Freyja's-day morning, and it's cloudy in Miðgarðr
I would of course be branded the most repugnantly excessive liar if I said I were writing my blog today for any reason other than that I was hustled by my brother to do just that, last night. And so for this reason the entry is not representative of a milestone in my life, or a manifestation of a significantly philosophical thought in the past couple of days, but rather a simple rant with no substance, no beginning and no end. Apart from this, which is effectively the beginning, and the conclusion, which if my vocabulary serves me correctly, is essentially synonymous with the end. As for the substance I’ll leave to your judgement, since I’m sure you’re capable.
Yesterday as my dear friend Bec was driving me home, we found ourselves, as so many people so amazingly frequently find themselves, in a discussion about Norse mythology. Not so much a discussion of course, but rather of me teaching her everything I have learned about Norse mythology over the past two lectures of Sydney University’s exclusive English course Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic Studies. Me of course being the only person in my clique who focuses purely on the Norse, or more correctly, Icelandic, portions of the course made me an ideal candidate for rants about the mythology.
And naturally, the more you actually get into it, the more fascinating it becomes, and the more you realise how much of our language today is derived from it. But of course this can also be said of any medieval or ancient culture, as I discovered later yesterday as I was perusing through Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable. So yes, essentially I was reading the dictionary. Effectively, I only read it because on the way home, the name of the Greek god of war and their answer to Rome’s Mars eluded me. (And of course, 10 points to the first person who can answer that)
But of course the whole thing is fascinating. Well, fascinating in the way that a spur-winged plover’s mating call is fascinating (That’s for you, Dad). In other words, fascinating if you have a deep, genuine and ultimately obsessive interest in the subject, but otherwise quite vulgarly and brain-festeringly dull. So in no uncertain terms, o reasonable peruser-of-Where’s-my-tart?-I-want-chips-and-tart, I shall warn you that if you find discussions of etymology and / or Norse mythology something for which you would generally not stick your head in a toilet bowl in an effort to haze yourself into the fraternity of, the following section may come across as nothing more than a pompous jackass filling cyberspace with the most trivial and useless tripe ever to assault a computer screen. But of course, it’s not unheard of that most of you will think that anyway. So read on, Macduff!
My first thought as I was reading the dictionary, although this wasn’t an exclusive thought as I had had it in the two lectures on the mythology as well, was how much I have heard all these terms before and how little I had paid attention to them at the time. For example, in hearing about the structure of the Norse mythological world, all of a sudden the song titles which comprise the Therion album "Secret of the Runes" all made sense. For example, track 1, Ginnungagap, is named after the Great Void between Niflheim, which apart from being the region of fogs in Norse mythology, is also track 8 on the same album, and Muspelheim, which is both the region of intense heat in Norse mythology and also track 7.
Secondly I couldn’t help but remember the famed and hallowed PC computer game "God of Thunder", which essentially uses the mythology to only a slightly inaccurate degree, but to create a game which actually has accessibility to an audience, unlike this blog entry which is of course about as readable as Plato’s republic in its original text after someone's used it as lavatory paper. Naturally, one thing I did notice in the lecture, was that in the game "God of Thunder", they deliberately misspelled one of the most important aspects of the story, that being the name of Thor’s hammer, which is both his weapon for defending Asgarðr, the world of the Gods, against the giants, but is also oh-so-subtly symbolic of his enormous virility. The name of said hammer is given in the game as Mjolnir, which naturally in the heady days of my adolescence when I probably should have spent more time drinking heavily and chasing loose women than playing Norman-based strategy games on my computer, I pronounced phonetically. But of course the name, intimidating enough as it is anyway, is not Mjolnir at all but in fact Mjöllnir, which is pronounced about as far from phonetically as Raja Gosnell is far from creating a movie which doesn’t make one want to shit ice bricks. As a matter of fact, I’m not even sure if the Icelandic sound ö even has a definitive equivalent in English, with the possible exception of being one of the distinctive noises one makes just before throwing up. But of course I would presume that is a universal trait and not exclusive to the English speaking world. That said, I’m not sure I’ve ever heard a Ukrainian person throw up, so I could be wrong. Anyway, the closest example up with which I can come is the French vowel sound present in the word oeuf, meaning egg. But even that’s not quite on the mark. Secondly, of course, the double l is not pronounced simply as an English ‘l’ but in fact more like the English "tl". I may be saying too much in presuming that eight-year-olds who vegetate in front of computer screens should be able to correctly pronounce the name of Thor’s phallic little hammer, but then again what genuine interest have they in the fact that Thor must defeat the androgynous god of mischief Loki and save the people of Miðgarðr?
Anyway, as much fun as that rant was to write, it can’t possibly have been that much fun to read and for that reason I will insert the word CLITORIS here to snap you all out of the bunker into which I have no doubt hooked you with my 9-iron. Hmm, something tells me I lost the metaphor just slightly in that last sentence, but I’ll try to make up for it.
Furthermore to this reading up on the fascinating world of Æsir and Vanir, I naturally perused a number of other terminology and thought I’d list some of my findings. Those of you who speak to me online will have noticed my latest screen name, "A one-night stand is a theatrical performance" which, in fact, it is. Or at least, was, before the popcorn-Charlie’s-Angels-casual-sex-Paris-Hilton-fairy-floss culture got to it, and now the term is changed forever. But originally, or at least listed first in Brewer’s, the term refers to "A single evening performance by a touring theatrical company or the like at a town likely to provide an audience only for one night".
Makes sense, doesn’t it? If you can only ‘provide’ for one night, you’ll only do one ‘performance’. And for those of you unable to grasp the subtle reasoning for my inverted commas in the last sentence, let me just inform you that I am no longer speaking in strictly dramaturgical terms. But of course, I’m no expert on thespianism and for all I know this term could still be used in very strict areas of such circles. But the connotations are still there and in fact when a theatrical troupe does their show in the Binalong community centre, perhaps that while everyone is referring to the show as a one-night stand, they are secretly implying that they wish to get off with the stage manager after the performance. But either way, I daresay we no longer view this term as meaning specifically a theatrical performance (depending on how highly we regard ourselves in the bedroom), but rather as a non-committal, often alcohol-lubricated (other types of lubrication may come into play, but I’d say let’s not go there if I unfortunately hadn’t already) sex act. And you ordinary mortals regard us Freudians as being obsessed with sex. Tut, tut. I hate to tell you this, people, but everything in life really does start from the groin. And I mean that quite literally as well as figuratively.
Lastly, I wanted to make a brief mention LABIA of something that’s been puzzling me slightly in my Norse studies. Again, I’m far from an expert, and in fact no doubt to an expert in this field I probably sound like George W Bush trying to pronounce the word ‘eloquence’, but in all my study of this Norse culture which, essentially, entails what is now and was then Scandinavia, I don’t recall having yet heard any mention of our friends the Swedes. Obviously we centre ourselves around Iceland, and we have a great interest in Norway, Iceland being a Norwegian province until about 1946 and also first being settled by a Norwegian viking. In the sagas we read, people go abroad to Denmark, we hear of Eirik the Red travelling west and discovering Greenland, and we even have this frequent notion of Vinland, the ‘mysterious land to the west’ which by the way, isn’t Finland. But there doesn’t seem to be any mention of Sweden at all. Again, I’m speaking from complete ignorance here, but why is that? Were there no people of note from this country back then? Did the country even exist? Is Sweden really only famous for ABBA, Volvos and raucous tennis supporters? I mean, that being said we have no mention of Finland either so maybe it’s just that our focus is drawn towards particular places more than others. But then, has Finland ever really given us anything apart from delightfully foreign-sounding formula 1 drivers’ names? Anyway, I thought I’d mention it.
Well, it’s that time again when my ranting juices have been sapped and I must now replenish that part of my body by feasting on pictures of John Howard winning the election, and people using phrases such as "more better". And of course for those who survived to the end, souvenir packs are available in the lobby. They mostly contain Prozac and cyanide, which can be used in varying intervals depending on how much of what I just wrote you actually read. Have a great Freyja’s day!
Yesterday as my dear friend Bec was driving me home, we found ourselves, as so many people so amazingly frequently find themselves, in a discussion about Norse mythology. Not so much a discussion of course, but rather of me teaching her everything I have learned about Norse mythology over the past two lectures of Sydney University’s exclusive English course Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic Studies. Me of course being the only person in my clique who focuses purely on the Norse, or more correctly, Icelandic, portions of the course made me an ideal candidate for rants about the mythology.
And naturally, the more you actually get into it, the more fascinating it becomes, and the more you realise how much of our language today is derived from it. But of course this can also be said of any medieval or ancient culture, as I discovered later yesterday as I was perusing through Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable. So yes, essentially I was reading the dictionary. Effectively, I only read it because on the way home, the name of the Greek god of war and their answer to Rome’s Mars eluded me. (And of course, 10 points to the first person who can answer that)
But of course the whole thing is fascinating. Well, fascinating in the way that a spur-winged plover’s mating call is fascinating (That’s for you, Dad). In other words, fascinating if you have a deep, genuine and ultimately obsessive interest in the subject, but otherwise quite vulgarly and brain-festeringly dull. So in no uncertain terms, o reasonable peruser-of-Where’s-my-tart?-I-want-chips-and-tart, I shall warn you that if you find discussions of etymology and / or Norse mythology something for which you would generally not stick your head in a toilet bowl in an effort to haze yourself into the fraternity of, the following section may come across as nothing more than a pompous jackass filling cyberspace with the most trivial and useless tripe ever to assault a computer screen. But of course, it’s not unheard of that most of you will think that anyway. So read on, Macduff!
My first thought as I was reading the dictionary, although this wasn’t an exclusive thought as I had had it in the two lectures on the mythology as well, was how much I have heard all these terms before and how little I had paid attention to them at the time. For example, in hearing about the structure of the Norse mythological world, all of a sudden the song titles which comprise the Therion album "Secret of the Runes" all made sense. For example, track 1, Ginnungagap, is named after the Great Void between Niflheim, which apart from being the region of fogs in Norse mythology, is also track 8 on the same album, and Muspelheim, which is both the region of intense heat in Norse mythology and also track 7.
Secondly I couldn’t help but remember the famed and hallowed PC computer game "God of Thunder", which essentially uses the mythology to only a slightly inaccurate degree, but to create a game which actually has accessibility to an audience, unlike this blog entry which is of course about as readable as Plato’s republic in its original text after someone's used it as lavatory paper. Naturally, one thing I did notice in the lecture, was that in the game "God of Thunder", they deliberately misspelled one of the most important aspects of the story, that being the name of Thor’s hammer, which is both his weapon for defending Asgarðr, the world of the Gods, against the giants, but is also oh-so-subtly symbolic of his enormous virility. The name of said hammer is given in the game as Mjolnir, which naturally in the heady days of my adolescence when I probably should have spent more time drinking heavily and chasing loose women than playing Norman-based strategy games on my computer, I pronounced phonetically. But of course the name, intimidating enough as it is anyway, is not Mjolnir at all but in fact Mjöllnir, which is pronounced about as far from phonetically as Raja Gosnell is far from creating a movie which doesn’t make one want to shit ice bricks. As a matter of fact, I’m not even sure if the Icelandic sound ö even has a definitive equivalent in English, with the possible exception of being one of the distinctive noises one makes just before throwing up. But of course I would presume that is a universal trait and not exclusive to the English speaking world. That said, I’m not sure I’ve ever heard a Ukrainian person throw up, so I could be wrong. Anyway, the closest example up with which I can come is the French vowel sound present in the word oeuf, meaning egg. But even that’s not quite on the mark. Secondly, of course, the double l is not pronounced simply as an English ‘l’ but in fact more like the English "tl". I may be saying too much in presuming that eight-year-olds who vegetate in front of computer screens should be able to correctly pronounce the name of Thor’s phallic little hammer, but then again what genuine interest have they in the fact that Thor must defeat the androgynous god of mischief Loki and save the people of Miðgarðr?
Anyway, as much fun as that rant was to write, it can’t possibly have been that much fun to read and for that reason I will insert the word CLITORIS here to snap you all out of the bunker into which I have no doubt hooked you with my 9-iron. Hmm, something tells me I lost the metaphor just slightly in that last sentence, but I’ll try to make up for it.
Furthermore to this reading up on the fascinating world of Æsir and Vanir, I naturally perused a number of other terminology and thought I’d list some of my findings. Those of you who speak to me online will have noticed my latest screen name, "A one-night stand is a theatrical performance" which, in fact, it is. Or at least, was, before the popcorn-Charlie’s-Angels-casual-sex-Paris-Hilton-fairy-floss culture got to it, and now the term is changed forever. But originally, or at least listed first in Brewer’s, the term refers to "A single evening performance by a touring theatrical company or the like at a town likely to provide an audience only for one night".
Makes sense, doesn’t it? If you can only ‘provide’ for one night, you’ll only do one ‘performance’. And for those of you unable to grasp the subtle reasoning for my inverted commas in the last sentence, let me just inform you that I am no longer speaking in strictly dramaturgical terms. But of course, I’m no expert on thespianism and for all I know this term could still be used in very strict areas of such circles. But the connotations are still there and in fact when a theatrical troupe does their show in the Binalong community centre, perhaps that while everyone is referring to the show as a one-night stand, they are secretly implying that they wish to get off with the stage manager after the performance. But either way, I daresay we no longer view this term as meaning specifically a theatrical performance (depending on how highly we regard ourselves in the bedroom), but rather as a non-committal, often alcohol-lubricated (other types of lubrication may come into play, but I’d say let’s not go there if I unfortunately hadn’t already) sex act. And you ordinary mortals regard us Freudians as being obsessed with sex. Tut, tut. I hate to tell you this, people, but everything in life really does start from the groin. And I mean that quite literally as well as figuratively.
Lastly, I wanted to make a brief mention LABIA of something that’s been puzzling me slightly in my Norse studies. Again, I’m far from an expert, and in fact no doubt to an expert in this field I probably sound like George W Bush trying to pronounce the word ‘eloquence’, but in all my study of this Norse culture which, essentially, entails what is now and was then Scandinavia, I don’t recall having yet heard any mention of our friends the Swedes. Obviously we centre ourselves around Iceland, and we have a great interest in Norway, Iceland being a Norwegian province until about 1946 and also first being settled by a Norwegian viking. In the sagas we read, people go abroad to Denmark, we hear of Eirik the Red travelling west and discovering Greenland, and we even have this frequent notion of Vinland, the ‘mysterious land to the west’ which by the way, isn’t Finland. But there doesn’t seem to be any mention of Sweden at all. Again, I’m speaking from complete ignorance here, but why is that? Were there no people of note from this country back then? Did the country even exist? Is Sweden really only famous for ABBA, Volvos and raucous tennis supporters? I mean, that being said we have no mention of Finland either so maybe it’s just that our focus is drawn towards particular places more than others. But then, has Finland ever really given us anything apart from delightfully foreign-sounding formula 1 drivers’ names? Anyway, I thought I’d mention it.
Well, it’s that time again when my ranting juices have been sapped and I must now replenish that part of my body by feasting on pictures of John Howard winning the election, and people using phrases such as "more better". And of course for those who survived to the end, souvenir packs are available in the lobby. They mostly contain Prozac and cyanide, which can be used in varying intervals depending on how much of what I just wrote you actually read. Have a great Freyja’s day!
posted by Sean's Beard at 11:15 AM
3 comments
