NorsePlay.

The Norse Lore has assigned hall names for many of the Gods' residences, but an omission I've always been curious about is where Bragi dwells. While Bragi, in a very Baldr-like way, is always welcome everywhere thanks to his storytelling abilities and the potential to glorify his host in poetry, it's never mentioned where he actually goes home to. Functionally Bragi's partly described as a meet-and-greeter for the honoured warriors who come into Valhalla. One could suppose that maybe he heralds them upon entry, perhaps naming & enumerating their martial deeds for those already in the hall. But this MC duty still doesn't actually place Bragi as living in Valhalla. There's also the possibly that he perhaps instead moved in with  Iðunn . One attestation from  Hrafnagaldr Óðins places Iðunn as descending from elves, as one of "Ivaldi's elder children", and as a dís who dwells in dales. Those descriptors would make Iðunn at least part elf and poss...

  So unless you bought the Cosmic Cube in a suitcase limited edition box set of the Phase 1 Marvel movies, you never saw this remade special silhouette art paper sleeve for the blu-ray of Thor . This is where NorsePlay has just saved you $200USD, and you could always print the above on a template to make one. You're welcome. (No, we didn't buy the fancy suitcase -- we instead have the 4K/BR steelbook combo pack, thank you.) #    #    # 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 t...

Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1986 CE), Argentinian poet, writer, and national librarian, is a globally recognized giant of Latin literary  erudition. His essays, mind-bending short stories, and bittersweet verses almost all manage to reach & grasp something beyond themselves, unveiling a cosmic truth. And this last aspect is the NorsePlay & insight that Borges recognized within the Edda s, as a number of his works fondly explore the Norse Lore. In the earliest times, which were so susceptible to vague speculation and the inevitable ordering of the universe, there can have existed no division between the poetic and the prosaic. Everything must have been tinged with magic. Thor was not the god of Thunder; he was the thunder and the god . ~ from Borges' The Gold of the Tigers The literary parallels here between just-so events in Latin magical realism & surrealism being presented in a matter-of-fact way is equally found in the sagas & histories where troublesome zombie ghost...

Four-hundred years before Shakespeare's The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark , Saxo Grammaticus' Gesta Danorum: The History of the Danes gave us the legend of Amleth, which is precisely where the bard sourced his story. In 1994 CE the interesting NorsePlay film of Prince Of Jutland also titled Royal Deceit, and later home release re-packaged as Prince Of Denmark and  Thrones & Empires , was made to place the story within its original context, being shot in a reconstructed Viking site in Denmark by Danish director/co-screenwriter Axel Gabriel Erik Mørch.   [so very Game of Thrones mis-marketed, right?] Starring a young Christian Bale, queenly Helen Mirren, fratricidal Gary Oldman, and a dollfaced Kate Beckinsale, the cast is quality, and Freddie Jones of Krull fame has a nice supporting role as the landed apple farmer Bjorn. The tension betwixt nephew Bale and usurper uncle Oldman as the former feigns madness to avoid being assassinated, while the l...

Given that the largest NorsePlay on the pop cultural block is Marvel's The Mighty Thor, it goes hand-in-hand that his rival for the throne of Asgard, Loki, has gained a near-equal amount of attention, and with Tom Hiddleston's charming performance upping the character's fanbase to an unprecedented level, it makes sense to fan service that army of horny-headed followers with a Disney+ series . Yet smart commercialism aside to gain MCU moviegoers streaming subscriptions for an exclusive Marvel-based show, Loki really manages to deliver a self-exploring complex character in an expansive MCU pocket-world, with all the sci-fi time-travel dynamics that'll bend your head like a mobius strip with their consequences. [Okay, spoilers from here on as this is a post-viewing commentary.] As with any time-travel story, self-determination versus set fate is often an invisible force the protagonist is up against. Unfortunately there's a whole outside-of-time bureaucracy, the Tim...