NorsePlay.

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...

NorsePlay would like to blast our own Gjallarhorn about the praise & applause we received from the attending Southwest Heathen community over our auction donations to support this year's Southwest Frith Moot : [Zoomorphic terminal'd brass neck torc, unattributed Níu Heimar painting, and Járngreipr oath ring gripping necklace (combo collab item with an American Heathen hammer).]  [Because NorsePlay loves books ! Note that sweet library cover vintage hardback of Padraic Colum's The Children Of Odin , a Brit coffeetable 1968 CE edition of H.R. Ellis Davidson's Scandinavian Mythology , and Nancy Marie Brown 's Ivory Vikings !] Southwest Frith Moot is the longstanding annual regional event hosted by Arizona's Wanderer Kindred's Chieftain Vince & Gythia Dani, which is held at a varying campsite, and was up in Pinedale, AZ, a couple weekends ago. [Why yes, that is a NorsePlay logo 'd banner hanging at the center of the main tent.] Featuring two days o...

After winning the Southwest Frith Moot Viking Games' Knife Throwing event in 2019, I thought I could possibly win that again last weekend in Arizona's White Mountains, along with the prestigious Axe Throw by building our very own backyard NorsePlay Axe Throwing Target and putting in the practice. So many, many drinking horns of mead and late into the night before the Viking Games, SFM co-organizer & Chieftain of Wanderer Kindred Vincent Enlund says he'd like a way to include Kubb, the celebrated Viking lawn game, but without it having to take days like the annual championships up in Eau Claire, because we've serious Heathenry lecture s scheduled for the afternoon, otherwise Kubb's a no-go. Bragi's tongue's suddenly in my mouth and I say: "Let's invent Speed Kubb! We can reduce the kubbs from 5 to only 3 with no throw-ins, only give the players 3 batons so that way the opponent at least gets one turn, half the playing field, and keep the King ...

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...

While on my way to this year's Southwest Frith Moot , I decided to take a detour to go to my Map Of Midgard 's stickpin for The Mogollon Troll and have a proactive investigative mythologist looksee both for the monster that makes this central Arizona highland rim its home, and a hidden cave potentially filled with legendary giant-kin treasures! [ Map Of Midgard rollover for The Mogollon Troll stickpin from the Jötnar data layer!] Known as "The Mogollon Monster", given his physical description in the screencap above, if we lens him through the Norse Lore this totally makes him a troll, so I've used that recontextualization & worldview to place him on my map as The Mogollon Troll. As I drove up, it started to rain. At first intermittently, then for wetter spates. While I'd read online the unpaved road was an unchallenging washboard, the reality was somewhat rougher than that, took slower going, and had logging truck traffic that if mistimed around some cor...