hey girl, put down that runebook & coffee so we can NorsePlay together.


The pictured runebook's titled The Codex Regius: A Reconstruction in Medieval Futhark Runic Script from Ancient Artifacts and marketed as "this hardbound Codex Regius is specifically designed to be close to what you might find if you were to be directly working with the original sources." While a book of runes is what one might imagine finding this major source of Norse Lore's Poetic Edda in, this product's manifestation is total NorsePlay. The understandable misunderstanding here's pretty funny as the vellum manuscript source copy's actually written in medieval Old Icelandic using Latin letters in Carolingian-insular script circa ~1270 CE:

[page 5 of the Codex Regius, where Völuspá ends and Hávamál begins! Scan housed at germanicmythology.com.]

Sure, the Poetic Edda's verses are the ur-stories of Norse cosmology and Lore-wise if runes are the first alphabet given to man for writing then it stands to reason that they would use runic, though for an oral performative skaldic storytelling culture writing things down wasn't a standard practice (though there are runic inscriptions and even a couple runic codices, but these latter are really exceptions, if not remaining survivals from post-Conversion & Reformation). Yet maybe this book fills that gap in a NorsePlay way that didn't exist before, to fulfill a wishful expectation that we still want our stories in a book of runes set down by Bragi himself.

[The runic Codex Regius is an Etsy find available from mountbuild.]

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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 then 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 employment/opportunities in investigative mythology,  field research, or product development to offer, do contact him.


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