NorsePlay.

In the Saga of Fridthjof the Bold ch 2, the hero-to-be despairs & evaluates his chances at courting the king's sister Ingibjorg: " Although I have a lesser title than her brothers, yet I believe myself to be no less worthy than them ." His sworn-brother Bjorn then immediately encourages him to action: " Let's do this! " NYT writer William Safire sources  American Heritage Dictionary editor  Joe Pickett as  tracing the modern usage to Korn's song Let’s Do This Now (2003 CE). But we seriously hate Korn, and NorsePlay takes exceeding pleasure in removing those linguistic laurels by pointing out the above saga quote is from circa 1300 CE . So suck it, Korn. Sooner than later no one will remember your awful band, but the skaldic constructs of this legendary saga will endure via this expression as long as the Gods stand. [... and he does marry her in the Temple of Baldr depicted in this amazing vintage NorsePlay'd illustration.] #    #    # Guil...

  We have a strong suspicion that when Alistair M. Hunter in 1963 CE wrote this installment of The Hardy Boys that it was inspired by two Viking placement in  North America  archaeological events : The purported  Kensington Runestone 's discovery in 1898 CE with its enduring subsequent debates, and explorer Helge Ingstad's finding the site of Leif Erikson's camp at L'Anse Aux Meadows in 1960 CE, the latter just four years earlier. Have any of you read this? If so, let me know how NorsePlay it is in your comment below. #    #    # 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...

Not that many elements of The Chronicles of Narnia aren't already from Norse Lore, given CS Lewis' Anglo-Saxon heritage and his mutual workshopping by co-Inkling writers' group peer JRR Tolkien whose own series draws its scope from love of that same Lore. So on top of that, note the visual origin of the Dawn Treader: The above illustration found in Annie Klingensmith's Stories of Norse Gods and Heroes  from 1894 CE finds visual continuance on every cover of Lewis' eponymous The Voyage of the Dawn Treader in 1952 CE and within the later TV & film adaptation . The Elliði, anglicized into Ellida, is originally a ship seized from defeating its trollish captain in the Saga of Thorstein Vikingsson (ch 23) and characterized as a huge vessel yet super fast, with planks magically grown together, and semi-sentient enough to obey given verbal commands. The Dawn Treader being  The Elliði aside, it's not like  Eustace getting all treasure happy over a golden armring...

In Doctor Sleep , Rose the Hat leads her traveling circle of Shining followers, The True Knot. To seek others that possess The Shining, Rose sits atop her RV on a platform they call the "watchtower" in her beaverpelt low crown top hat to cast herself astrally afar. And here is where director Mike Flanagan may have NorsePlay'd us. [ Swedish actress Rebecca Ferguson as Rosie the Hat.] There's some sagas where a seidkona or volva (that's a witch or prophetess) is hosted with honour as a wisewoman, usually wearing a conical lamb & cat skin hat as part of her needed accoutrements . She's normally asked about subsequent harvests, but then the Sagas become sagariffic when she tells the fate of someone in the room, which is when the story gets interesting. Sometimes these witches are hired to perform cursework, find a missing object, spy/remote-view, or attack an adversary from afar. [the wax figure from the Saga Museum in Iceland of Þorbjörg Lítilvölva {a desc...

In the Warhammer 40K Horus Heresy short story of The Harrowing , author Rob Sanders uses two neologisms, runebanks & runescreens , to describe devices of the technologically oriented Adeptus Mechanicus. We felt these two words alone were NorsePlay-evocative enough in terms of the implied uninterrupted use of runes , and wondered how we could runepunk that into our hardware/ software interfaces, so as to simultaneously NorsePlay the past, present, & future. Seeking manifestations of this, a few years ago designer MiTo made a limited-run of customizable keycaps called Canvas XDA. The alpha keys in the pictures below are the Dieter Rams rune kit based on the Elder Futhark alphabet.  (Rams was a German functionalist designer of the late 1950s to 1960s CE, whom MiTo named this modern runic product variation after.) [ergo-split futhark keyboard assembled by Xah Lee.] [wood-base version assembled by reddit user LukeNukem6.] With these in hand, code-skalds, it is ti...

In Landnamabok ( The Book of Settlements ) ch 379, Olivir Child-Sparer is so named as he chose not to " have children tossed by spear-point as was the custom of vikings at the time ." This sort-of non- deed/descriptive naming raises some questions, so let's NorsePlay this out: [Viking Spear handforged by That Works.] Aside from a prospective father not picking up his presented newborn from the floor in order to claim them thus casting outdoors the unworthy infant for slow exposure to the elements and/or wild animal predation,  what if  a quicker option besides  this was to spear them? [illustration from Northlanders : The Girl in the Ice .] This naming could also be solely  in a foreign context from when Olivir went a-viking seasonally, so perhaps on raids he spared spearing the newly-made orphans. In this case the resulting abandonment meant Olivir's name was critical of his possibly misplaced mercy. And in the sagas many men are taken down by vengeful d...

  [hey there Loki , Thor, Valkyrie, Hela , and Sif !] As the close of summer approaches, NorsePlay presents this Marvel-ous fanservice cosplay version of the Æsir having a weapon-bearing loungeabout in a backyard pool. This totally updates the seasonal  Sports Illustrated -style swimsuit issues Marvel would sometimes put out in the 1980s. Also, you can't see below the waterline, but Thor 's trunks have the four steel shield chest badges on them. It's the less-is-more/just-enough  minimal   details of this group cosplay that we appreciate. [photo by Adrienne Longo.] #    #    # 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 spearheade...

  As far as NorsePlay goes, the concept of Ragnaröks being physical objects is like mega-fusion bomb terrifying , and marketing them as Cracker Jack prizes in a cereal for trolls  to have, who as lesser jotuns will side on the destructive faction of entropy come Twilight of the Gods, is the worst idea ever! [Outside of NorsePlay, this troll-rific graphic design is the monster totem-driven brainchild of my visionary artist pal Daniel Davis, co-owner/troop leader of the Monster Rangers who have their own inclusive mythology & events . Get this design as a mini-poster here , and join the Rangers if you're feeling it.] #    #    # 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...

  We've NorsePlay'd our badarse Yeti drinkware with some sweet new cutout stickers from Beloved Viking Vinyl. Represent ! [our vinyl sticker design's available on request from Amy Dunloe at BelovedVikingVinyl on Etsy. Get your NorsePlay on whatever you want!] #    #    # 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 .

  So we're not exactly sure why there's crazy mad Mjölnirs  getting whisked about a tower of ice chunks & bluish Northern Lights, but we just couldn't ignore what was going on. This book cover's from what seems to be an overly dramatic kids' chapter book series that includes collectible clue cards and an internet linked game, but we've no idea if it's actually any good. Rick Riordan of Magnus Chase fame also writes some installments of these, though not this one, but you'd think, right? And apparently the runes on the left foreground hammer read "butterfly"?!? So if you know, do leave a comment explaining how much NorsePlay is actually in this book. Thanks. #    #    # 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 & studi...

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...

I've successfully plotted 500 mappoints for my Map Of Midgard Project! This is the fourth update since  the initial blog post ,  the first update , the second update , and the third update . Currently I'm finishing up post-reading mappoints from the  Landnámabók  (the Icelandic Book of Settlements ), which features an exhaustive survey of 3,000 people and their 1,400 settlements, initially listing 435 men as the first settlers and then moving temporally & spatially forward with the usually genealogies that all Icelandic sources are self-documented with. While the historical importance of the Landnámabók is inarguable, I realize that the above numbers could sound instead like using a boring phone book to make a boring land survey, so I totally want to reassure you the project is category specific, and within that I'm very discerning in terms of using only the really fascinating locations for the Map Of Midgard , of which Landnámabók actually has many amazing nut...

The re-enactment group Andrimners Hemtagare decided to recreate Viking burials using living models. This series of photos with grave goods is beautifully stirring, and reminds us of the  Hávamál 's  stanza 76 which this entry gets its title from. Much has been posited about what's included in a grave find , whether the items actually do or do not have anything to do with the role of the interred, if the body is intentionally positioned, and  even how nearby graves may provide a greater postmortem narrative/ritual theater grouped context for Viking Era communities. Artistically, using living model s for this connects more profoundly. The viewer can sense that they are still alive, and identifies with that on a greater level than if say they were actual dead bodies, which has more the feel of an inanimate & incomplete person that one gets at a present day open casket funeral. The photos also make us question what it is we wish the objects in...

Artist Mirosław Kuźma does some terrific illustrations of archaeological grave finds : The above depicts a find from Birka in the 9th/10th century CE, known as "the lady with a pig's jaw". Much speculation has been projected onto this beheaded woman's jaw being shorn off and a pig's jaw being placed on her chest. From a grimly simple object lesson in silencing her in life by beheading and taking her jaw to ensure she stays silent in Hel with the pig jaw as a shaming/disabling replacement, to the living keeping her jaw as useful totem object that would continue to aid prophecy after her death with her head cut off as a ritual of mythic parity to the disembodied head of wise Mímir and the pig jaw associated with the Vanir who brought knowledge of the Volvas' seidr prophecy magic to the Aesir (though there are no volvic artifacts in this picture like the expected wand, like the one next to the body's arm in the next illustration). Note the hors...

There's a tricky exchange in Moonrise Kingdom where precocious Lazy- Eye asks Scout Master Ward what he actually does for a living in order to undermine his authority by questioning his credentials, though it takes 1950s-raised straight-laced Ward a few lines to figure that out. Ward at first responds by saying he teaches math as a profession:  Lazy-Eye: What's your real job, sir?   Scout Master Ward: I'm a math teacher. Lazy-Eye: What grade?   Scout Master Ward: Eighth.   Lazy-Eye: Do you need a PhD for that?   Scout Master Ward: Lazy-Eye, no, but you know what? We're actually in the middle of something here, in case you didn't notice. One of our scouts is missing and that's a crisis. Anybody else? [...] Scout Master Ward [turns to Lazy-Eye]: I'm gonna change my answer, in fact. This is real my job. Scout master, Troop 55. Lazy-Eye's one-eyed-ness could just be a another quirky detail scripted by Wes Anderson & Roman Coppola...

There are points where history turns on a dime, that if an event had occurred with only a slight variation, outcomes of things could be radically, and sometimes wonderfully, different. NorsePlay draws your attention to the might-have-been Neo-Iceland of 2172 CE. Historically there was a mass exodus from Iceland in the late 1800s when the population suffered a marked poverty due to a run of bad weather, volcanic activity, and some less-than-attentive Danish rule. The  overflow of indentured workers and welfare resulted in actually offering one-way tickets to the New World. Given the strong & proud tradition of Icelandic citizenry, this was subject to much criticism & debate, but new lands & opportunities were overseas, so thousands left to find better lives for themselves, provided they survived the harsh attrition of a bare bones Atlantic ship crossing and the long unfamiliar trek to potential tracts hundreds of miles away from whichever docks they landed on...