NorsePlay.

we are all ashlads -- no one is a hero born. ~ kolbítur  by Guillermo the IVth ["coal biter" runic translations from omniglot blog] In many of the Norse Sagas & stories you've got a good-for-nothing momma's boy character who does naught but lay by the hearth fire choosing lazy comfort over helping out on the farm. Then something happens in the story (i.e. like a monster shows up somewhere nearby), and he unexpectedly decides to get up and go meet the greater challenge, implementing a clever plan that far outweighs what people think of his lack of action until that moment where he proves himself a hero. That's the decision one has to make everyday. The Gods have granted you all the days before, will gift you all the days hence, and today to decide to rise to make your dream happen. And it doesn't have to happen all in one day (but if you can, do it), which is part of the clever plan, but you can slay the dragon of self-resistance one slim scale at a time w...

In Ibn Fadlan's Risala , days before the end of the amazing Viking ship burning funeral, the voluntary human sacrifice from among the deceased's slaves who essentially then becomes a funeral bride companion by choice, has sex with her dead master's huscarls individually, then on the day-of enters a tent aboard the ship where she has intercourse with six of them: " Then six men went into the pavilion and each had intercourse with the girl. " ~ Ibn Fadlan's Risal a §90   Maybe I've watched far too much Freyr-centric intimate programming, but perhaps instead of running a one-by-one train, there's something more of a concurrent sexual group crescendo for the girl with the final asphyxiation & the priestess' stabbing of her at the moment of breathless orgasm. We're talking a sept-some, which is probably something few get to incidentally have in the course of their lives, so this could be the staging & delivery of a peak experience to gift so...

After nearly another year & a half of serious grind, the Map Of Midgard 's layers, entry edits, and backups are completed! This represents a huge trio of steps forward in progress, which puts the salient work left as follows: 1. Expanding & reorganizing the map layers. 2. Copy editing existing mappoint texts. 3. Backing up the GPS & rollover description data. 4. Commissioning an artist, figuring out maps' scale & included mappoints for the physical maps based on that scale. 5. Printing maps. 6. Listing maps. 7. Posting the digital map. While I thought each of those first three items would be done separately, as I started I realized it made more sense just to do two & three at the same time when I had each entry open. More specifically on the digital map, its categories are now expanded & re-organized into 10 layers, and all 1100+ stickpin rollovers are edited & formatted into standardized entries to ensure named locations, the presence of citations,...

  NorsePlay is solely presenting this for the fun move-out-of-the-way-space-alien cover art. After finding a synopsis of the novella's pro-conversion miracle usage and apparently ridiculous Martian insect breeding adversaries there's no way I'd bother with reading it (nor did the real author want to sign it as Ivar Jorgensen's actually a pseudonym), yet the visual tropes here (and that Viking's laughing expression as he strong palms that bubble helmet) show the persistence of Norse Romanticism pushing itself all the way into sci-fi . #     #    # 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 m...

While I'd rather celebrate Odin's Geri & Freki , I can't help but admire the amazing hand tooled craftsmanship by Brandon Corral of Swift Hammer Leather's Sköll & Hati . And perhaps every time one takes this wallet out to pay for something, we can note the celestial adversaries near eternally hungering & chasing that which they wish to consume, and reflect whether that purchase will actually satisfy our desires, and to maybe stop trying to possess the proverbial Sunna & Mani and just slow down to enjoy their abundant radiance & the time we are gifted from the Gods instead. [ SwiftHammerLeather on Etsy . And thanks to Brandon Corral for making me aware of his awesome work though his donation to the Southwest Frithmoot .] #    #    # 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 truthfu...

  What's provocative about @pleiadictarot's well dressed postcard illustration of Yggdrasil is the idea of a trunklike thickness from roots to base of the upper branches. The Norse Lore talks about how much wear the World Tree endures from the cosmic animals and other adverse elements around it, so perhaps having a far sturdier tree with a bottom-heavy root structure would help explain its solid endurance throughout time.  So there's a dragon chewing on the root, but if that root is 100,000+ times larger than the dragon, then Níðhöggr 's wee mouth worrying the tree at its scale is actually not so worrying. #    #    # 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  proje...

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...

As NorsePlay does a re-watch of Thundarr the Barbarian (1980 CE) with its Conan -meets-post-apocalyptic fantasy/sci-fi, I can't help but think of Ian Stuart Sharpe 's Vikingverse with its Ragnarok event that devastatingly changes the face of Midgard, something relatively similar to " a runaway planet, hurtling between the Earth and the Moon, unleashing cosmic destruction. Man's civilization is cast in ruin. " And with the fact that Jack Kirby did character design on Thundarr also brings to mind the Kirby-inspired pencils of Vikingverse artist Ger Curti:  [p21 of the one-shot  Yggdrasil: In the Beginning comic!] The point of my drawing these two things together is that NorsePlay would like to apply its longstanding social media cred & skaldic might to request that there be a Vikingverse animated cartoon. I know the cybervikingsphere would devour that and ask for thirds, the awesome Vikingverse novels would get bought in astronomical stacks, there would be a...

This last weekend I attended my sixth Southwest Frithmoot ! [maps at left, stax of books at right with an iron easel on top to keep the northern Arizona wind from making off with them without bidding (greedy Hræsvelgr)!] The big difference this year is that I went as a vendor with framed copies & prints of The Path Of Odin map ! I first want to thank everyone who pre-reserved framed maps to get at the event, others who bought prints , and everyone who checked it out and had kind feedback to say about the map & questions about the research behind it! You Heathens are a large part of my audience, future users for the Map Of Midgard project , and your enthusiasm & encouragement meant alot to me & the work I do to make that proof-of-concept Odin map happen. But back to the event: For those who don't know, Southwest Frith Moot is the longstanding annual regional Ásatrú/Heathen gathering  hosted by Arizona's Wanderer Kindred's Chieftain Vince & Gythia Dan...

  With her appearances in The Northman and Furiosa , there's something formidably NorsePlay shieldmaiden in the performative multi-part soul that makes up Anya Taylor-Joy. Sure, it's called acting, but then add to it the above and below IRL (well, as IRL as a high fashion magazine interview spread & event runway can get) use of Viking-esque chainmail motified outfits. And looking at the above or below brings to mind Freyja 's Brisingamen's exceptionality as the Níu Heimar's ultimate necklace , which could possibly make it more body draping gleaming garment than jewelry-based accessory (though those hip-placed arrow shafts above are going to be unacceptably arm hampering). This additionally defensive purpose would also give Loki more personal use motivation for stealing it since it could serve as a byrnie. Maybe as we look beyond the Viking Age to carry it forward into the now & our future , we could take some NorsePlay'd cues from this, though we could ...

With The Map Of Midgard's Project 's broad idea of inclusion born of an expansive Heathen Worldview, I've added a mappoint  in my Tucson's very own Catalina Mountain range for what is known as the Sonoran Sasquatch. If we look at the sasquatch/bigfoot idea through a Norse Lore lens , we can see these creatures best fitting the idea of trolls, so in this context to fit the map I've stickpinned this entity as The Sonoran Troll. I'd first heard of this creature from this website , which has two photos from its evidence page that are completely pulled from elsewhere: a werewolf's large footprint casting, and the giant's footprint with a human's barefoot in the heel from somewhere in China. You could write the website off right there, except their following photo actually matches a bit of SE Rose Canyon Lake shoreline: What also gave me other probable cause to include it is my friend Chris Travers attested that he'd heard a monsterous giantesque tra...

Ha! Post-conversion reversal and self-help tough love motives aside, this meme inadvertently speaks to why the hard polytheism of the Norse Gods better reflects & applies to not only the within, but to existence as a whole in the without. When we discuss the universe in operation, there's countless variables, things that are in constant conflict, that work at odds, not just the mentally & socially mentioned above, but physically & materially on a grand scale. The implication of this is that spiritually & divinely there are forces in direct & indirect opposition, which indicates not one monotheistic hand on the wheel, but many Gods pushing & pulling on that wheel in degrees of disagreement, whether that's Æsir or Vanir protectively steering, or their accursed anti-cosmic adversaries trying to just run the whole thing off the rails into final ruin. And the stories have the Gods themselves having divergent opinions/actions about how to solve problems, wh...

This troll's head balefully gazes from the scroll top the world's oldest yet found Norwegian Hardanger Fiddle, the Jaastadfela, or the Jaastad Fiddle:   There's a long tradition of fiddle music being learned from communications, eavesdropping, exchange, or barter with otherworldly Nordic creatures, so as that idea went forward into the conversion, music was demonized and rulers & clergy began to hold burnings where these now-demonic tools were tossed onto the pyre. With this destruction we've lost some of the throughline as to how old these amazingly wrought fiddles with their beautiful inlay, distinct carving, and their extra two to five sub-bridge sympathetic strings to catch vibrations from the top four that produce a more resonant droning/ringing which many might consider magical in its way. It was also originally painted yellow, so its appearance must've been that much more striking to pair with its differing sound. If we go way further back into the Norse ...

  Spotted this throwback hand poured 1 troy ounce Viking ship-stamped silver bar made by MK Barz. If we look back at actual bars from hoard finds, there was nothing so stylized nor pre-measured, leaving that to merchants' scales or visual judgments for hacking into pieces when exchanges were made if transactions required only partial amounts. For comparison, the above sticklike melt bars are from the Spillings Hoard, the largest Viking silver treasure yet found, hidden under the floorboards of a what was probably a storage shed on Gotland, Sweden. [ship themed bullion available in 1/3/5 troy ounce bars here .] #    #    # 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  projec...

This is as pictured, and if you're looking for a  cross-pollination of Southwestern neckwear and Norse Lore design , this is the piece for you. I've gotten nothing but compliments when I rock this, and am glad to wear the classy flair of its Heathen-inspired post-Reconstruction regionalism. Note that the back has open loops and not channeled clips for the strings, so if you wanted to flip the Valknut, it'll require you to push the metal loops open (which I haven't attempted as I'm unsure about the tensile strength of the metal nor the epoxy which mounts the hardware to the reverse of the design) and push them back into place, so be aware of that. It's a terrific piece that could only be made better by making it in sterling, adding some Rúnatal in cattlebrand-inspired futhark font to it, and allowing it to easily be flipped, but it's outstanding and the only thing of its kind out there. With Odin's reputation as the God Of The Gallows, when seen along wi...