NorsePlay.

If a Buddha statue can be found in a Swedish Vendel Era grave, the implications for even further East-West travel becomes an open question. (Field archaeologist Cat Jarman explores this expansive thought in her recent book  River Kings: A New History of the Vikings from Scandinavia to the Silk Roads  (2021 CE), which is in our TBR pile.) So if a Norse trader/raider went East on the Silk Road to Beijing & then further, or say a ronin/diplomat Samurai went West into China or further on those same roads, or maybe a Viking raiding ship made an arctic passage down to Japan, then just maybe this cross-cultural Viking vs. Samurai duel from Deadliest Warrior might've actually gone down: Watch the duel here: [Episode aired April 14th, 2009 CE] I was impressed with the efficacy of chainmail versus the much-vaunted katana, compared to the Viking sword easily cutting through the 2" x 4". While the computer simulated best-of-1,000-battles came up with the dramatized result, I...

NorsePlay wants to put forth the original & doctorate-worthy observation that there could be a historical throughline betwixt medieval Scottish Sword Dances, Viking Age Berserker Rituals, and the Vendel Period Spear Dancers. Our NorsePlay hypothesis runs thus visually, backtracking with the Scottish Sword Dances (15th c. CE): [ Go, lassies, go! ] In this tradition there's also the halberd-like  Lochaber Axe used in a dance, and a Dirk Dance, the latter termed a "battle dance" with "dueling" performers. The sword dance is done without touching the crossed swords before battle, which if successful is an indicator of imminent victory ... or death if not.   Further back, we have tentative guesses that the Viking Bersærkergang  was a ritually evoked religious ecstatic state reached via a frenzied dance , either pre-battle or done just before battle in front of assembled enemies, which would double as a psychological warfare technique. And at earliest, the Odinic ...

Perspective check yourself on that girl: For Gunnlaug Serpent-Tongue, Helga the Fair's his childhood intended, and his inability to let her go eventually costs him his life in a duel with her husband, which Gunnlaug wins but then dies from his wounds. Way before this tragedy, his father advises him: " And don't set so much store by yearning for just one woman. Behave as though you haven't noticed, and you'll never be short of women. " Yet if he'd listened to his just-play-it-cool Dad, then we might not still be reading his saga 800 years later, and one can make a case for both acceptance of his own unavoidably fatal desire-bound Wyrd and that rival poet/husband Hrafn Önundarson certainly had his own death coming by opportunistically mis-bargaining his way into his marriage. Or, to NorsePlay this, would Gunnlaug's poetically skilled tongue otherwise have gone on to weave its way into the hearts of even more becoming & worthy ladies, princ...

With gritty sensibilities framed in epic yet humanistic stories, writer Brian Wood scripted Northlanders for DC Entertainment's Vertigo Comics imprint for a run of 50 issues from 2011-2012. There was some talk of a film for a while. This cover is from our favourite issue featuring a duel of champions in the Viking Age. #    #    # 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 .