NorsePlay.

Somewhere within a long & very, very speculative post I found, there was a supposition about Ask & Embla being made from Ash & Elm . Given the prehistorical scale of mythic time the NorsePlay was that they're the two types of wood that get paired up as the two Mesolithic hunter choices to make a bow & arrow. Ash grows straight and so is ideal for arrows. Elm is flexible and is used for bows. While I haven't seen this association repeated anywhere else, it does address the why behind the choices of those specific trees, why they compliment each other, and why the specific gender assignations are applied to types of trees via their uses. This attractive speculation aside it could just  more simply   be a verbally alliterative reason, or a localized growth factor of those trees being complimentarily  found together in a certain area, but perhaps it could be all three of the above. [the Hedeby/Haithabu (825~850 CE) bow illustration above and actual...

  While we've mentioned the first chronological Conan story  The Frost-Giant's Daughter (1934 CE), which was later altered & published as Gods of the North (1953 CE), there is something in Howard's Northmen 's lore that evokes an interesting NorsePlay when we find Conan as part of a skirmish in the Æsir - Vanir War. Howard's fiction suggests that Ymir is regarded as the God of the Jotuns , who is still sacrificed to and called upon, and if we NorsePlay this idea into the Norse Lore, the Gods versus Giants rift gains an even more sensible irreparability. If the creation story encounter had gone the other way with Ymir killing the divine grandsons of Búri instead, it may have been the Aesir seeking an exile-like home on the outskirts of the worlds, and been as equally unforgiving in their relations with their ascendant giant rulers . One also shudders to think that humanity might have become a thrall race to the giants, or worse, livestock . #    #...

  [ Voluspå fresco depiction from 1933 CE by Axel Revold & Per Krohg.] The NorsePlay inspired by this mural of the World Tree at the Nasjonalbiblioteket in Oslo, Norway, is within the angular elements of the roots & branches which create sharply divided spaces. This provokes the question that what if Yggdrasil isn't only the unifying structure that holds the Nine Worlds in place, but is also the mechanism which divides those worlds and keeps them apart in differing dimensional spaces? Odin, Vili, & Ve are definitely wise enough to come up with such a dual purpose cosmic tree. And is the formidability of this structural holder/divider such that after emplaced it keeps Odin & other Aesir from spatially seeing other locations that then requires them to travel & discover that additional knowledge?  Also, like those angled curling branches, if space is folded-in upon itself, is that division of worlds then partly a mutually shared space and inste...

Odin crafts the dome of night from Ymir's skull ! We like the barely visible line drawing of the Allfather 's thoughts of the skull as building material being executed into the overlaying reality of the scene. [illustration by Troy Howell from Favorite Norse Myths .] #    #    # 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 .

The ice met the fire in the Yawning Void where the ice waves flowed & built into frosts upon frosts. [Our NorsePlay inspired by a picture of Europe's largest glacier .] #    #    # 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 .