NorsePlay.

From previously commenting on Iðunn 's apples of immortality, NorsePlay reads that it's the goddess who makes the apples work and not the orchard or trees themselves that are left behind during her abduction by Þjazi where the Gods age in her absence, otherwise they would just go pluck the apples themselves. The question this raises in terms of NorsePlay is thusly:  If the crucial factor is how Iðunn keeps the apples, then can this preparatory process be rediscovered & applied to make our very own apples of immortality? Is there a secret agricultural procedure or cooking recipe that would make any apple a key to limitless youth & longevity? Or is the fruit's conversion within the  specific  construction of a special storage cask for altering apples? If so, can an apple a day forever keep old Elli & deathly Hel away? [Iðunn  from the amazing Johan Egerkrans'  Norse Gods (2017 CE). Differently depicted as an older beauty with her sharply drawn...

Sometime in 2017 CE, NorsePlay left a plus-tagged Google+ comment that directed the educational company The Great Courses to Old Norse Philologist Jackson Crawford, and I suggested that they commission him to do a course for them. Now in 2022 CE, that very course has materialized, and I'd like to think that NorsePlay's comment as a cultural actor was responsible for making that happen. Pretty much within the first few weeks of release, I ponied up my $75 (yes, I know they often have $35 sales, but we wanted to review it now. [And that talking squirrel running up & down that World Tree, All-Daddy, I want that squirrel NOW!]) [ No, no you really don't want that talking squirrel. ] So the pre-buying bottom line question would be: Can I get the same information from the same source by watching his YT channel's 400+ videos? Mostly. Yet, like a university course, the level of organization in these 24 half-hour lectures partitions things in an orderly fashion that hitting ...

  When we think of Norse Mythology we think of the "nor-" prefix for the North, that these colder climes specifically inspired or fostered the Norse Lore. And yet, as we look at the Norse Cosmology with its whole fiery world of  Múspellsheimr , the raging volcanos of Iceland's Midgard ian landscape, the lava tube cavern of  Surtshellir, the geysirs & hot spring pools, we find many heat-centric constructs. Add the Viking explorations of the Mediterranean into arid Northern Africa & the Middle East, such encounters had to open up hotter climates to be contextualized within their Heathen Worldview. To NorsePlay: When Odin, Vili, & Vé create the Nine Worlds, this accounts for all Midgard's landscapes and attendant weathers, which includes the deserts. These same areas would also have attendant Landvættir, the spirits that occupy that land, plus  Álfar , Hulderfolk, D vergar, all as forces that support & interact with most portions of Midgard . ...

Listening to Gifts of the Wyrd podcast, Heathen urban planner Paul Mercutio of the North River Kindred recontextualizes the city as just as much a landvættir  connective space. To paraphrase Mercutio's thoughts: In the wild there are trees, rivers, lakes, mountains, and all of that is majestic and obvious in terms of connecting with nature. And going outside's all well & good, but in the intervening 1000+ years, man has gone from agricultural to urban and is unlikely to perform any sort of radical reversal on a large scale, so we have to find connective praxis in the modern context of the city's environment. If we look at the materials of the city we find that concrete was once air, water, sand, gravel, and eight other bits of earth cemented to make that concrete. Glass is just a sheet of heated sand. Steel is iron and carbon. These are all natural elements reformed into what makes a city. Also, your utilities are tubed, piped, and wired in what resembles a root syst...

This sweet 1,000-years of Icelandic Parliament  stamp set minted in 1939 CE reminds me of the interior art adorning The Viking Village's hotel restaurant Fjörugarðurinn from my trip to Iceland , with their awesome Höfðaletur (head letter)  font. The images, mostly historical & some modern, are done in a matching style that bridges a millennium to look as though they belong together. #    #    # 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 h...

The question we're confronted with is: Is The Northman the best Viking visual media yet made? Despite all the previous internet objections (for whatever that noise is worth), the bar for this is History Channel's inarguably successful  Vikings (2013-2020 CE). Director Robert Eggers mixes the supernatural moments of magical realism from  Vikings with the pastoral setting from  Prince Of Jutland (1994 CE), while screenwriter Sjón pulls from the Icelandic tropes of When the Raven Flies (1984 CE), using Saxo Grammaticus' Amleth legend from  Gesta Danorum: Deeds of the Danes as a baseline point and The Sagas of Icelanders as building blocks, all which make for a  necessarily brutal & beautiful film. [model Ineta Sliuzaite rages through the sky as a  valkyrie  with her line-filed teeth!] [Note: Spoilers are about to occur ... but you read Hamlet in high school like everyone else, right?] For Heathens coming to this film, there...

  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 .

There are a lot of podcasts, so the trick is to figure out which are worth listening to, but by the time you've worked your way through one or more episodes, you've either struck gold or taken a bullet, and just with the sheer number of 'casts, it's more likely you've bet on a loser. The prevalent mediocrity of this infotaining medium is that many instead rely on the idea of obnoxious morning show radio DJ personas rather than doing justice to their episode's subject, barely giving a surface level presentation that gets lost between the weak attempts at humour and self-indulgent prattle. Given all that, I should warn you away from Blurry Photos . ⸶  Yet before you completely take my word for it, bookending their Runes episode there's an unexpectedly funny NorsePlay audiosketch where Loki gives Odin a giftcard to Starbucks at the front-end, and a pretty clever Loki on social media skit at the back. So unless you know absolutely nothing about runes , don...

In his annual April Fool's Day video for 2021 CE, Old Norse Philologist Jackson Crawford uses some vintage plastic Vikings figures from the 1983 CE Lakeside Games classic Crossbows & Catapults , which happens to be one of our favourite boardgames : So we left this comment as an open challenge: 5:02 Crossbows & Catapults Viking figures!?! Jackson, we have to holmgang over that boardgame. Yes, I'm calling you out. Caroms & rubberbands at high noon. Let's do this! norseplay.blogspot.com [Commented on The Kittredge Runestone (April Fools Day 2021)  video.] It's been a year since I issued this draw-the-square challenge , but no response (though I did receive a reply regarding a Map Of Midgard mappoint inquiry in the interim, so there was that). This technical default totally makes NorsePlay more drengr. Yep, I said that Jackson! Get in that fancy truck and drive down from your AZ brother's house to Tucson to prove me wrong! Loser buys the mead and can use t...

  Given the Vikings' clever use of the metatarsal bones of horses or cattle to craft tie-on ice skates, we would imagine that if ball bearing trucks had been around they'd've figured out a way to darkslide an enemy's shieldwall or rail grind the gunwale of a foemen's longship. This isn't so far from the Gods of wintersport Ullr & Skaði  skiing, or possibly snowboarding, while bowhunting. [Olaus Magnus’ 1555 CE illustration of Holler (Ullr) on his magic rune inscribed water-crossing bone (skate).] And if we look at Njál's Saga 's Skarphéðinn's epic jump & superslide across the ice move to split Þráinn's skull as he glides by, one could easily see them adapting such worthy feats with wheels to Gleam The Axe. ["Viking Legend" skateboard by Cal 7, skating Viking illustration from Seembo, Viking Runes Deck from Zazzle.] #    #    # Guillermo Maytorena IV knew there was something special in  the Norse Lore when he picked up a copy of ...

  From his prominent Freyr-like girthy-tipped & gift-wrapped sword placement as painted by DC/Marvel artist Al Barrionuevo, the answer would be your All-Father Odin. Visual/verbal puns aside, if we examine the broad sexual spreadsheet of Odin, it seems that every by-blow he has turns out to be a divinity that appears to be a necessary product that fulfills a universal function. His sons Thor ,  Víðarr , Váli , & Bragi all play crucial roles in the Norse Lore, so it would seem that Odin's extramarital propensities only strengthen his & our position in the scheme of things. [oil, 2016 CE. And thanks to my workie, pundit, & comics superfan Zach Gotschalk for making the off-handed comment that inspired this NorsePlay entry.  (Side endorsement: Zach is an accomplished artist who explores architectural neo-futurism themes. It's like Jack Kirby's Asgarditecture meets Syd Mead's  Tron  &  Blade Runner  setting concept drawings. Hit hi...

  This chalkboard depiction of Thor reminds one of the dynamic pastel drawings of the D'Aulaires . It seems to be an exact moment of the hammer being released from Thor's hand, his red hair static'd into spikes, the lightning speed of Mjölnir having instantaneously struck, and the giants, trolls , draugr , and other monsters being physically obliterated into shades of themselves, perhaps even those shades being drawn into the black magnetic iron singularity of the hammer itself to be mercilessly consumed. [a pinterest find from a random search, so if anyone knows who drew this, do tell so we can attribute 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 of Mid...

Luke cutting off the wampa's arm after reclaiming his lightsaber in the ice cave is much like a combination of Beowulf tearing off Grendel's arm in Heorot and killing Grendel's mother with the ancient magic  sword he retrieves in the monsters' cavernous grotto lair. We could also point out that Anakin & Luke both lose hands whilst fighting a Dark Side figure, sort of like Tyr's sacrifice of his hand to Fenrir , and that the name of ice planet Hoth appears to be linguistically derivative of Norse God Höðr as Høtherus, this latter name being Saxo Grammaticus' more heroic version of that figure in his Gesta Danorum: The History of the Danes . Does all this make the technologically scavenging Jawas & Ugnauts species of dwarves ? Is the blaster-wielding aggro Princess Leia in essence a  space-shieldmaiden ? Are nigh-invulnerable Krayt dragons really children of Níðhöggr? Would the Emperor's Crimson Guard be derived from Viking Varangians? Is Snoke'...

Much like God Of War needing to sidestep its previous Classical Mythology context to integrate Norse Mythology into the franchise, Assassin's Creed, with its even larger the Hidden Ones versus The Order struggle for possession of ancient technologically advanced artifacts made by the Isu, Assassin's Creed: Valhalla has to increase its roll call of beings named after Greek & Egyptian deities to now include the Norse Gods. Retroactively fitting the Aesir into the game's continuum is no mean feat, and the story  takes you into Asgard , Jotunheim , and  Svartálfheimr , but the conceit is that those otherworlds are only seen through Eivor's ability to cognate them through a vision quest, and not necessarily as they actually are. Any of that isn't really even partially addressed until you get near the end, and even then the happy/happier/happiest ending doesn't fully connect them to the ancient technoworld ... unless you find the extra super secret invisible a...