Six Questions XXI: Ceallaigh S. MacCath-Moran
For Six Questions XXI, Mimisbrunnr.info interviewed Canadian-American folklorist and writer Ceallaigh S. MacCath-Moran. Residing in Nova Scotia, Canada, MacCath-Moran discusses her upbringing, her areas of academic focus (including studies on the place of Norse myth in metal music and the topic of unverified person gnosis (UPG) in modern Paganism), and elements derived from Germanic myth in her own fiction.
Six Questions XX: Paul Kingsnorth
English writer Paul Kingsnorth is perhaps best known to Six Questions readers for his novel The Wake (Gray Wolf Press, 2014). The Wake received critical praise and significant media attention (see, for example, coverage in The Guardian, The New York Times, and NPR), and features a variety of topics rarely represented in modern popular culture.
Six Questions XVIII: Jennifer Snook
Jennifer Snook is an American sociologist and heathen. Snook is perhaps best known to date for her 2015 book American Heathens: The Politics of Identity in a Pagan Religious Movement, an in-depth study of adherents of Germanic Heathenry in the United States.
Six Questions XVII: Mathias Nordvig
For our seventeenth Six Questions entry, we interview Danish academic Mathias Nordvig. Nordvig grew up in Denmark and Greenland, and today teaches at the Department of Germanic and Slavic Languages and Literatures at the University of Colorado. Nordvig conducts research on a wide variety of topics in ancient Scandinavian studies.
Six Questions XVI: Teresa Dröfn Njarðvík
Teresa Dröfn Njarðvík is an Icelandic academic, author, and heathen. Over the past year, two books on the subject of the runic alphabet authored by Teresa have entered publication: Icelandic Runes: A Brief History, published by Almenna Bókafélagið, and Runes: The Icelandic Book of Fuþark, published by the Icelandic Magic Company (which will soon see an Icelandic language edition).
Six Questions XIV: Alex Sager
For Mimisbrunnr.info's 14th Six Questions interview, we interview American academic Alexander Sager. Sager is department head of the University of Georgia's (UGA) Department of Germanic and Slavic Studies, and an associate professor of German Among other courses relating to German language, culture, and literature, Sager teaches a variety of courses relating to the ancient Germanic peoples, including the school's recently introduced course on the topic of Norse mythology. Sager also played a notable role in Mimisbrunnr.info's formation: he was Ár Var Alda: the Ancient Germanic Studies Society at UGA's faculty sponsor (and that of its precursors), which eventually developed into the present site.
Six Questions XIII: Rachel Shelton
For our 13th Six Questions feature, we interview artist Rachel Shelton. Originally hailing from Washington state, today Shelton lives in rural Montana. One of the most sparsely populated and vast expanses of the nation, the west Yellowstone region of Montana features heavily in Shelton's nature-focused photographs, gathered bone pieces, and wildcrafting. Shelton's work often features motifs and themes drawn from Germanic paganism and folklore, including runic inscriptions and charms. Shelton sells her work through her Etsy shop and showcases her photography on her Instagram.
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.
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.
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.