props to Brute Norse.

Here's the thing about Brute Norse: It's my favourite podcast.

Creator/host/philologist Eirik Storesund is the punk rock academician you never knew you needed. Irascible, hypercritical, and occasionally crass, all blendered into the unapologetically erudite. That mixing of dwarf-burnt motor oil into Nordic spring water makes you wonder how that even works.

BN's not the same 101/105 intro course level re-tread over so much that it's churned into the shallowest of indistinguishable muddy ground material that everyone else does. There's almost always a Gods/Runes/Sources/Hot Takes Review series of things when a vid/podcaster starts out with different levels of success, style, or research. And if you've been consuming the ever widening gyre of cybervikingsphere offerings, it becomes increasingly harder to find something different with serious depth or with just 5% of something you haven't already heard elsewhere.

Enter Brute Norse in 2017 CE. So far beyond the hipsterist post-modern posturing because he totally knows what he's talking about, and leaves the impression that there's just so much more that can't even be included, but what you got was the most insightfully aggregated of stuff. Sure, it might start out with this odd misspent youth in Rogaland drinking weird homebrew story, but then, *POW!*, here's where that teen ritual DNA sequences back to Iron Age Scandinavia or Ancient Germany, and suddenly the perspective & importance of what he's weaving stretches not only back but forward -- forward into what he neologizes is the Scandifuturist. I'd umbrella that under NorsePlay, yet it's also very much his own magic trick of walking backwards like a Sagawitch looking through the A-frame of her own legs, and for an audio-held moment the world flips, elongates, and you get to move through time anywhere along that temporal Norn-road via the subject he's covering for the next hour or so, but usually longer, point being that the traditions & beliefs & booze of the past has a place & use in the present & future. Hails to that!

Eirik pulls no punches on those off-colour commentated deeper dives into: the origins & ramifications of Valhalla as an afterlife venue, why Viking-clad Manhattan street denizen Moondog's legacy bears relevance to many modern artists & composers, an oral memoir of Saga translator Thormod Torfæus' rockstar life, a needed necrosectioning of what exactly those jerkface Nazis misappropriated from Norse Myth to mix into their so completely insane far larger poisonous salad bowl of Theosophist-inspired Atlantis origin racist propaganda manure, a wizarding world geographical survey of magic islands, and more. All of the episodes win since they're giving you serious rare pocket of knowledge about their focus and revealing dazzling comparisons around those subjects. I learn soooo much when I listen to Brute Norse, and even when I go "oh I knew that", Eirik puts it in such a way that usually makes you re-think about the context of what you thought you knew.

Anyway, I've felt that Brute Norse has always been like one of my personal secrets, this cosseted bit of treasure hidden away, though if you've talked to me at any time in the past five years of my nine year NorsePlay journey I've probably let it slip that yeah, Brute Norse is total fucking gold.

And now that I've talked it up, here's the other thing: Brute Norse is ceasing to podcast completely, or at least dialing the podcasting way back. And I'd've written him a "say it ain't so, mah drengr" email if I thought it would do any good, but Eirik is instead refocusing his efforts on his imprint Troll Cat Press, putting out these 'zine b'-slaps post-academic journal publications: 

Both of these are worth thrice their salt. The spellbook reminds me of a $1 checkout line Dell press Love Spells booklet I endlessly poured over as a kid, but it's got the guts of a medieval folk grimoire calling for all the strange votive ingredients you might imagine, which makes for great fun. And The Fool's Mirror's first issue on "Rock Bothering" is amaze with its tongue-in-cheek citrus sour coating a meaty knowledge 'n' artpunk bomb. The faux ads for Berserkers' Henbane, and the throwback porn mag style Bósa Saga Ok Herrauðs bottom page banner touting it as "A Norse legendary romance for adults" makes me wish they were for real (though in a sense they now are) or gleaned from a Viking alt-history. The whole thing's cover-to-cover brilliance, and the ersatz letters column of "Dr. Diógenés Jónsson" alone with its subversive advice to appease the local trolls is worth the price of admission. These publications take the sting out of the apparent end of the podcast somewhat, and NorsePlay looks forward to many more of Brute Norse's Troll Cat books & periodicals.

[Listen to the Brute Norse podcast, and go buy those current & forthcoming publications.]

Afterword: All this panegyric to Brute Norse's output aside, NorsePlay wants to thank Eirik for answering a series of 2019 CE emails about places mentioned during his podcast! Those replies were great help in stickpinning locations for my Map Of Midgard project. You have NorsePlay's gratitude & support!

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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.