NorsePlay.

This may not be to everyone's style but there's something more modern & expressive in this Freya illustration by Stella Spente of Stockholm, Sweden. As a Goddess of Love, Freyja seems utterly joyful here on her skyward ride, holding aloft a völva's wand with radiant power, keys to Sessrúmnir's ownership all a-jangle at her hip, the glow of a thick torc-versioned Brísingamen adorning her neck, processional flowers vining the cart's posts.  There's a sense of purpose & fulfillment here in our Goddess, as though she rides out not only for herself, but to spread that love for those who've lucked into their own skyward ride of companionship. When not also being an amazing & formidable  War Goddess , it would be neat to think of Freyja riding forth much like this everyday to spread what is arguably the greatest of blessings.   And there's always the question of visually answering how a chariot gets drawn by her cats  Bygul & Trjegul, whic...

Here's the thing about  Brute Norse : It's my favourite podcast. Creator/host/p hilologist  Eirik Storesund is the punk rock academician you never knew you needed. Irascible, hypercritical, and occasionally crass, all blendered into the unapologetically erudite. That mixing of dwarf-burnt motor oil into Nordic spring water makes you wonder how that even works. BN 's not the same 101/105 intro course level re-tread over so much that it's churned into the shallowest of indistinguishable muddy ground material that everyone else does. There's almost always a Gods/Runes/Sources/Hot Takes Review series of things when a vid/podcaster starts out with different levels of success, style, or research. And if you've been consuming the ever widening gyre of cybervikingsphere offerings, it becomes increasingly harder to find something different with serious depth or with just 5% of something you haven't already heard elsewhere. Enter Brute Norse in 2017 CE. So far beyond ...

While I don't know Hong Kong's Genesis Pens from a knarr's oarhole, they're crafting a line of fountain pens called The Norsemen , and they're apparently out of stock, so maybe they've done something right. Pictured above is the matte-sanded Raven Black version. [translucent Yggdrasil-accented ink window on the Jötunn model.]    With four different designs named after Norse Lore-relevant aspects, their resin barrels are engraved with Nordic motifs, each slightly different from the other three. [opaque frosted, gold-engraved Sleipnir version, inked with matching Bungubox Ebisu Gold (note, the above writing sample is from a swapped in custom nib).] While these open editions retail at around $200 each, the pen has the looks of a $500 limited edition from a more known company, but the default nib is a Polished Steel #6 Jowo, which I have no experience with, though apparently from the above picture, it can be ground or swapped if you felt you needed to custom upgrade...

Given the current darkening of seasons, I've decided to finally examine what mythical Nordic horrors lie within the cinematic forest of Netflix's film  The Ritual (2017 CE, based on Adam Nevill's 2011 CE novel). Like other offerings in the folk horror subgenre, The Ritual also crosspollinates this with the tropes of a monster film , and given its Norse Lore context, it's definitely a NorsePlay from its following elements: 1. The Runes.  Mysteriously carved far too high up on tree trunks out in the middle of a nowhere wilderness forest adjacent to Sweden 's  270-mile King's Trail (Kungsleden), are various runes , mainly Othala (ᛟ), Algiz (ᛉ), and Nauthiz (ᚾ), two also visible as hanging ornaments/ amulet s in the cabin. There's alot in the Norse Lore pinned upon the runes, the most compelling being Odin's  Rúnatal where the Allfather lists the magical uses for them. 2. Human Sacrifice.  The hikers lose one of their party during the night, waking to fin...

  This family tree isn't the most comprehensive (nor correct, if you spot Gerriod being outside the line of descent for jötnar, and a few other things), but NorsePlay is posting it for the attractive & lateral thinking tree ring approach it takes. Note that Ginnungagap is given central primordial parentage, which since it's a place (or not-place, perhaps), is a markedly different way of looking at the Norse Cosmogony, though probably just incidentally serving the design. It would be pretty brilliant if someone were to run with this design to create something more encompassing. [Designed by Severino Ribecca.] #    #    # 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 ...

During Marvel Thor 's The War of the Realms (2019 CE) comic book run, this neat cosmological map of Yggdrasil tapped into the figural stylings of the Torslunda helmet plates (6th~8th c. CE). Seeing that Vendel Period context with the modern skyscrapers of current-day Midgard and the added figure of Spider-Man hanging from one of the branches thrown in is a superclever archaeological borrowing that we wouldn't mind seeing NorsePlay'd more in any medium. #    #    # 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 ...

While NorsePlay has no doubts about its expertise in the Norse Lore and its research & expository credentials by holding & applying its double degree in Journalism & Creative Writing here weekly, we felt it wouldn't hurt to add to our CV by swooping up a certification from Coursera's course on  Old Norse Mythology in the Sources as taught by the celebrated Dr Mathias Nordvig, Nordic Studies Professor at University Colorado Boulder. That, and we wanted to review it. Mathias and I have traded a few emails regarding my Map Of Midgard Project, and I consider him an online acquaintance. Mathias is unquestionably stellar as a public disseminator of information via YouTube, co-host of the irascibly fun Nordic Mythology Podcast , his own blog, and as a leading academic contributor to the new Pre-Christian Religions of the North  (2020 CE) reference set , so I'm much less reviewing him as opposed to the Coursera format. We're lucky to have someone of Mathias' c...

  In a strange turn of mash-up elements, Marvel Odin becomes the literal deus ex machina in The Mighty Thor 's The War Of The Realms when Iron Man Tony Stark, Shuri, and dwarf Screwbeard craft together this badarse battle Iron All-Father suit so he can go rescue his wife from her possible last stand at the enemy's Black Bifrost! The Norse Lore has a more than fair amount of technological solutions in terms of enchanted weapons ( Gungnir ,  Mjölnir ), objects imparting invisibility (two Tarnhelms, Gnipa's Ring), shirts of invulnerability (Katla's tunic, Bui The Dog's shirt), and many more, so this construction of tech-armor for an Asgardian only continues this storytelling motif. [quarter-splash panel from  War of the Realms #4  (2019 CE)] #    #    # 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 fa...

Jarnsaxa Rising 's a NorsePlay'd sci-fi/fantasy 18-episode audiodrama cut from the format of classic 1920s radio shows, mixed with much of the higher-consciousness imbued binaural panache of ZBS' productions from the 1970s/80s where galactic cyborg gumshoe Ruby would have to unexpectedly deal with ancient Mesopotamian death goddess Ereshkigal, or spiritual traveler Jack Flanders had to brave a metaphysical landscape that was both within & without himself, except here the tropes & structure are from an expanded re-characterization of Norse Mythology. For Jarnsaxa the jötunness, her axe to grind is with Thor, her ex-lover, and her opportunity for vengeance happens in the corpocratic dystopian future of 2094 CE via possession. In noir backstory style, we're introduced to a pair of company employees sent to investigate why a wind turbine on a Baltic island is generating power when it shouldn't be on at all, and that's the hook the story unfolds on, crossing...

During Marvel's The Mighty Thor 's The War Of The Realms (2019 CE) storyline, sorcerous dark elf Malekith the Accursed creates an axis among the numerous enemies of Asgard to takeover all the realms. At a certain point in the story, this ominous map of an occupied Midgard appears ... . #    #    # 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 .

From the hands of the director of Troll Hunter  (2010 CE) comes another foray into the fields of NorsePlay: Mortal (2020 CE). Vagrant American tourist Eric (Nat Wolff) is hiding out in the Norwegian forest, on the lam from an apparent arson fire/murder at his cross-Atlantic family's farm. Eric is apparently emotionally damaged with post-traumatic stress from whatever actually happened, and has nightmares involving fire . Another apparent murder lands him in the local Ossa jail, where rookie psychologist Christine (Iben Akerlie) is called in to speak with him before U.S. authorities are to show up and extradite him. Willing to talk to her, Eric then seems to manifest some electrokinetic powers , which she intuits are related to his volatile emotional state, and manages to talk him down. The film becomes something of a chase movie in its second act, with a final reveal of why Eric is gifted/cursed with his electrokinesis. This dynamic, however, was explored in  The New Mutant...

  While reading a collected graphic of The War of the Realms , I couldn't help but notice the well designed runic symbols placed around the title, and found this larger chart to show them off. While the Yggdrasil boardgame uses a regular elder futhark rune to represent each of The Nine Worlds, this takes it a step further, and also sort of fills a shorthand Yggdrasil diagram need, which makes me wonder at why it wasn't thought of before. And sure, this is a Marvel Thor invention, especially given the Hela 's headress and Surtur 's crown gylphs (and the whole cloth creation of lost 10th realm "Heven"), but it's not like someone couldn't run with this idea and make some working bindrunes or other Norse inspired icons to correspond to The Nine Worlds. #    #    # 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 f...

There's a recently adopted Sanskrit loan word for someone who has lost a child: "vilomah". In the Norse Lore & Sagas there are quite a few instances where in the honor/revenge cycle, or due to other unfortunate events, parents lose their offspring. Egil Skallagrímsson's immensely moving Sonatorrek poem on the loss of his sons totally comes to mind. What I'd wondered is if there was an Old Norse equivalent to "vilomah", and then even more specifically, if there's an ON word for someone grieving their dog who has departed upon the Hel-Road.   In Njal's Saga , Gunnar is gifted the Irish dog Sam, who is possessed of human intelligence, but during the planned assault on Gunnar's hall, Sam is first lured away & then killed by the attackers, and given the rapid fire course of bow-heavy events, I don't think Gunnar is given any time to self-label as a pet-mourner the sad loss of his very exceptional hound. By contrast, the regicide of Sa...