NorsePlay.

It's ... it's ... it's just tooooo gooood! This intersection of classic 1980s CE peak kids' lit book cover with jarlsdottir hús-bruni shieldmaidening is amaze! NorsePlay is totally dropping this on a T-shirt right now. And it really gives new context to the elementary school Troll Book Club. [this was an unattributed social media find. If you know who created this, NorsePlay wants to give them some seriously due credit.] #     #    # 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...

" If Christianity is only a mythology then I find the mythology I believe in is not the one I like best. I like Greek Mythology much better. Irish better still. Norse best of all. " ~ C.S. Lewis The Weight of Glory (1941 CE) It's heartening to hear such a noted Christian Apologetic praise the Norse Lore. If we examine Narnia, we find elements like The White Queen corresponding to jotun maidens , or the dragon-prowed Dawn Treader matching to the magical saga drakkar longship Elliði , or greedy Eustace Scrubb turning into a dragon just as gold-hoarding dwarven Fafnir turns into a hoard guarding wyrm. [of course C.S. Lewis read the Edda s at some point.] Far before penning the above, as a kid Lewis read Longfellow's  Tegnér's Drapa  (the title presumably referencing Esaias Tegnér's version of  Frithiof's Saga ), and wrote in Surprised By Joy  (1955 CE) of the moment the following lines changed him: I heard a voice that cried, Balder the beautiful Is dead ,...

If you've read all the sagas , you certainly have left yourself wanting. So short of now living the actual dream by lawbreaking and living as a fugitive in the wilds of Iceland, or becoming a poet laureate & owning rooms with open mic verse, killing someone over a lacrosse/rugby match, or soldier-of-fortuning your way into a warrior's notoriety, you're probably looking for some saga-comparable NorsePlay to read . [1978 CE cover.] Noted for being an influence on Tolkien's works, this 1891 CE Victorian homage celebrates the Icelandic Sagas by using all their best tropes: a name-worthy weapon of note , the love triangle , sorcery, generational baggage, interfamilial friction, class boundary breaking, berserks , legal gamesmanship, outlawry , ghosts, curses, and lots of stirring violence. [this deceptively marketed 1982 CE  Star Wars inspired cover actually has nothing whatsoever to do with the story.] Haggard, more well known for the fantasy subgenre of lost civiliz...

  4/2026 Addended Forward: This series has not materialized, and at this point  we suspect this image and its accompanying announcements were part and parcel of wishful thinking from fans on the internet whose posts gained enough search engine weight to seem a reality.  Otherwise it wouldn't be out of the question to think this had gotten tossed around actual pitch discussions at Netflix, and maybe the image was part of that? Either way, our initial post's fan-theory exploring the character is an interesting one relevant to the original series, whether Floki gets his own series or not, so I've added this forward to the original entry that follows to allow for what now seems to maybe be disinformation, and not deleting it on the outside chance that it's not. Will update this forward should anything more be determined. ___________________________ Netflix will launch a second Vikings spinoff into its stream on December 1st, Floki: The Fallen God . This title alone pla...

What's always bothered me about the iconic Torslunda helmet plates is there's wolfen Ulfhednar and boar-helmeted Svinfylking, but no actual bear-headed Berserkir since the former two are a specialized Fylgja-centric subset of the broader elite warrior Berserker category. So after weeks of questing for visual references followed by 12+ hours of fierce digital holmganga with a desktop graphics program, NorsePlay has victoriously filled in this archaeological werebear art blank to give us aspiring bearshirts an image to identify with, which I then specifically theme-crafted for my custom Byrna LE's holster: Just as one names a weapon of note in the Edda s & Sagas, I've named my kinetic/pepperball/teargas chemical ball launcher Ǫndbítr ( ᚭᚿᛐᛓᛁᛐᛧ ), meaning Breath-Biter, because this is exactly what it does -- it effectively robs potential assailants of their breath when hit . ["This is my  Ǫndbítr! There are many like it, but this one is mine!" ~ Fullkominn...

There are rare moments where Marvel actually takes a story to consider that they've added a Norse God to their line-up and what that might mean to the regular people watching Thor rescue their peers and even their world in what must strike them as a divine manifestation. We get a story arc of this in 2011 CE's  Spiral where Thor actually embraces his divinity, flexes some control over humanity and starts proactively integrating advanced Asgardian technology to save the environment while creating abundance for all, and allows the awestruck thankful to go ahead and worship him. By contrast wayyyy before this when a cult of Thor forms in the above 1983 CE issue, Don Blake isn't comfortable at all about it ... and neither is The Crusader whose faith allows him divine strength enough to take on Thor in an attempt to strike him down in a demonstration of monotheistic zealousness! Fun Bronze Age comic cover art aside, and that  the Crusader also probably doesn't recognize th...

Ran across this awesome sticker design from Celtichighland on Etsy: Urðr, Verdandi, & Skuld's shared knotty 'do reflects how temporally interwoven The Norns are, for the past, present, and future cords they attend are all along the same thread, which here has its origin from that triquetra skein they're all manipulating at once. The Web Of Wyrd all- Futhark inclusive bindrune sits beneath them, possibly positioned where it reveals itself to Odin after his self-sacrificial ordeal. Now you can place those Fates around your own personal Well Of Waterbottle to keep Yggself hydrated . [get the sticker as part of a set 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 Mi...

While there's no Norse literary precedent for using a bird in a duel or combat , there's a scene in 1958 CE's The Vikings where thrall Eric is being bullied by Viking Prince Einar into lying about where he got his superior hunting hawk from. In the confrontation, Eric gives the "Kill!" command for his hawk to attack Einar, and Einar Odinically loses his left eye , but spares Eric for the purpose of killing him later as an object lesson. Decades after this in Stephen King's The Dark Tower series, where there's many honor culture medievalisms at play in his post-apocalyptic Weird West setting, a similar scene unfolds. Protagonist teen Prince Roland Deschain prematurely challenges his teacher Cort to a duel for the sake of earning his gunslinger revolvers, and shows up with his hunting hawk David as an unconventional wild card weapon that gives him the edge he needs to win, albeit with crafty surprise. This parallel would indicate that Stephen King was prob...

  You'd totally think this was one-eyed Odin at first glance, and DC's Elseworlds is certainly NorsePlaying that to some degrees in their Dark Knights of Steel: Allwinter limited series. Wandering mercenary Deathstroke anti-heros as a sort of Odinic analogue on their medieval fantasy Earth 118 where a continuing 21-year-long winter has the world in its frozen grip while Jarls war over territory among the isles of Jarnlünd. Part of the fun of Elseworlds is seeing how the usual figures of DC heroes & villans get recast, and this is no different. Published in 2024-5 CE, I just only ran across the first issue, but it's got some serious Nordic flavour for starters. Any of you read this, and does it keep up the NorsePlay? #     #    # 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 pot...

The Arthur Gilchrist Brodeur translation (1916 CE) of the Prose Edda names the leather cord that Brokkr uses to sew Loki's mouth shut as "Vartari". By breaking this cord's name down into its two Old Norse component parts, I’ve discovered something quite telling: " Var " can mean "pledge", while "Tari" can mean "to kill by repeated stabbing". If we look at Loki's role in the "Gifts For The Gods Contest" story from Skáldskaparmál (§35), he loses his head to mastersmiths Brokkr & Sindri after the Gods pick their gift  Mjölnir as most valued over all those crafted by the competing dwarven Sons Of Ivaldi . Yet the dwarves cannot chop off Loki's head without touching his neck, a technicality that Loki fends the fatal claim off with. Cheated by Loki's logic, Brokkr then grabs Loki's head and sews his lips shut with the aforementioned leather cord, repeatedly stabbing around his lips with an awl to thre...

  After buying this book a year & a half ago , NorsePlay finally gets into the text inside this crazy Thor versus this Jormungantic starship cover, and we were not disappointed. Project Millennium  (1987 CE) by Curtis H. Hoffmann is a strong-handed conceit where a real war is set up to celebrate the 1,000-year anniversary of Muspell's Planet who has hired the megacorporation E.C. (which actually just stands for Entertainment Company [obvi-simple, right?]) to stage the battle in 100 years. The android who handles such under-the-table questionable high-cost private arrangements sets up two A.I. computers to head up each side, make armies, and square off. Now here's where the NorsePlay comes in: One computer decides to take on the identity of Snorri Sturluson, and because of this, begins vat "growing a force of mutant fighters" based on the Æsir ! The other computer decides to avatar as King Richard III, but follows Snorri's lead in creating the Norse adversarial...

Elvis might be bardically setting the pace with a swivel of the hips, but he's not the King of the ship -- the chainmail bikini wearing Valkyrie's definitely running this historical line-up of a crew. From the blurb inside I gather there's a Vikings versus Mongols story in the weird post-death Riverworld, which is why the Valkyrie, but I've always wondered if Farmer's mashup fantasy world tends to the too farcical? Anyone read this, and if so, does the one story stand alone, or do you have to have read all five novels beforehand to get it? Anyhow, I thought the Viking ship cover with its chooser of the slain leading her slain at oars was a NorsePlay worth presenting here. [1992 CE book cover by Don Punchatz.] #     #    # 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 M...

While wandering gobstopped through Meow Wolf Santa Fe 's forest area last week, I heard a weird voice speaking above me that turned out to be a huge automated raven sporting a gold chain hung with a fat ruby. Of course this had to be Muninn manifesting his way into the densely accrued materials of this former bowling alley turned into its own elaborate sci-fi saga installation.   But I didn't quite catch what the raven said, so I waited in the area for at least 20 minutes looking at other things while expecting the bird to launch into an audio loop, or be activated somehow into speaking again, but it never happened, which made me wonder if he only spoke once-a-day at Noon, which makes his input a rare clue in the Pastore family's story. After being wowed and absorbing as much as I could of the deep narrative on-site from its videos & exhaustive documents, I longed for even more context and bought the giftshop book  Don’t Read This! The Private Diary of Piper Pastore ...

For Yule my bestie supportively gifted me the new publication from The Fellowship Of Northern Traditions, Bifrost: Glimpses at the Gods , and I have to say it definitely surpassed my expectations of what I thought it would be. [yes, this is exactly the same great library photo from our earlier post, not sorry.] For some context of where this 76-page magazine's from, tFoNT started as a one-man YouTube channel in 2020 CE (then The Wisdom of Odin before changing to tFoNt ), and surprisingly gained excessive traction from new practitioners to quickly become an online organization that began to host ritual meetups at campgrounds, to then acquire non-profit status with intentions to build a temple hall.    While I think nearly any in-road for people who want to discover the Norse Gods is positive, I'd always felt tFoNT, with its heavily theatrical ritual-centric approach, fostered its own culture of god-bothering gnosis chasers that have post-conversion/modern holdover ideals of pe...

There's been some speculation as to whether the Northern Lights have associations with the Valkyries riding out, or Gerðr's shimmering arms , or Odin's Wild Hunt crossing the skies. In this vein I draw attention to Sam Flegal's work, Sleipnir's Ride : NorsePlay 's featured the modern Heathen art of Sam Flegal before , and he remains one of my favourites in his technical mastery and visually expansive narrative approach to the Norse Lore. Flegal's Sleipnir notably has paired legs (as opposed to other depictions with 4 in-line at front & back , or evenly spaced along the sides , or curiously  6 in front with 2 in back ), and one might NorsePlay the leg-paired iron shoes may frictively & electromagnetically spark the Borealic path he leaves in his wake as he streaks across the night skies. As far as the Auroras go, all of the above as cosmological causes could be true. The effect has always struck people of all times as a beautiful manifestation of t...

In December of 1991 CE, the isometric computer role playing game Dusk Of The Gods hits PCs on six 5.25" or three 3.5" disks, giving players what was probably their second taste of immersive Norse Mythology via the then-height of VGA graphics (the first being Heimdall on the Amiga in June of that same year, and much like Heimdall and other early videogames, the Larry Elmore cover art's the best looking thing about it [see any Atari 2600 game box art!], but that's a technological ceiling of the time).   [the CG'd majesty of Bifrost.] After first hearing a mention of this game on the Nordic Mythology Podcast from University of Iceland's PhD candidate Luca Panaro who specifically writes about the reception of Norse Lore in videogames, I had to look it up just to see the cyber-heritage of this PC chestnut. [Valholl with golden Hlidsklalf at the head of the table!] Found these screenshots from a pretty comprehensive 3-part review by CRPGAddict. Apparently the ga...