In Norse mythology one of Odin’s many names is raven-god. He owes that to these two guys, Huginn and Muninn. Their names mean Thought and Memory and every day they fly around the world seeing what they can see before returning to bring their news to Odin at the end of the day. Ravens are popular in Norse art. You can find a number of images that show the ravens perched on the back or arms of Odin’s throne.
A passage from Grimnismal in the Poetic Edda has Odin stating:
I fear for Hugin, that he come not back,
yet more anxious am I for Munin.
That passage got me to wondering what would happen if Munin/Memory did not come back? What would happen if someone stole our memory? I ran with that idea a bit in my first book.
This week’s artwork was inspired by a gorgeous raven brooch that can be found on this page. I riffed a little on the design, adding some more knotwork.
That’s it for now. More superhero kawaii goodness coming up this Saturday.
Usually when I write about mythology on the blog I am using the sagas as my source material (the Prose and Poetic Eddas, most often.) So I can understand how people might get a bit confused after reading the promo copy for my book Valda & the Valkyries. The book is about the adventures of a 15 year old Dwarf girl who becomes a Valkyrie. I want to be upfront about this – the book is fiction. While it is based on Norse mythology and uses characters from the myths, I made up the story. Also, I have not read any sagas that mention Dwarves being Valkyries. And yet the idea that a Dwarf could become a Valkyrie is not as crazy as it seems at first.
Bear with me for a bit as I first talk about the Norns. The Norns were the magical entities who ruled over the destinies of god and man. We know the names of the three most prominent ones: Urd, Verdandi and Skuld. Their names roughly translate to “that which happened,” “that which is happening” and “that which should occur” or, to be more blunt: past, present and future. Henry Adams Bellows writes
In Vafthruthnismol, 49, the Norns (this time “three throngs” instead of simply “three”) are spoken of as giant-maidens.
This, and one of the passages in Voluspa, could lead us to believe that the Norns are Jotun, or giantesses. However that may be, we are also told specifically that there are more than three Norns. The three chief ones we have already mentioned determine the destinies of mankind, the others watch over an individual throughout their life in a role similar to the Christian concept of the guardian angel.
Going to Voluspa again we can read:
‘Methinks the Norns were born far asunder, for they are not of the same race. Some belong to the Æsir, some to the Elves, and some are Dvalin’s daughters.”
Dvalin was a famous dwarf, so Dvalin’s daughters would be a kenning for dvergar, or dwarves. So in this passage we learn that the lesser Norns could be any of several races, including the Dwarves.
Back to the Valkyries – as I wrote about in this article, human maidens could, under the right conditions, become Valkyries. We also know that Skuld was a Valkyrie and a Norn and that she might have been a giantess. So while my conclusion is not official in any way, shape or form, it seems to me it isn’t that far-fetched to assume that a Dwarf, who we know could be a lesser Norn, could also become a Valkyrie. What do you think?
Arthur Rackham painting for The Ring of the Niblung
Just a quick mention that I did a guest post for the Viking Rune blog. You can find my article on the Valkyries here. It’s a bit more in-depth than the posts I write for my own blog.
And while you’re there you should check out some of the cool stuff on Victor’s site. There is a rune converter that will change your name or other English words into any of several different rune alphabets. There’s a app you can use to make your own Viking motto in Old Norse. He also has some interesting articles on different Viking runes and even an analysis of the Norse mythology links in the Max Payne video games and movie. Check it out!
I am a bat-fan. I’ve been one since I was a kid, following his adventures in the comics and watching reruns of the 60s TV show. But I think some of the best stories and visuals came out of Batman: The Animated Series. From the opening of the show and it’s objectivist art influences to the half-noir/half-deco city to the amazing, yet elegant, character redesigns, this show hit so many homeruns.
One of my favorite redesigns is the one Mike Mignola did for Mr. Freeze. I have to admit I thought Bruce Timm did the design until I was doing research for this post. In retrospect it makes so much sense because I love this version of Freeze and I love Mignola’s work. (In a weird ,moment of synchronicity I had been toying with doing a kawaii Hellboy this week or possibly a character from Disney’s Atlantis – both of which have designs by Mignola.)
The classic B:TAS episode for Mr. Freeze is Heart of Ice. Bruce Timm and Paul Dini took a long-time villain and gave him a brand-new back story that was filled with gut-wrenching drama. The episode won an Emmy and all kinds of acclaim from fans and critics alike. It deserves every bit of it.
My version of Mr. Freeze is based on Mignola’s design with one small change. As much as I loved this work, I just never liked the purple gloves and boots. I suspect the color choice might have something to do with it being an animated character. Perhaps the color was needed to help the hands and feet read better visually. Whatever the reason that is the only small, small quibble I ever had with this great design.
This is an older picture I had hanging out on my computer. I was working on something brand new for today, but time just got away from me and I didn’t want to leave you all empty-handed. About two years ago I was playing around with the idea of writing an updated version of the Brothers Grimm story about the shoe peddler and the gnomes. While my mind was tossing around story ideas I also started doing some rough doodles of what I thought the creatures might look like. This picture is the result of those doodles. He has a bit of a steampunk flavor to him, I think.
Saturday I’ll be posting another character from the world of comics. Which one? I have no idea. That’s part of the fun for me.
Another little deviation from our regular programming, but I wanted to post something for my wife since today is our 13th anniversary. We were both big fans of the Rome mini-series on HBO and I couldn’t resist a little echo of the scene from the arena where Pullo was shouting 13. Yes, I know the picture is not of a bloody gladiator. I probably could kawaii up a gladiator but I prefer to celebrate my anniversaries in a less violent way. So just a little salute to the Cleopatra to my Marc Anthony – my wife Theresa.
I enjoyed doing something a little different last Saturday, so here we go again. A lot of times the ideas that really grab hold of me are the incongruous ones that shouldn’t really work. That’s a big part of why I wrote a book about a dwarf girl who was turned into a Valkyrie. I know Dwarves were not mentioned serving as Valkyries in the sagas, but the contrasting mental imagery of a 15 year old Dwarven girl having to deal with all of these stauesque, Nordic women was too hard to resist.
Which brings us to this week’s picture: Galactus, Devourer of Worlds! What do you do with one of the most powerful entities in the Marvel Universe, a giant alien who eats worlds – make him all cutesy! I love Jack Kirby‘s design work, his aliens, especially, have a sense of grandeur about them. So it was a lot of fun to pull off this week’s interpretation of one of his classic designs.
This week’s kawaii art offering features Odin himself. I cheated a bit on this picture. Odin loved to disguise himself and wander the countryside to see what he could discover. One element that all of his disguises shared was they all only had one eye. Odin famously traded his eye away to Mimir so that he could take a drink from the Well of Knowledge. So while I have the clothes resembling one of his disguises I couldn’t resist adding Gungnir into the mix. I don’t think it would be much of a disguise if you’re also carrying around a magical spear that never misses its target. Oh well..
Most people who follow fantasy know about the elves. Ask almost anyone and you’ll hear something like: “Elves? Graceful fairy-type folk. Awful good with a bow. Pointy-eared, close to nature folks.” That is what we know but there is still a lot that we don’t know.
Norse Saga Elves
The Norse sagas provide us with the earliest recorded description of the elves or álfr. The elves seem to be a bit closer to the gods than mortals. Their home of Alfheim is described as being in the heavens. (It is also listed as one of the Nine Worlds of Norse mythology.) We are told that humans are sometimes raised up into the ranks of the álfr. Human and elf are even able to cross-breed. King Alf of Alfheim and his line are said to be more handsome than most men due to the presence of Elf in their bloodlines. Elves even seem above the physical restraints of the body, being able to walk through walls and doors. This magical nature extended to their ability to wield witchcraft. The half-elf woman Skuld was so skilled that she could raise the fallen members of her army almost as soon as they were killed. Elves could even become Nornir, going to a child when it was first born and helping to shape its life – pretty much along the lines of the later idea of guardian angels.
The thing that was missing for me was stories about Alfheim, we hardly know anything about it at all. It is named as one of the Nine Worlds but we don’t have any stories that tell us what it is like. We have no adventures that happen there. All of the legends and folktales revolve around elves or half-elves in the world of the humans. This struck me as being so odd that I even worked it into my first novel, Valda & the Valkyries, where I have this odd blind spot accounted for by a convoluted plan set into motion by Loki.
Shakespeare’s Elves
The bard used elves most famously in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, but these elves are more a blending of elf and fairy than a pure descendant of the Norse sagas. They do exhibit more of the mischievous nature that elves of folklore possessed. While they are at time referred to as fairies we find the terms almost interchangeable in the poetic sense. We still have elf and fairy exhibiting that great, other-worldly beauty, but they are smaller creatures and their grace is tempered with a truly playful nature. He made them somewhat silly, which is something our next entry never forgave him for.
Tolkien’s Elves
It is fair to say that JRR has done more to influence the popular conception of elves than anyone else. His version of the elf is the one that springs to mind for most people. For Tolkien, elves were majestic, larger-than-life creatures “admired by every race.” JRR has them as the eldest and noblest of the speaking races. He follows the Norse tradition of elves not being that much different in appearance from humans but nonetheless being of a somewhat higher race. While he wasn’t a full on Luddite Tolkien did care much more for the pastoral countryside and the elves of his stories are the guardians and the very embodiment of nature. He hated what he thought Shakespeare had done to elves, writing: “I now deeply regret having used Elves, though this is a word in ancestry and original meaning suitable enough. But the disastrous debasement of this word, in which Shakespeare played an unforgivable part, has really overloaded it with regrettable tones, which are too much to overcome.”
Rowling’s Elves
We’ll close this off with the elves from the Harry Potter series. These strike me more as elves in name only. Their apperance is more like gnomes or some other sort of fairy creature, to be honest. They are short in stature, fairly ugly, with bat ears and bulging eyes. Their connection to the original source material seems to consist mainly with their magical nature. House elves can perform magic, mostly in the service of their master but are bound by numerous limitations to what they can do. The house-elves are a subservient slave class, certainly nothing like the demi-gods of the sagas.
Here is a little bonus artwork for the week. I’ve been sticking with the Norse-themed stuff for the most part but this doodle really wanted to be made. From past experience I know that you just have to roll with the muse sometimes and get these things out of your head and out onto paper if you want to get anything else done. So here she is – Supergirl.
I have had a longtime love of comic books from back in the days when my mom would walk me down to the corner store so I could buy a comic with my allowance. I don’t read as much mainstream stuff these days, preferring different indies for the most part. But not too long ago I bought my son a copy of Art Baltazar’s Tiny Titans and loved it. I’ve also been enjoying the Super Best Friends Forever animated shorts done by Lauren Faust for Cartoon Network. If you would like to see more comic character artwork let me know.
Mark Neumayer 