NorsePlay.

This circuit of references is so unknowingly witty we had to post it. So the NorsePlay here runs thusly: The above comment on   Idris Elba's music video (yeah, we didn't know he was also a singer/ rapper either) references Elba being  Sexiest Man Alive for 2018 and casts that implication humorously into  Marvel Heimdall 's past. Thing is the comment just happens to inadvertently reference the Lay of Rig (ahem) or  Rígsþula , the Eddic poem which tells how early on in the world Heimdallr smoothly slips his way betwixt three couples and fathers the three classes of human beings. So incidentally that post is also totally correct in terms of the Norse Lore, and possibly adds to our  Bifrost  guardian a saucy modern kenning. And this all-inclusive lineage also makes Heimdallr Yo Daddy, so respect him, and remember there's a bit of his divine smoothness & perceptivity in all of us. #    #    # Guillermo M...

We loved Midsommar as a horror film, and that's its function.  While NorsePlay's all about media that uses the Norse Lore, as an incidental conveyance for Lore  Midsommer requires some explaining. [Spoilers happening now.] With the subgenre of folk horror, traditions & folklore become subverted & alienized to provoke uncertainty & fear. That's a horror film's job, and Midsommer co-opts four specific things from the Lore to help its story do this: 1. The Runes. Stitched in clothing, painted in folk art inside wall murals, handwritten in a book, and on two rather fake looking runestones, Midsommer uses the Runes as indecipherable roadsigns to sub/consciously make the viewer anxious about where the film's driving them. Aesthetically, the Runes by themselves evoke a mysterious & magical feel . In the Lore, the Hávamál explains that through Odin's self-sacrifice he gains knowledge of the Runes  as a writing system, as associative symb...

With the prevalence of fandom for Tom Hiddleston's portrayal of the God of Mischief (just search "Loki's Army" for the depth of it), Disney will be producing a dedicated series for their Disney+ channel. Most Disney TV shows are too over-the-top and the acting style is nearly always "on" in a bad way ( Descendents for a somewhat villain-centric example). Also the two Asgardian-related episodes of Agents of Shield really could've been better. Word is that the show will follow Loki through the Endgame timeline, but we feel it would be more of a hit to do the Kid Loki storyline from Journey Into Mystery . Maybe for second season, if this slated for 2021 show gets proper treatment. [Loki from the fun 1966-7 The Mighty Thor cartoon series.] #    #    # 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 b...

While the Taika Waititi Ragnarok installment was our least favourite for its divergence in overt comic tonality from the franchise 's tenor, it appears Marvel has retained Waititi for the next one and just announced that someone new will be cast as Thor in this fourth film: [Natalie Portman as Jane Foster as Thor.] The concept of Lady Thor successfully hit the comics in 2014, and with MCU's Thor gone a'viking with the Guardians of the Galaxy crew, it seems Natalie Portman's going to heft the hammer . We just hope Kat Dennings will come along as her divine intern and that the director will funnel the humour just to Darcy Lewis where it belongs. #    #    # 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 ...

My bestie sent me this picture of ScandiKitchen 's NorsePlay'd cup. But does a  Star Wars pun from this renowned London eatery actually have anything real to do with Norse Lore? Yes, actually. Aside from the day launching resilience one gets from their cuppas of morning & afternoon  black tips   tea,  that Norse Force is Megin. Megin is the force of intent gathered in the horn ritual , the spiritual energy you're gifting the Gods when you blót. If performed in a pleasing fashion, and if the Gods do accept your gift of Megin, then this exchange ensures that the Norse Gods Be With You in the force of those intentions. [photo by Justin Beltran .] #    #    # 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, passionat...

The short art video Æ'siala ià Skjugge by Danish Heathen  runecrafter  Ræveðis . We love how creepy cryptic this is, with the videography feel of a 1990s industrial music video on VHS, married to Trollhunter /The Blair Witch Project/Marble Hornets horror film aesthetics. #    #    # 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 Norse Mythos have been part of the  Dungeons & Dragons game from the beginning , and as part of the new Priest class for the 1989's 2nd Edition, this super specific player's accessory came out. We couldn't help but notice that this cleric's hailing of the hammer has probably paid off in a magical +5 version . [ Thor 's in-game stat for his  Mjölnir  actually pounds for 4d8 damage.] #    #    # 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,...

Extreme NorsePlay: Overthinking It 's essay's extrapolation's that the genre transcending anime Cowboy Bebop has a subtext implying that cyber-eye'd Spike is Odin, and one-handed Jet is Tyr.  We'd blow that off as a ridiculous overlay ... except the author namebombs Georges Dumézil's writings in his first paragraph , and we love that  Dumézil , so we were in for the mental ride just to see where author Stokes decided to bounty hunt this weaving of ideas. Read it here . Carrying this association forward, we would also additionally posit: That greedy grifting free spirit Faye's gold lustful Gullveig. If it were just Jet & Spike, the post-cop (Tyr's justice), post-criminal (Odin's Bölverk) pair would understand each other and quest harmoniously, but throw Faye into the Bebop and suddenly the values & reasons get messy. And our Solar System is made of Nine Worlds. And Jet could be pruning a small bonsai Yggdrasil in an Odinic micromode...

Or Freya versus Sif? These three NorsePlay'd characters  along with different poly/monotheistic choices   are available in Fight of Gods , the fighting game where divinities holmgang off videogame-style . Sif gets oddly fitting golden wheat-related special moves, whereas Freyja's been overly bishōjo'd. Created by Taiwanese indie developer Digital Crafts for Windows & Nintendo Switch. Any of you played this? #    #    # 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 develop...

Of course we realized that holiday ham, whether for Yule or Ēostre, is the modern Heathen animal sacrifice for the Gods and the feast meat you share with them at your table. And while we already saw the cool little Thoresque hammer pictured above through the lens of our Heathen Worldview, it took Eric "Word-Weaver" Sjerven in his Raven's Call " Yuletide Special " video to connect the action of smashing & sharing the candy peppermint pig to animal sacrifice , which is an American  German  and Pennsylvania Dutch popular holiday ritual adaptation, which we can now also recognize as a symbolic b lót . #    #    # 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 Midgar...

Examine this NorsePlay with me: Black Metal's signature look is corpsepaint. Black Metal hails from Norway and, if we watch the documentaries about the subgenre's roots, has nothing to do with the press' sensationalistic misconstruals of Satanism, but with reconnecting to a Nordic pre-Christian past. The  often-malign  foraying corpses of Norse Lore are the Draugr. Since Black Metal bands & their followers' ritualistic near-necroshamanic painting practice at least partly stems from a willful feeling for a lost past, this mirrors the Draugr's protectiveness of its valued artifacts, and a postmortem renascence of ancient ideas from within the mound waiting to emerge once again. [photo from Daughters Of Darkness  book by Jeremy Saffer, Draugr logo from Hertfordshire, England band.] #    #    # Guillermo Maytorena IV knew there was something special in  the Norse Lore when he picked up a copy of the d'Aulaires'  Norse...

As of this writing, I've plotted 200 mappoints for my Map Of Midgard Project! This is the first update since the original blog post  as 200's an achievement of remarkable single-handed progress in & of itself. Note in the above screencap that Iceland resembles a cartographic porcupine mostly because they recognize & love their landvættir , and they're saga-riffic about recording their past. There remain 270+ locations left to attempt to map, and this number grows as more source/secondary/tertiary materials are mined for Lore-relevant sites. Subscribe & stay tuned to NorsePlay for more updates & announcements about my Map Of Midgard Project. Description Landvættir .  "There must be ready and generous cooperation between experts in different fields of knowledge if we are to make profitable use of the wealth of new information piling up concerning the pagan religion from which the myths emerged."   ~ H.R. Ellis Davidson #...

Yes,  I built a NorsePlay branded axe throwing target!  So if you know me, come over and bring your hand axe and marksmanship skills. [right in the targets!] (And if you don't know me, bear in mind that I threw that axe into the target with deadly accuracy .) Using only found-on-the-streets of Tucson pallets & discarded lumber, about $9 worth of drywall screws, a four random toggles, wood glue, various cans of leftover clearish coat spraypaints for weatherproofing, some lines of brushed acrylic, and about two weeks of post-dayjob summer evenings to draft & drill it into existence. The small carved bear head I adorned the top with just for bearserker -spiration. Note that coloured pallets tend to be rentals, and by the time I learned that I'd already affixed the blue one inextricably into the project. Whoops. Other urban wood-hunting tip: Do not get pallets that have "MB" stamped on them as they've been fumigated with toxic methyl br...

Alan Lee's Beowulf in Heorot from David Day's  Castles (1984 CE, illustration is verso half of the double page spread). #    #    # 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 bearded axe gets a serious tactical modern NorsePlay upgrade by American Kami . We love DJ Urbanovsky's practical design, military aesthetic, and Viking re-visioning. #    #    # 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 .

Norse Mythology family tree by Humon Comics. The style of this is iconically reductivist, yet still charmingly winning, though we believe Ymir should be more ancient sleeping mountain as opposed to an infant and the infanticide that would falsely imply. What's always interesting to note in these is how closely related the different factions are. Thor the jotun slayer is himself half-giant as many Aesir, and the Aesir marry often from the select of jotun maidens, yet despite familial ties the enmity overrides that, and defines the nonusversal conflict of entropic forces wanting to breakdown everything because that's just what they do, versus creators' constant struggle & vision to preserve an established existence for everyone. #    #    # 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 th...

The  BBC School Radio Viking Sagas  are simplified and slightly compromised versions of Norse Mythology made for children. We're delighted to see this presented in terms of an elementary curriculum package with activities and songs. #    #    # 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 Marvel geography of Asgard re-imagined by MovieManiacsDesign on Etsy. #    #    # 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 .

Muscovite cosplayer Darina Rarog NorsePlays the drama as a shieldmaiden . The blood at the hairline begs the question if an arrow winged her, or if it's arterial spray from an archer left in her trail of death. #    #    # 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 .

Actress Zita Johann as The Viking Maiden from the cut sequence known as The Saxon Warrior . This flashback has the Austrian film star's character sacrificing one of her past incarnations before the events of the famous Universal horror film, The Mummy (1932). The footage has been lost. #    #    # 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 .

Take Conan , Icelandic Sagas, the cartoon styling of Bone , shading of Mignola , and you have Barbarian Lord . We just read this, and if you like anything in the above list, the cross-pollinated tropes of berserker s, trolls , witches, farmstead neighbor feuds, and Viking poetry will totally win you. And like a saga, there's a no-nonsense plot point-to-point presentation that keeps the pace lean and satisfying at the same time. Go read this. It rules. #    #    # 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 rese...

Skade from The Last Kingdom 's Season 3!  Actress Thea Sofie Loch Næss opens the show as a merciless magical threat, gouging eyes, and stilling tongues on the edge of her seax. Appropriately named after the Goddess Skaði whose etymology comes from damage/harm/injury/wound, she addresses the powers and remote people as though they haven't any distance from her, which is both frighting, impressive, and grimly alluring. #    #    # 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...

Sideshow Collectibles has a Court of the Dead property of which we're not quite sure whether its focus is supposed to be high-end statuary, boardgames, or comic books. Somewhere in this commercial construct's a stunning dark fantasy NorsePlay: Kier,  Valkyrie of the Dead . The idea of a more deathly chooser of the slain jibes with the  Darraðarljoð 's grim imagery of the Valkyries weaving the unfolding of an upcoming battle with the entrails of men on a loom. This style choice also agrees with the compromised Valkyries in the recent God of War 's side missions, and the sexy death experienced referred to in The Odin Brotherhood . #    #    # 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, launch...