Review: "Norse Mythology" by Neil Gaiman
Rune Hjarnø Rasmussen, a historian of religion living in Copenhagen, reviews Norse Mythology, Neil Gaiman's Norse myth retellings published by W. W. Norton & Company.
Godshapes I: Hœnir, Bird-God?
Our first Godshapes entry focuses on a lesser known figure, one of the most difficult figures in the corpus to conceptualize: a god by the name of Hœnir. Hœnir’s case is a curious one. In the body of Old Norse narratives that come down to us today, the god generally lurks in the shadows, a quiet companion to other gods. While the record strongly implies that Hœnir was an important figure, what we are told seems cryptic and obtuse and lacks the clarity to confidently place his characteristics in context.
Six Questions XII: Heimlich A. Laguz
The subject of Mimisbrunnr.info's twelfth Six Questions entry is Heimlich A. Laguz, a founding member of Elhaz Ablaze, the digital platform of the Elhaz Fellowship, a collective of five Heathen writers. Active since 2007, Elhaz Ablaze has produces a steady flow of articles founded on the principles of the group's central philosophy, Chaos Heathenism, an approach Laguz discusses during the course of this interview.
Six Questions XI: Kjersti Faret (Cat Coven)
Kjersti Faret, Mimisbrunnr.info's eleventh Six Questions subject, is a New York-based American artist. Faret primarily works with printmaking, illustration, and embroidery, and often draws from her Scandinavian heritage for her subject matter, reflected in her pieces depicting entities and narratives from Norse Mythology. Faret makes her designs available by way of her lifestyle brand and online shop, Cat Coven.
New Feature: Godshapes
Later this month, Mimisbrunnr.info will publish the first entry in an exciting new feature: Godshapes, a tool for artists, writers, and other creative types interested in Norse mythology and, more broadly, Germanic mythology as a whole.
Happy Birthday, Jacob Grimm
On this day in 1785, Jacob Grimm was born in Hanau, Germany. While today Jacob and his brother Wilhelm are best known for the highly successful—and widely varying—editions of their folktale retellings, their work played a crucial role in the development of a variety of academic fields, ranging from folkloristics to philology and well beyond.
Six Questions X: Lindy-Fay Hella
The tenth subject of Mimisbrunnr.info's Six Question series is Norwegian singer and musician Lindy-Fay Hella. Best known for her work as female vocalist for the popular musical project Wardruna, Hella has appeared throughout the group's discography and has performed, for example, on the Norwegian government-owned NRK1 television network and in front to the Gokstad ship at the Oslo Viking Ship Museum (Norwegian Vikingskipshuset på Bygdøy). Additionally, her voice can be heard throughout the extremely popular television show Vikings (2013-ongoing), which prominently employs tracks from the Wardruna discography.
Six Questions IX: Runahild
In Norse cosmology, the Élivágar (Old Norse 'stormy waves, icy waves') are primordial, venomous rivers. Remote in time and place, these rivers play a crucial role in Norse cosmogony: they produced the proto-being Ymir, who in turn bore the ancestors of many beings that populate the narratives that together form Norse mythology. In time, Ymir's body was dissected by a trio of gods to create the world as we know it, a sort of North Germanic myth of succession.
Borrowed into modern German, Élivágar readily becomes Eliwagar, a name under which Runahild, a musician from Lorraine, France (a city bordering Germany, Belgium, and Luxembourg), has released nine albums of what she calls "Hyperborean Heathen Folk". Today Runahild lives in Norway.
POPULAR RESONANCES: JULY AND AUGUST 2016
This marks the third installment of JH Roberts's regular column Popular Resonances. Popular Resonances examines references to ancient Germanic culture and Germanic mythology in modern popular culture as it happens. For more information on the feature, please see Roberts's introductory post here. This installment includes Thor: Ragnarok, Jotun: Valhalla Edition, Great Whale Road game, The Creepy Case Files of Margo Maloo, and much more.
Six Questions VIII: Audun Refsahl
Our eighth Six Questions subject is Audun Refsahl, a Norwegian video game developer and Viking Age re-enactor. Refsahl serves as co-writer and history consultant for Grimnir, a small independent studio based in Drammen, Norway and published via Snow Cannon Games.
Six Questions VII: Odinson
In the seventh interview of Mimisbrunnr.info's Six Questions series, we interview Odinson, an American strength athlete and professional wrestler inspired by Germanic and Norse mythology. Odinson's character is a mixture of traditional, Marvel, and Mad Max: Fury Road Norse elements.
Six Questions VI: Kim Larsen
The subject of our sixth interview in Mimisbrunnr.info's Six Questions series is Danish artist Kim Larsen. Larsen is best known for his musical work, particularly as founder and sole constant member of musical project Of The Wand And The Moon (OTWATM).
Since OTWATM's first album in 1999, Nighttime Nightrhymes, a steady stream of singles, EPs, and albums has cemented the project as one of the most well known groups in a musical genre widely known as neofolk. Like some of his collaborators, Larsen has frequently employed symbolism and motifs from Germanic mythology in both his musical and visual output, perhaps most prominently in the 2005 album Sonnenheim.