NorsePlay.

While reading volume one of P. Craig Russell's graphic novel adaptation of Neil Gaiman's Norse Mythology , the immediate result from the death of primordial Ymir is shown in a panel as a giant wave of blood being released. This is so enormous that the flood kills all but two of the jötnar, which implies that Ymir's sanguine deluge also drowns the giantess wives of Buri & Bor, and collaterally their grandfather & father as well if such a flood is on so large of a cosmically uncontrollable scale. Such a consequence would then explain why after the waves settle it is the third generation of Odin, Vili, & Ve that are left to craft & rule the Níu Heimar, while Buri & Bor are unmentioned after that, and maybe settle why such a cosmic creature as Auðumbla is absent as well. This isn't necessarily the answer: There could just be missing stories, or the death of Ymir & universal creation passes forward ruler-worthy powers or status or both to the three ...

In the  Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends episode  The Vengeance Of Loki (1981 CE,  S1 E10), there's a total babe alert in deposed Frost Jotunness Queen Zerona : [blue jotunness fever, indeed!] In the show Zerona finds a quick admiration for the flirtatious & like-elemental Iceman who helps her out, first against usurper Ymir , and then to actually reclaim Jotunheim from Surtur himself! [watch this near-extraworldly romance unfold here !]  Collegiate Bobby's libidinous and not-quite altruistic gallantry in helping Zerona matches accounts of the desirability of some giant maidens. In the Norse Lore, when we look at the genealogy of the Æsir , we see an early intermarriage of proto-Gods Búri  & Borr, the former probably marrying/mating with an unnamed jotunness, and his son who marries giantess Bestla to produce Odin & his brothers. Later we have Thor with jotunness Jarnsaxa producing his three children, and ice maiden  Gerðr ...

  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 . #    #...

We recently read Graham Hancock's Magicians of the Gods: The Forgotten Wisdom of Earth's Lost Civilisation (2015 CE) , and while NorsePlay doesn't necessarily endorse Hancock's theories, we feel that he's got an interesting take on things that makes for provocative discussion. And we couldn't help looking for elements of the Norse Lore in some of what he puts forth, so behold the above photo of the Great Rift, a  dark obscuring mass that appears as a huge gap in the Milky Way galaxy, and think for a moment about Ginnungagap, the primorial void at the beginning of Norse Cosmology. There are a portion of academics who believe the Norse Gods, cosmic animals, and other elements are to be found in the heavens as constellations and other celestial bodies , but we suspect this is in part a combined astrological Greek and post-conversion overlay of placing deities in the sky "up there", whereas the Norse Lore shows them distinctly housed in Asgard or, as per ...

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 .

Sometimes the best bit in those Silver Age Thor comics was the short Tales Of Asgard stories in the back which were "Based upon the immortal legends of the Norse Gods!"  Well, with some seriously fast & loose  Marvel-style NorsePlay anyhow, but so fun to read. #    #    # 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 .

Album cover art for Yggdrasil (9)'s ‎ Prose Edda (2009). If we run with Gaiman's re-framing of cosmic giant Ymir as being primordially sexless, the androgynous head fits, and the being's skull is then employed to dome the World Tree . [Honestly we find the niche of Shpongle Music pretty goofy, but if you like techno-ish videogame soundtrack psychedelic, then Yggdrasil's your flavour of mead.] #    #    # 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...