NorsePlay.

Sometimes when people are struck by lighting  it leaves a phenomena known as Lichtenberg figures, branching lightning-like shapes where the current has caused blood vessels to burst, sometimes permanently scarring the skin. [crafted by user blabbit's father.] This lightning effect naturally occurs in what's called fractal wood , and can also be artificially made by attaching conductive rods to a transformer, juicing it up and letting the patterns burn into the wood's surface. When lightning strikes certain places, it leaves what's called fulgurite , fused tubes or masses in and sometimes above the ground, also informally called "petrified lightning". The high-voltage crystallization effect can be reproduced like the skin or wood above to make "lightning in a bottle" designs within acrylic spheres, blocks, or panels. [Note use of the hammer.]  All are the impactful fingerprints of Thor leaving his mark. #    #   

Artist Will Wright explores a form of NorsePlay he titles "Folk Graff", an attempt to heal "the cultural timeline from the Neolithic period to present day via contemporary street art." After being loaned a 1983 Porsche 944, Wright bought toy versions to redesign into a Northern European shaman's "Wizardmobile"! We love the elder futhark racing stripe, and he's tagged the doors with a single eye -prominent raven logo. On top of his urban designs, Wright's stated wish to "heal" not only corrects the misuse of Nordic culture by racists & fascists, we also see it as helping to fill in the huge temporal gap between the conversion and modern day by establishing an artful & aesthetic beachhead we can move forward from, and that's something the greater concept of NorsePlay totally agrees with and supports in its very idea. [go and see Will Wright's awesome portfolio & wares here .] #    #    # Guillerm

We took a break from our long four-year reading-fest of comparative Norse Mythology & Norse Lore source materials to book club a ScandiNoir novel by Yrsa Sigurdardottir, Þriðja táknið (translated as The Third Symbol) , or re-titled for English audiences, Last Rituals . Given the goetic-looking runestave symbol and mention of witchcraft flaunted on the cover, we're promised spookiness from the get go, though given this is a first novel in an intended series, we spend a lot more than a goodly amount of time establishing our lead character's voice as a financially challenged divorcée mother-of-two's status as a l awyer-cum-detective . As a grown late-30s-something with what one would presume much criminal defense experience in what's arguably the most feminist country in the world, attorney Thóra Gudmundsdóttir's surprised reactions due to her underexposure to body modifications, BDSM, and other subculturally outré elements in the mystery comes off l

After completing the Orkneyinga Saga: The History of the Earls of Orkney , we couldn't help but notice that at Earl Rögnvald Kali Kolsson's stop in Narbonne how he composes court-like but still Heathen-like battle imagistic poetry to celebrate their Queen  Ermingerd's   beauty. In verse  Rögnvald   declares his adoration of her, and of the personal attention that she gives him as a guest in her realm. And even far after  Rögnvald  insists on leaving to complete his Mediterranean adventure, despite Ermingerd's courtiers strongly suggesting he marry her , he and the more poetically disposed of his men still continue to sing of her worth, hoping that she will hear these tales of their deeds as they head eastwards, and in their words she becomes a paragon of beauty that inspires their actions, an unforgettable ideal . Yet it's never explained why Earl Rognvald doesn't return to southern coastal France and reconnect with his favoured Queen (well, techni