NorsePlay.

There's a lot going on in this vintage David Andersen made Norwegian Sterling Silver Viking Brooch 1960s Saga Series piece. Looking at the details, we have a Torslunda-patterned figure wearing what appears to be a winged cloak, crescent moons & spirals adorning the upper lining, a square chestplate, a crosspiece binding the figure's feet, and some seemingly aerodynamic fins coming off the sides of its head. As stated in the reverse's engraving below, this figure was recast & reinterpreted from an artifact by famous Norwegian Silversmith David Andersen and released in a limited run. Given the visual cues this could be many things: Freyja in her falcon cloak with the huge chest placard as  Brísingamen  and the side headknotworks as an up-do , Loki in Freyja's borrowed cloak (in  Þrymskviða ) if we look closer at the encircled lips that could be a round scar from their having once been sewn shut (in  Skáldskaparmál ), perhaps even  Baldr as the ches...

There are a lot of podcasts, so the trick is to figure out which are worth listening to, but by the time you've worked your way through one or more episodes, you've either struck gold or taken a bullet, and just with the sheer number of 'casts, it's more likely you've bet on a loser. The prevalent mediocrity of this infotaining medium is that many instead rely on the idea of obnoxious morning show radio DJ personas rather than doing justice to their episode's subject, barely giving a surface level presentation that gets lost between the weak attempts at humour and self-indulgent prattle. Given all that, I should warn you away from Blurry Photos . ⸶  Yet before you completely take my word for it, bookending their Runes episode there's an unexpectedly funny NorsePlay audiosketch where Loki gives Odin a giftcard to Starbucks at the front-end, and a pretty clever Loki on social media skit at the back. So unless you know absolutely nothing about runes , don...

  One of the things we wanted in Assassin's Creed: Valhalla was more of the mythological Nine Worlds setting-within-the-synchronized-simulation-within-the-near-future where you were Odin-analog Havi. It's new  Dawn Of Ragnarök  expansion deals with a  jötnar invasion of Svartalfheim and Havi has to sally forth and deal with those foes, plus rescue his son Baldr. Dawn Of Ragnarök  delivers on March 10th, 2022 CE. #    #    # 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 devel...

Some would argue Walter Simonson's story & art delivery in Marvel's early 1980s run of The Mighty Thor was the comic's most epic. In 2014, Simonson again turned his hand toward a very different Thunder God for IDW Publishing in 12 issues of  Ragnarök , with Thor as an undead  jawless   draugr in a post-doomsday world were the Gods still not only lost, but the adversaries actually win, divvying up the wreckage of the Norse Cosmos amongst themselves, which was an amazingly grim NorsePlay. Simonson returned in 2019 to the same dark world for six more issues with  Ragnarök: The Breaking Of Helheim , where he answers further questions of how exactly the Æsir lost so much worse than they anticipated, what allowed Thor to "survive", and if Baldr was prophesied to return then where exactly is he, among others. From Simonson's afterword in issue #6: Consequently, the Norse myths are a goldmine for a storyteller. There's so much room for new stories which stil...

Meili, the God of Travel, is such an amazingly obscure catch within the Æsir Gods list. Yet there's a chance that Meili, one translation meaning “the lovely one”, is only a kenning for Baldr who tends to always get the epithet as being the brightest (read handsome/attractive) of the Gods. One of the few references is Thor claims " Meili" is his brother, though the obvious point-of-reference would be Baldr, and this reading of the word might only indicate that.  Odin alone has dozens of names, so it might reason that popular Baldr would have a few other proper names & epithets to his credit as well. This association's a Viktor Rydberg connection though, and while I love to entertain Rydberg's romanticist associations generally, he sometimes gets farwheeling in reaching to glue things together (but man, is it neat to think about). Also Rudolf Simek doesn't put this association in his Dictionary of Northern Mythology which tends to be a good reference & ...

NorsePlay knows if the developers for the Norse installment of God of War had read Saxo Grammaticus' Gesta Danorum where Baldur's an antagonist instead, they could have more easily ratified their adversarial use of him. As it is, this article shows insights into how the pair of writers approached the lore and Jackson Crawford's academic perspective on the material in the game. [Article by Alice Bell, fan art by David Fernandez.]  #    #    # 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...

Eastern-European woodcarving style meets Lewis Chessmen-esque in this set of Norse Gods made by Triumpho . At 13 cm each, one could imagine that these are the golden gamepieces found in the grass after Ragnarök. [Found on Etsy.] #    #    # 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 .