NorsePlay.

  We've NorsePlay'd our badarse Yeti drinkware with some sweet new cutout stickers from Beloved Viking Vinyl. Represent ! [our vinyl sticker design's available on request from Amy Dunloe at BelovedVikingVinyl on Etsy. Get your NorsePlay on whatever you want!] #    #    # Guillermo Maytorena IV knew there was something special in  the Norse Lore when he picked up a copy of the d'Aulaires'  Norse Gods and Giants  at age seven. Since t hen he's been fascinated by the truthful potency of Norse Mythology, passionately read & studied, embraced Ásatrú, launched the  Map of Midgard  project, and spearheaded the neologism/brand NorsePlay.   If you have e mployment/ opportunities in  investigative mythology,  field research, or product development to offer,  do contact him .

  So we're not exactly sure why there's crazy mad Mjölnirs  getting whisked about a tower of ice chunks & bluish Northern Lights, but we just couldn't ignore what was going on. This book cover's from what seems to be an overly dramatic kids' chapter book series that includes collectible clue cards and an internet linked game, but we've no idea if it's actually any good. Rick Riordan of Magnus Chase fame also writes some installments of these, though not this one, but you'd think, right? And apparently the runes on the left foreground hammer read "butterfly"?!? So if you know, do leave a comment explaining how much NorsePlay is actually in this book. Thanks. #    #    # Guillermo Maytorena IV knew there was something special in  the Norse Lore when he picked up a copy of the d'Aulaires'  Norse Gods and Giants  at age seven. Since t hen he's been fascinated by the truthful potency of Norse Mythology, passionately read & studi...

While NorsePlay has commented on an exceptionally remarkable descriptive/deed name  found in Sagas of Icelanders , only until we recently finished reading the Landnámabók   ( The Book of Settlements ) did we realize that such name appellations  were far less the rare exception.  Perhaps in a land of multiple Thorgeirs and  Björns there needed to be some additional distinctions to set people apart. [map of settlers' names represented by ships.]  Yet there are also many descriptive names based almost solely on physical characteristics that may seem mean-spirited, though in a society where poetic skills are valued maybe such name-making was an unavoidable convention. NorsePlay presents a sample list of names from the Landnámabók   to increase the awareness of this practice: Hergils Knob-Buttocks Eystein Foul-Fart Tongue-Odd Mice-Bolverk Thorarin the Evil Hallgerd Twist-Breeks Havard the Lame Arnmod the Squint-Eyed Bjorn Butter-Box Hroald Spine Thorva...

I've successfully plotted 500 mappoints for my Map Of Midgard Project! This is the fourth update since  the initial blog post ,  the first update , the second update , and the third update . Currently I'm finishing up post-reading mappoints from the  Landnámabók  (the Icelandic Book of Settlements ), which features an exhaustive survey of 3,000 people and their 1,400 settlements, initially listing 435 men as the first settlers and then moving temporally & spatially forward with the usually genealogies that all Icelandic sources are self-documented with. While the historical importance of the Landnámabók is inarguable, I realize that the above numbers could sound instead like using a boring phone book to make a boring land survey, so I totally want to reassure you the project is category specific, and within that I'm very discerning in terms of using only the really fascinating locations for the Map Of Midgard , of which Landnámabók actually has many amazing nut...

The re-enactment group Andrimners Hemtagare decided to recreate Viking burials using living models. This series of photos with grave goods is beautifully stirring, and reminds us of the  Hávamál 's  stanza 76 which this entry gets its title from. Much has been posited about what's included in a grave find , whether the items actually do or do not have anything to do with the role of the interred, if the body is intentionally positioned, and  even how nearby graves may provide a greater postmortem narrative/ritual theater grouped context for Viking Era communities. Artistically, using living model s for this connects more profoundly. The viewer can sense that they are still alive, and identifies with that on a greater level than if say they were actual dead bodies, which has more the feel of an inanimate & incomplete person that one gets at a present day open casket funeral. The photos also make us question what it is we wish the objects in our lives to re...

Artist Mirosław Kuźma does some terrific illustrations of archaeological grave finds : The above depicts a find from Birka in the 9th/10th century CE, known as "the lady with a pig's jaw". Much speculation has been projected onto this beheaded woman's jaw being shorn off and a pig's jaw being placed on her chest. From a grimly simple object lesson in silencing her in life by beheading and taking her jaw to ensure she stays silent in Hel with the pig jaw as a shaming/disabling replacement, to the living keeping her jaw as useful totem object that would continue to aid prophecy after her death with her head cut off as a ritual of mythic parity to the disembodied head of wise Mímir and the pig jaw associated with the Vanir who brought knowledge of the Volvas' seidr prophecy magic to the Aesir (though there are no volvic artifacts in this picture like the expected wand, like the one next to the body's arm in the next illustration). Note the horse's leg a...

There's a tricky exchange in Moonrise Kingdom where precocious Lazy- Eye asks Scout Master Ward what he actually does for a living in order to undermine his authority by questioning his credentials, though it takes 1950s-raised straight-laced Ward a few lines to figure that out. Ward at first responds by saying he teaches math as a profession:  Lazy-Eye: What's your real job, sir?   Scout Master Ward: I'm a math teacher. Lazy-Eye: What grade?   Scout Master Ward: Eighth.   Lazy-Eye: Do you need a PhD for that?   Scout Master Ward: Lazy-Eye, no, but you know what? We're actually in the middle of something here, in case you didn't notice. One of our scouts is missing and that's a crisis. Anybody else? [...] Scout Master Ward [turns to Lazy-Eye]: I'm gonna change my answer, in fact. This is real my job. Scout master, Troop 55. Lazy-Eye's one-eyed-ness could just be a another quirky detail scripted by Wes Anderson & Roman Coppola to help distinguish b...

There are points where history turns on a dime, that if an event had occurred with only a slight variation, outcomes of things could be radically, and sometimes wonderfully, different . NorsePlay draws your attention to the might-have-been Neo-Iceland of 2172 CE. Historically there was a mass exodus from Iceland in the late 1800s when the population suffered a marked poverty due to a run of bad weather, volcanic activity, and some less-than-attentive Danish rule. The  overflow of indentured workers and welfare resulted in actually offering one-way tickets to the New World. Given the strong & proud tradition of Icelandic citizenry, this was subject to much criticism & debate, but new lands & opportunities were overseas, so thousands left to find better lives for themselves, provided they survived the harsh attrition of a bare bones Atlantic ship crossing and the long unfamiliar trek to potential tracts hundreds of miles away from whichever docks they landed on....

The pictured runebook's titled The Codex Regius: A Reconstruction in Medieval Futhark Runic Script  from Ancient Artifacts and marketed as " this hardbound Codex Regius is specifically designed to be close to what you might find if you were to be directly working with the original sources. " While a book of runes is what one might imagine finding this major source of Norse Lore's Poetic Edda in, this product's manifestation is total NorsePlay. The understandable misunderstanding here's pretty funny as the vellum manuscript source copy's actually written in medieval Old Icelandic using Latin letters in Carolingian-insular script circa ~1270 CE: [page 5 of the  Codex Regius , where Völuspá ends and Hávamál begins! Scan housed at germanicmythology.com.] S ure, the Poetic Edd a's verses are the ur-stories of Norse cosmology and Lore-wise if runes are the first alphabet given to man for writing then it stands to reason that they would use runic , thou...

The NorsePlay of the Vikings TV series will expand in a spin-off on  Netflix  scheduled for 2021 titled  Vikings: Valhalla . Executive Producer Michael Hirst has granted the streaming media giant to contract his new series, which takes place 100 years after the original show, probably centered around the events leading up to and past the Norman invasion, and featuring the figures of explorer  Leif Erikson, notable North American female settler Freydís Eiríksdóttir, Harald Harada (his moniker meaning "hard ruler"), and the Norman King William the Conqueror (current series' Rollo's descendant). With the property's move away from History Channel to Netflix, some will be curious as to how the new show will re-manifest in terms of some of the criticism towards its predecessor's accuracy, costumes, and adherence to historical events, though none of those variances so far have bothered us as the show tends to stay true to the spirit of things, which is the ...

We have followed the work of artist P Craig Russell from First Comics' Elric , that anti-hero a runesword slinging Alfar-type sorcerer, through his stirring adaptation of The Ring of Nibelung , an excellent deluxe one-shot of Doctor Strange , and now for his take on Neil Gaiman's Norse Mythology . There's an iconic art nouveau core mixed with expressionism in Russell's unmistakable style that makes it a suggestive ly hedonistic Klimt -esque visual thrill to look at. Single issues are set to release July 1st, though we'll probably wait for Dark Horse to collect them for us in a graphic novel. #    #    # Guillermo Maytorena IV knew there was something special in  the Norse Lore when he picked up a copy of the d'Aulaires'  Norse Gods and Giants  at age seven. Since t hen he's been fascinated by the truthful potency of Norse Mythology, passionately read & studied, embraced Ásatrú, launched the  Map of Midgard  project, and spearheaded th...

In a moment of curiosity, Freyr sits on Odin's high seat from which all the worlds can be seen. [ Freyr on Hlidskjalf   (1930) by Kather ine Pyle.] Because who wouldn't want a chance to see everything? But as Odin sits there to seek wisdom, Freyr instead beholds all through eyes of desire , and in looking, he sees the most beautiful thing he's ever seen, Gerðr of the Shimmering Arms, a jotuness so pallid in form, and comely in beauty that Freyr's stricken with a lovesickness he's never known before. [ Skirnir's Message to Gerd (1908) by W. G. Collingwood.] In that moment Freyr sees all the worlds, and beholds the one he wants most of all. The climb into that forbidden seat allows him the advantage of seeing the best possibility of out of all the women in existence, and in that very same instant he knows his Wyrd is hard forged. The action of sitting somewhere high for insight could be referencing the Nordic magic ritual of útiseta , or “sitting out,” the pr...

In Orkneyinga: The Saga of the Earls of Orkney there's total guff being spoken about Shetlanders (and pretty much everyone else who isn't Orcadian, really). A long time ago, the wee archipelago  of Shetland was colonized by Vikings, used as a launching point for their raids, and then was a longtime property of Norway.   So I've been watching my Tucson pals DJ on Twitch, and while seeking other content have pleasantly stumbled into the NorsePlay storytelling stream of Shetland comedienne Marjolein Robertson , who is relating the Eddic tales in her own earnest & winning way. [so I keep linking this other more appropriate photo, but its unlinked like six times, so dubble f' it, I'm posting this more inappropriate photo which is sooooo epic the internet is too scared of to even touch much less move.] Marjolein's pretty much a current cultural ambassador for her northern homeland. W e think her accent is to die for, and her expressive dialect makes listening to ...

Sometimes when people are struck by lighting  it leaves a phenomena known as Lichtenberg figures, branching lightning-like shapes where the current has caused blood vessels to burst, sometimes permanently scarring the skin. [crafted by user blabbit's father.] This lightning effect naturally occurs in what's called fractal wood , and can also be artificially made by attaching conductive rods to a transformer, juicing it up and letting the patterns burn into the wood's surface. When lightning strikes certain places, it leaves what's called fulgurite , fused tubes or masses in and sometimes above the ground, also informally called "petrified lightning". The high-voltage crystallization effect can be reproduced like the skin or wood above to make "lightning in a bottle" designs within acrylic spheres, blocks, or panels. [Note use of the hammer.]  All are the impactful fingerprints of Thor leaving his mark. #    #    # Guillermo Maytorena IV knew there wa...

Artist Will Wright explores a form of NorsePlay he titles "Folk Graff", an attempt to heal "the cultural timeline from the Neolithic period to present day via contemporary street art." After being loaned a 1983 Porsche 944, Wright bought toy versions to redesign into a Northern European shaman's "Wizardmobile"! We love the elder futhark racing stripe, and he's tagged the doors with a single eye -prominent raven logo. On top of his urban designs, Wright's stated wish to "heal" not only corrects the misuse of Nordic culture by racists & fascists, we also see it as helping to fill in the huge temporal gap between the conversion and modern day by establishing an artful & aesthetic beachhead we can move forward from, and that's something the greater concept of NorsePlay totally agrees with and supports in its very idea. #    #    # Guillermo Maytorena IV knew there was something special in  the Norse Lore when he picked up...

We took a break from our long four-year reading-fest of comparative Norse Mythology & Norse Lore source materials to book club a ScandiNoir novel by Yrsa Sigurdardottir, Þriðja táknið (translated as The Third Symbol) , or re-titled for English audiences, Last Rituals . Given the goetic-looking runestave symbol and mention of witchcraft flaunted on the cover, we're promised spookiness from the get go, though given this is a first novel in an intended series, we spend a lot more than a goodly amount of time establishing our lead character's voice as a financially challenged divorcée mother-of-two's status as a l awyer-cum-detective . As a grown late-30s-something with what one would presume much criminal defense experience in what's arguably the most feminist country in the world, attorney Thóra Gudmundsdóttir's surprised reactions due to her underexposure to body modifications, BDSM, and other subculturally outré elements in the mystery comes off like an obvio...