NorsePlay.

  We've NorsePlay'd our badarse Yeti drinkware with some sweet new cutout stickers from Beloved Viking Vinyl. Represent ! [our vinyl sticker design's available on request from Amy Dunloe at BelovedVikingVinyl on Etsy. Get your NorsePlay on whatever you want!] #    #    # 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 to offer,  do contact him .

  So we're not exactly sure why there's crazy mad Mjölnirs  getting whisked about a tower of ice chunks & bluish Northern Lights, but we just couldn't ignore what was going on. This book cover's from what seems to be an overly dramatic kids' chapter book series that includes collectible clue cards and an internet linked game, but we've no idea if it's actually any good. Rick Riordan of Magnus Chase fame also writes some installments of these, though not this one, but you'd think, right? And apparently the runes on the left foreground hammer read "butterfly"?!? So if you know, do leave a comment explaining how much NorsePlay is actually in this book. Thanks. #    #    # 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 & studi...

While NorsePlay has commented on an exceptionally remarkable descriptive/deed name  found in Sagas of Icelanders , only until we recently finished reading the Landnámabók   ( The Book of Settlements ) did we realize that such name appellations  were far less the rare exception.  Perhaps in a land of multiple Thorgeirs and Bjorns there needed to be some additional distinctions to set people apart. [map of settlers' names represented by ships.]  Yet there are also many descriptive names based almost solely on physical characteristics that may seem mean-spirited, though in a society where poetic skills are valued maybe such name-making was an unavoidable convention. NorsePlay presents a sample list of names from the Landnámabók   to increase the awareness of this practice: Hergils Knob-Buttocks Eystein Foul-Fart Tongue-Odd Mice-Bolverk Thorarin the Evil Hallgerd Twist-Breeks Havard the Lame Arnmod the Squint-Eyed Bjorn Butter-Box Hroald Sp...

I've successfully plotted 500 mappoints for my Map Of Midgard Project! This is the fourth update since  the initial blog post ,  the first update , the second update , and the third update . Currently I'm finishing up post-reading mappoints from the  Landnámabók  (the Icelandic Book of Settlements ), which features an exhaustive survey of 3,000 people and their 1,400 settlements, initially listing 435 men as the first settlers and then moving temporally & spatially forward with the usually genealogies that all Icelandic sources are self-documented with. While the historical importance of the Landnámabók is inarguable, I realize that the above numbers could sound instead like using a boring phone book to make a boring land survey, so I totally want to reassure you the project is category specific, and within that I'm very discerning in terms of using only the really fascinating locations for the Map Of Midgard , of which Landnámabók actually has many amazing nut...

The re-enactment group Andrimners Hemtagare decided to recreate Viking burials using living models. This series of photos with grave goods is beautifully stirring, and reminds us of the  Hávamál 's  stanza 76 which this entry gets its title from. Much has been posited about what's included in a grave find , whether the items actually do or do not have anything to do with the role of the interred, if the body is intentionally positioned, and  even how nearby graves may provide a greater postmortem narrative/ritual theater grouped context for Viking Era communities. Artistically, using living model s for this connects more profoundly. The viewer can sense that they are still alive, and identifies with that on a greater level than if say they were actual dead bodies, which has more the feel of an inanimate & incomplete person that one gets at a present day open casket funeral. The photos also make us question what it is we wish the objects in...

Artist Mirosław Kuźma does some terrific illustrations of archaeological grave finds : The above depicts a find from Birka in the 9th/10th century CE, known as "the lady with a pig's jaw". Much speculation has been projected onto this beheaded woman's jaw being shorn off and a pig's jaw being placed on her chest. From a grimly simple object lesson in silencing her in life by beheading and taking her jaw to ensure she stays silent in Hel with the pig jaw as a shaming/disabling replacement, to the living keeping her jaw as useful totem object that would continue to aid prophecy after her death with her head cut off as a ritual of mythic parity to the disembodied head of wise Mímir and the pig jaw associated with the Vanir who brought knowledge of the Volvas' seidr prophecy magic to the Aesir (though there are no volvic artifacts in this picture like the expected wand, like the one next to the body's arm in the next illustration). Note the hors...