NorsePlay.

Within the comedic aspects of Norse Mythology with its stories of humbling trickery and characters being forced to act against type both for plot & laughs, we relate and are entertained ... but then we also forget the cosmic scale & functions of the divine and their monstrous adversaries that are mind-numbingly beyond human experience. When we find a NorsePlay that wanders into this Lovecraftian territory it reminds us of the awe & terror we can feel in encounters with the numinous , and the implications of living in a Níuverse that has a doomed-filled Ragnarök potentially awaiting it with a fingernail-ship filled with the dead , human-eating jötnar , a world encircling oceanic serpent , a sky & ground touching abyss-mouthed wolf , and a burning giant who longs to set all of existence ablaze with his black flaming sword.   In John Langan's Children of the Fang and Other Genealogies 2020 CE, there's a NorsePlay that explores the cosmological construction ...

Slow forward the NorseSpotting to 25-years-later of  Twin Peaks ' Season 3 , we see Dougie Jones-addled Dale Cooper toddling into The Silver Mustang Casino to behold the flames with the Black Lodge within them hovering over all the slot machines that are about to pay out. In European folklore, there's stories of foxfires/ignis fatuus/will-o'-the-wisps that can indicate the location of buried treasure , and specifically in the Icelandic Grettir's Saga : Now one night very late, as Grettir made ready to go home, he saw a great fire burst out on a ness to the north of Audun's farm. Grettir asked what new thing this might be. Audun said that he need be in no haste to know that. "It would be said," quoth Grettir, "if that were seen in our land, that the flame burned above hid treasure." ~  Grettir's Saga , ch18  Grettir, also being a hero who confronts undead  draugr , could perhaps be an influence for Cooper who is essentially hunting otherworldl...

While hitting a local comic book shop to look for a jötnar-filled Hellboy story arc to potentially review for NorsePlay , I happened across a large format graphic novel hardback Viking: The Long Cold Fire , a series that Image published back in 2010 CE. Of course you don't know until you look at the interiors, but the book was factory wrapped, so I didn't get a chance to qualitatively compare it to Vertigo's  Northlanders , which is what it most resembled, the implication probably being a  Saga-period  retrofitted  ScandiNoir . Have any of you read this? Is it great, or not? Leave your critically constructive & insightfully reasoned thoughts in comments below! #     #    # 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 ...

After some necessary condensing of space & fixtures at Nexus Occult Books , NorsePlay is happy to announce that the  Óðinnsvegr: The Path Of Odin map has moved back into its first retail home again ! More specifically, once you enter the front door, go to their SE corner, and on the bottom two shelves of the pictured above wood hutch on the east wall, you'll find the prestigiously framed version for $75 or individual prints below it for $25. Pick some up for the Norse Nerds in your life! Note that the map is also available at both Tucson Bookmans locations , but there's a special place in my heart for Nexus as an impressive & wonderful niche local venue, so do consider shopping them for my map if that's convenient (plus you can see all their weird objects & grimoires, and meet their winning & knowledgeable staff, too). For those of you reading about this map for the first time, this special 11" x 17" parchment patterned map tracks Odin's ap...

Last time NorsePlay went pretty deep into the sacred groves of Twin Peaks , only later noticing the cereal box actually says right on the front the following spoken ingredients: Major Briggs: O f course the modern age has changed forever the way  your people live, Mr. Thorson, but my guess would be  that there still remains a tremendous vestigial interest in   the legends and folklore of ancient Iceland . Einer Thorson:   (smiles, doesn't have a clue)  Vestigial. Absolutely. Major Briggs:   I  know, speaking for myself, that I find these last  remnants of a connection to a natural, more primitive,  almost pagan way of life, endlessly fascinating; locally,  for instance, we have the Sasquatch mythos, or Bigfoot, a  large, evil smelling forest-dweller, which I suppose  would correspond to your " huldufolk " or hidden people. Einer:   Trolls ? Major Briggs:   Exactly. In the extras, episode 27 director Stephen Gyllenh...

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...

While Dune is more an obvious analogue for the desert culture of the Middle East, religious versus secular frictions, and the global fuel crisis of the 1970s CE, there's  a strikingly evocative sequence of NorsePlay tucked within the final episode of Dune: Prophecy S1 (2024 CE): This is made more meta-pointed by the casting of Travis Fimmel of Vikings series fame who gets swallowed by the Jǫrmungandr -like sandworm, then finds himself sacrificing the integrity of his eye to becoming augmented with godlike powers, all of which is so very Odinic. And given House Harkonnen roughing out their exile on the North-like wintery world of Lankiveil and having to make do with whaling exports, perhaps there's more NorsePlay to be spotted in the upcoming seasons. We can only hope. #     #    # 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 seve...

While reading Frog's  Mythology and the Lived Environment (2024 CE), he goes a little more into Finnish and Baltic mythology to flesh out his approach to myth as a "symbolic matrix" as a way to broadly reconcile all previous framings. This interesting & novel redefining aside, at one point Frog uses the idea that every time the Baltic storm god Perkūnas uses lightning and we hear thunder a devil is hit and/or the noise makes them flee from fear of getting hit . This idea of devils being scattered by thunder then made me think of how trolls in the Norse Lore are quite put-out by the sound of church bells, so if we look at this dynamic of audial repellence , it's probably comparatively easy to extrapolate that Thor's fatal lighting & roaring thunder got replaced in the process of conversion tactics to the clapper of a church bell instead hammering the lip to gong away trolls within earshot. In this the church displaces Thor as humanity's protector agai...

Photographer Jennifer Peters has recently begun using her re-enactment group members for a series of photos depicting the Norse Gods! Óðinn freshly eye-plucked !: Iðunn probably looking off-screen at distractive Loki as Þjazi in eagle form circles around to kidnap her !: Þórr unknowing wrestling Elli (old age itself) in the rigged Utgard ian contests!: The work is remarkable in that Peters sometimes picks significant moments in the Norse Lore with dynamic action, which bring those narrative turns to life. We hope she continues expanding on this theme in her photography as we love the results. [ check out her work  here! (And thanks to the Valhalla Conversations podcast for bringing this creator to our attention.)]   #     #    # 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 tru...

As a Hispanic Ásatrúar, I love & identify with the intersection between Scandinavian culture and my ethnic background, and after seeing Dalarna Horse variants during my recent Map Of Midgard site investigations in Minnesota I began to wonder if anyone had made a Dalarna-style horse piñata . Seeing my Nana craft many piñatas from the ground up as a kid , either for family events or as commissions, there were no cultural restrictions or content barriers to what she could make (i.e. when I was 7, she made a Spider-Man piñata for me), so the idea of one only sticking to the traditional donkey/burro, bull/ox, or more geometric 7-pointed star simply didn't hold. Plus with the fact that Spanish vaqueros brought horsemanship and thus begat cowboy culture in the New World, why wouldn't all equines be fair game for Mexican piñatas? While the above & below weren't made by Mexican grandmothers, I was really stoked to see that a couple people had used that folkcraft to make Da...

This marks the seventh year NorsePlay has attended the renowned Southwest Frith Moot! [note that orange NorsePlay banner adorning the ramada-hof's sacred central pillar!] Southwest Frith Moot is the longstanding annual regional Ásatrú/Heathen gathering hosted by Arizona's Wanderer Kindred's Chieftain Vince & Gythia Dani, which is held at a varying campsite, this year's June event again being up at a campground in the Coconino National Forest. [NorsePlay might bring the open table games, but it's Vince that brings the matchless Odinic knowledge!] Compared to last year's far more organic SFM , this year's had a great concrete schedule, plus a huge list of topics to choose from for initial lecturing & subsequent open discussion, the latter of which went in great & varied directions from many different voices among the more vocal & inquisitive attendees.   Yes, I was tapped to handwrite the above list of discussion topics and the below SFM schedu...

Yes, that's right Norsespotters: Max appears to be brandishing a Völva's Staff! Whether Maurice Sendak in 1963 CE perhaps saw the short iron wands from Norse archaeology/studies can't really be confirmed, and perhaps may have also been in part influenced by vintage troll tale illustrations for his creatures in  Where the Wild Things Are  is pure conjecture, but looking at the scepter compared to the find & reproduction below, it definitely could've been NorsePlay'd into the classic children's picture  book. [ NorsePlay acknowledges Nathaniel Morton's random T-shirt choice last week as inspiring this entry.] #     #    # 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 Mid...

In the Norse Lore there appears paired legendary drinking horns like the Whitings and Godmund's Golden Horns from Helga þáttr Þórissonar , or within archaeology like the Golden Horns of Gallehus, or the Early Anglo-Saxon ones at The British Museum, or these pictured Sutton Hoo horns. This raises the question of why two separate horns are needed. While the more obvious answer is that horns naturally come in pairs off the heads of bovines so why not keep them paired, yet more pragmatically unless you're double fisting it then you only need one at any given moment of drinking for your single mouth. My previous reading of Georges Dumézil gives us the rather well-fitting theory that Freyr's servants Byggvir & Beyla are poetically named for Barley & Bee , both associated with Freyr's agricultural harvest of plenty. Within The Pre-Christian Religions of the North V.3 (ch54, p1410, Lindow & Schjødt), we're presented with a picture of a pair of preserved drinki...

Now the Gods can be with you wherever you roll, plus save your ride's interior with their protective presence on a custom sunshade: This photo doesn't really do this sweet D'Aulaires double truck illustration from their famous book justice, but I had to show it in the NorsePlay-mobile 's front window to demonstrate how a practical item can represent. While I'm going to have to use the reverse reflective surface for the next few months of Arizona summer, when fall hits this is the side that'll get displayed. #     #    # 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...

Then while reading this series of books for a year, buried in a footnote on p1182 of The Pre-Christian Religions of the North V.3 , a passing reference happens to one-eyed Gaius Julius Civilis (25 CE – c. 1st Century) as potentially being the ancient figure that Odin's one-eyed-ness is based upon! Pulling back to look at how maybe this happens, as we see the chariots roll out of the Indo-European steppes and the migration moves over time & distance from Germany to Scandinavia to the UK to Iceland, the original stories gather details from histories, other mythic traditions, and creative retellings ( NorsePlay , anyone?), so this idea that the Gods are a displaced multi-particulate apotheosis or an agglomeration of aspects from ancient figures/locales/traditions is a possibility. Enter Civilis, Prince of the Batavi, rebel leader in Germania Inferior against the Romans in 69 CE, a notable one-eyed royal warrior who makes a stand and very Odinically celebrates defiant heroism by sa...