NorsePlay.

  This promotional poster series appeared last week in anticipation of this week's release of The Northman . Read our previous in-depth Norse Lore salient dagger point commentary on the preview . And the closeup here of Björk's elaborate headdress is just the evocative NorsePlay material we're looking for. See you this Thursday night at the theaters, NorsePlayers! #    #    # 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 cybervikingsphere is rife with excitement & premature criticism over the upcoming April release of The Northman . In the above trailer it looks like there's much to anticipate from this NorsePlay'd major motion picture, so let's extrapolate some points of interest about what & why that is: ⸶ Nicole Kidman & Anya Taylor-Joy. Holy Freyja's cats , we'd sail a longship across the Atlantic for those two. ⸶ Björk as the Seeress. It's so spot on to see the avant-garde songstress cast as a mystical Völva witch. In real life Björk's a destiny maker, a musical subgenre game-changer, a talented actress, and winner of Iceland's Order Of The Falcon. Love her. (And she left me candy with a note at my work once. True story.) ⸶ Sjón's co-screenplay. Sigurjón Birgir Sigurðsson, known by his mononymic, is an accomplished writer whose work contains elements of magical realism , a literary convention which has a striking resemblance to the matter-o...

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...

The sword dance of the Vestal Virgins (?!?) in front of the sacred tree in Vikingland! Mario Bava's Erik the Conqueror (1961) was an imitation of 1958's The Vikings , but done with Bava's flair for colour, lighting, and directness. Odin's Vestals were inserted to create more pagan handholds for an Italian audience, giving the heroes some forbidden fruit to court, and to feature the popular Kessler Twins, Alice & Ellen. #    #    # 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 developmen...