NorsePlay.

When the Raven Flies/Hrafninn Flýgur  (1984 CE) is considered by some to be the best Icelandic film of all time. After viewing it, we can totally see why. Though said to be cinematically styled after samurai film Yojimbo (1961 CE) and the Spaghetti Westerns of the mid-1960s ( WtRF is also classified into a group of films derivatively called Cod Westerns [heh!]), it is distinctly of the Icelandic Saga tradition, which historically & artistically precedes both those classifications by nearly 800 years in writing and 1,000 years orally. The first part of the Raven Trilogy (also known as the Viking Trilogy ), acclaimed director & Icelandic national personality Hrafn Gunnlaugsson weaves a solid story of Viking brutality, vengeance, mistrust, and consequences that recalls some aspects of both Njal's Saga & Gisli's Saga in the telling. The subsequent two films are only loosely connected in story, but are thematically bonded. And we recommend them to all those who m...

While NorsePlay has commented on an exceptionally remarkable descriptive/deed name  found in Sagas of Icelanders , only until we recently finished reading the Landnámabók   ( The Book of Settlements ) did we realize that such name appellations  were far less the rare exception.  Perhaps in a land of multiple Thorgeirs and Bjorns there needed to be some additional distinctions to set people apart. [map of settlers' names represented by ships.]  Yet there are also many descriptive names based almost solely on physical characteristics that may seem mean-spirited, though in a society where poetic skills are valued maybe such name-making was an unavoidable convention. NorsePlay presents a sample list of names from the Landnámabók   to increase the awareness of this practice: Hergils Knob-Buttocks Eystein Foul-Fart Tongue-Odd Mice-Bolverk Thorarin the Evil Hallgerd Twist-Breeks Havard the Lame Arnmod the Squint-Eyed Bjorn Butter-Box Hroald Sp...