Germany), I really love the art style of this. Also interspersed in the text there were some great illustrations: So why is Siegfried naked, you ask? American illustrator Milo Winter (1888-1956 CE) must have been thinking of the logistics for when Siegfried stabs Fafnir from below and gains nigh-invulnerability from being almost completely drenched in dragon's blood that this could only happen sans clothing. Character-wise...

This bronze Valkyrie-laden medal was a random eBay find. Aside from a similar Etsy listing saying it's from the 1920s CE, and the eBay one stating it's 1.5"D and 23g, there's nothing else about it. It makes me wonder if this was a souvenir from a Bayreuth performance of Wagner's Ring , otherwise I might hope there'd be medals for all the Valkyrjur . And if so, does Brunhilde only merit a bronze since she was demoted for her compliant defiance? Are the other usual 12 choosers of the slain (but this number goes up to 39 if more unusual citations are included [and honestly, if that's it, then those 39 have to be working nigh-eternal overtime to pick out ~16K battle dead each to assemble Valhalla's total of 614,400 Einherjar, so there has to logistically be over 39 to delegate that]) cast in more precious/meritorious/other base metals? For a possible other context, in The Nibelungenlied , Brunhild is the Queen of Iceland, and it is the hidden gamesmanship ...

In a clever Wagnerian Ring Cycle adaptation in Marvel's Thor: The Eternals Saga , this striking panel of Marvel's Valkyrie Brunnhilde is being punitively put to her fire ringed bed in an enchanted sleep after doing what Odin actually wants as opposed to what he told her to do. In a strange and somewhat surreal story arc, Marvel Thor seeks out Odin's Eye for answers about an implied previous incarnation of himself that Odin won't reveal to him. The Eye, actually flying around on an ectoplasmic stalk and terrorizing a planet of gnomish aliens just to power flex, submits to Thor's threats and begins telling the God Of Thunder of a hitherto previously unknown Ragnarök and its survivors' link to the current Asgardian cycle , which then follows Wagner's Ring adaptation of The Saga of the Volsungs , with Thor apparently living as both mortal heroes Siegmund and his incestuously born son Siegfried, which helps explain why they look identical to Marvel Thor t...