I'm a gaming nerd. I'm sure that's no surprise, given the numerous Minecraft blogs. Well the summer going into senior year of high school, a few of my friends and I formed a band called The Flintlocks. It was awesome, and while we never went anywhere, I wrote this song that our singer refused to sing because it would ruin his street cred. That said, here it is.
There are cave bears (the furry beasts!),
but our wizard shall toast them, there shall be feasts!
he makes the most checks so we don't die,
and he's got a spell so we can fly!
he's chaotic evil and fire based.
he's one of the worst enemies you've ever faced.
We have a warrior; we call him a fighter,
we really wish he was a little brighter.
His intelligence is eight,
so he knows just enough to mate.
We have a bard, he likes to sing.
His inspiring words, he will fling!
We hit stronger, we hit harder,
When we're dead, our names they shall martyr!
We're playing Dungeons and Dragons,
Meetin’ hot chicks n’ drinking outta flagons.
We've fought goblins and we've fought kobolds
Leavin’ victorious, loaded with swords and gold!
Of course there's the ranger, the drunken lout.
He just strings his bow and shoots about.
He could never miss a single shot.
He can shoot a fly the size of a dot!
We acquired an avenger, what an odd guy.
He’s a royal assassin, so he's quite sly.
He’s mostly good for that one monster you can't hit.
But he's weak, so after every battle he'll have to sit.
We're playing Dungeons and Dragons,
Meetin’ hot chicks n’ drinking outta flagons.
We've fought goblins and we've fought kobolds
Leavin’ victorious, loaded with swords and gold!
We have a glorious warlord, he's really scary.
big and burly, and a wee bit hairy.
He's a tiefling, but he can be nice.
still don't mess with him or you'll pay the price.
A halfing rogue is last and least (just kidding).
daggers and knives are really quite fitting.
He jumps and twirls, dances and leaps,
the bodies stack up in nice neat heaps.
We're playing Dungeons and Dragons,
Meetin’ hot chicks n’ drinking outta flagons.
We've fought goblins and we've fought kobolds
Leavin’ victorious, loaded with swords and gold!
Of course then there's the dungeon master
he's everything from troll to caster.
he throws out the monsters for us to kill
even though we always die a little.
As a party we knock them about,
stick them in a bag of holding, drag them out!
Staves, swords, axes, lutes and knives,
Stand in our way, we shall take your lives!
Of course then there's the dungeon master
he's everything from troll to caster.
he throws out the monsters for us to kill
even though we always die a little.
he plans wars and he plans battles,
across the continent our fights will rattle!
There are steam punk engineers and a mage level thirty,
Jim Darkmagic has spells that are really quite hurty!
There are fire dragons and crazy guns,
soon we'll deal with emperors' sons!
Our team speaks almost every speech,
so there's no language in which we cannot preach!
Our heroes will arise to paragons, and even gods.
There's nothing we can't handle, we win by all odds!
Sunday, April 17, 2011
Friday, April 1, 2011
This is No Joke
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| Ain't he cute? |
Anyway, that's enough blasphemy for one day, enjoy the rest of the afternoon!
Monday, March 21, 2011
Gylfaginning: The Birth Of A Bunch of Weird Stuff
In the previous installment, I left you with a crazy Shyamalan Twist.
Ignoring your ever so rude criticism, let's dive right into the Norse Creation Myth, shall we?
Before the world was made, there was already a sort of existing universe. It was referred to as the Mist-World, and like most sources for Norse things, it all came out of a well. This well, called Hvergelmir(1), is where the rivers Svöl, Gunnthrá, Fjörm, Fimbulthul, Slídr, Hríd, Sylgr, Ylgr, Víd, Leiptr and Gjöll come from. Gjöll, incidentally flows past Niflheimr under a bridge going to the very gates. Being a river near Hel, it is ice-cold and for arbitrary reasons supposedly has knives flowing through it.
While all this is existing, the very first place in existence is Múspellsheimr(2). There's no origin story for it, which is really typical of the mythology(3). That's about all it says about that.
Things get kind of convoluded here, which is fine, because you have a genuine skald here to help!
(Ed. note: Self-declared and thus not really genuine. Sorry.)
There's a Yawning Void, called Ginnungagap, which I can only assume is the Norse version of saying "It's like throwing a hot dog down a hallway." It's just a giant open void in the middle of existence, and the ice from the aforementioned rivers called rime(4), which is made a venom for about as good a reason as Gjöll being full of knives, flows into it, while the lava/magma (it's not really underground, but it's not above ground either..?) from Múspellsheimr mixes in and makes a catastrophic mess.
Much like uncovering a block of ice with an undead mammoth residing in it, within the ice were terrible things waiting to get out. I think the "venom" mentioned is a euphemism for evil and whatnot, not necessarily straight-up poison, but with the Norse at this point, who knows? So the heat from Múspellsheimr meets with the ice from Niflheimr and it melts(5). Sur-fucking-prise.
So without any frame of time throughout this entire thing, a man forms out of the ensuing melted mess (because isn't that how all people are made in the end?), named Ymir, though the Jötunn call him Aurgelimir (gravel-yeller. Your guess is as good as mine). Now, again the following is out of context, but when I get to the Völuspá, I think it will be more explained, because all research tends to lead there.
All the witches | spring from Witolf,
All the warlocks | are of Willharm,
And the spell-singers | spring from Swarthead;
All the ogres | of Ymir come.
The reason I say that it should be explained later is that these names do not appear anywhere else except the Gylfaginning and the Völuspá.
But concerning this says Vafthrúdnir the giant:
Out of the Ice-waves | issued venom-drops,
Waxing until | a giant was;
Thence are our kindred | come all together,--
So it is | they are savage forever."
This basically says that because the Jötunn are made from venom, they're always going to be savage; for those of you who don't read the poetic snippets.
But then, coming out of story-mode, Gangleri asks, "So... where is everyone else? Or is this it? Is this 'Ymir' fellow your god or... Is there someone less... I dunno, venom-savage marked?" In what I can only imagine as a blustery mustached man in the middle of a swig, Jafnhárr goes, "Oh, Gimlé no! He's a venom-savage, and we can't be having that being a god!" He's probably a bit insulted, because remember, he's also Odin in triplet disguise. Now, I can't imagine many grosser creation stories, but regardless of Jafnhárr's Just as High opinion of himself, Ymir is pretty much a god in this myth. The other thing is, he still doesn't get straight to where human-man comes from, Snorri seems to be using "man" just in the sense that the resulting creations are male or female.
"Now it is said that when he slept, a sweat came upon him, and there grew under his left hand a man and a woman, and one of his feet begat a son with the other; and thus the races are come; these are the Rime-Giants. The old Rime-Giant, him we call Ymir". Most of this is redundant, but that's okay. I guess.
So Gangleri doesn't find this odd at all, and goes on to ask, "Well where did Ymir hang out? What does he have to survive on? He's in the middle of a freakin' Ginnungagap. Of course Hárr has a perfectly good explanation! Why, from the rime, a giant cow named Audumla(6) drips down and four streams of milk ran from her udders, and she feeds Ymir.
But Gangleri won't let the leather be pulled over his eyes, so he continues to bother Hárr for the sake of your education and asks where Audumla gets her nourishment! Hárr is still on top of things and tells Gangleri that she licked the ice-blocks, because apparently cows like salt and it's satisfying enough for food?
In the next episode, we will be exploring what becomes of the licked ice-block! No, that is not a joke:
"She licked the ice-blocks, which were salty; and the first day that she licked the blocks, there came forth from the blocks in the evening..."
1) Meaning "bubbling boiling spring". I maintain that the Norse were too busy naming their swords and bedding wenches to name regular things like wells.
2) Literally, The home of Múspell, or as it looks in the phrase, Múspell's home; directly translated, Flame Land.
Múspell is the fire realm, and demons are referred to as Sons of Múspell. I think that it's like calling soldiers Sons of America or something like that. Regardless, the demon Sutr is the ruler, and will eventually set the world on fire at the end of Ragnarok. The myths like to get ahead of themselves midmyth, so we'll save Ragnarok for later.
3) There's a whole chapter that flows from one myth to the other without a new title, and in the end the whole point is that some witch's toe fell off while Thor was carrying her through a cold area, and Thor just threw it into the air for good measure, and that's why there's this star somewhere referred to a cold witch's toe thrown in the air by Thor. They had a weird value system.
4) Thus rime-giants/Jötunn. See? It all comes back around!
5) According to Wikipedia, the combination of both 'heims (as we call them in the hood) is called Eitr. This is the substance of all life, but it is also made from poison, and the same poison of the World Serpent (coming soon to a blog near you!).
SPOILER ALERT: Ragnarok does not destroy the universe, but rather it starts it over. A major theme throughout Norse mythology, and general mythology, is that from life comes death, and from death comes life, so this is a really good example.
6) I'm sure I've said this before, but my favorite part of Norse mythology is the arbitrary stuff.
 |
| What do you mean, "No you didn't"? I did it at least as good as he did. |
Before the world was made, there was already a sort of existing universe. It was referred to as the Mist-World, and like most sources for Norse things, it all came out of a well. This well, called Hvergelmir(1), is where the rivers Svöl, Gunnthrá, Fjörm, Fimbulthul, Slídr, Hríd, Sylgr, Ylgr, Víd, Leiptr and Gjöll come from. Gjöll, incidentally flows past Niflheimr under a bridge going to the very gates. Being a river near Hel, it is ice-cold and for arbitrary reasons supposedly has knives flowing through it.
 |
| Who doesn't love a nice cold glass of sharp? |
 |
| And now for something completely different. |
(Ed. note: Self-declared and thus not really genuine. Sorry.)
There's a Yawning Void, called Ginnungagap, which I can only assume is the Norse version of saying "It's like throwing a hot dog down a hallway." It's just a giant open void in the middle of existence, and the ice from the aforementioned rivers called rime(4), which is made a venom for about as good a reason as Gjöll being full of knives, flows into it, while the lava/magma (it's not really underground, but it's not above ground either..?) from Múspellsheimr mixes in and makes a catastrophic mess.
Much like uncovering a block of ice with an undead mammoth residing in it, within the ice were terrible things waiting to get out. I think the "venom" mentioned is a euphemism for evil and whatnot, not necessarily straight-up poison, but with the Norse at this point, who knows? So the heat from Múspellsheimr meets with the ice from Niflheimr and it melts(5). Sur-fucking-prise.
So without any frame of time throughout this entire thing, a man forms out of the ensuing melted mess (because isn't that how all people are made in the end?), named Ymir, though the Jötunn call him Aurgelimir (gravel-yeller. Your guess is as good as mine). Now, again the following is out of context, but when I get to the Völuspá, I think it will be more explained, because all research tends to lead there.
All the witches | spring from Witolf,
All the warlocks | are of Willharm,
And the spell-singers | spring from Swarthead;
All the ogres | of Ymir come.
The reason I say that it should be explained later is that these names do not appear anywhere else except the Gylfaginning and the Völuspá.
But concerning this says Vafthrúdnir the giant:
Waxing until | a giant was;
Thence are our kindred | come all together,--
So it is | they are savage forever."
This basically says that because the Jötunn are made from venom, they're always going to be savage; for those of you who don't read the poetic snippets.
But then, coming out of story-mode, Gangleri asks, "So... where is everyone else? Or is this it? Is this 'Ymir' fellow your god or... Is there someone less... I dunno, venom-savage marked?" In what I can only imagine as a blustery mustached man in the middle of a swig, Jafnhárr goes, "Oh, Gimlé no! He's a venom-savage, and we can't be having that being a god!" He's probably a bit insulted, because remember, he's also Odin in triplet disguise. Now, I can't imagine many grosser creation stories, but regardless of Jafnhárr's Just as High opinion of himself, Ymir is pretty much a god in this myth. The other thing is, he still doesn't get straight to where human-man comes from, Snorri seems to be using "man" just in the sense that the resulting creations are male or female.
"Now it is said that when he slept, a sweat came upon him, and there grew under his left hand a man and a woman, and one of his feet begat a son with the other; and thus the races are come; these are the Rime-Giants. The old Rime-Giant, him we call Ymir". Most of this is redundant, but that's okay. I guess.
 |
| I didn't want to get to the point anyway. |
 |
| So he's got that going for him. Which is nice. |
 |
| This is starting to sound less like the work of a priest and more like the time your Uncle got drunk an- No, yeah, sounds like the work of a priest. Zing! |
"She licked the ice-blocks, which were salty; and the first day that she licked the blocks, there came forth from the blocks in the evening..."
1) Meaning "bubbling boiling spring". I maintain that the Norse were too busy naming their swords and bedding wenches to name regular things like wells.
2) Literally, The home of Múspell, or as it looks in the phrase, Múspell's home; directly translated, Flame Land.
 |
| It's probably the only time Pedobear wasn't lying. |
Múspell is the fire realm, and demons are referred to as Sons of Múspell. I think that it's like calling soldiers Sons of America or something like that. Regardless, the demon Sutr is the ruler, and will eventually set the world on fire at the end of Ragnarok. The myths like to get ahead of themselves midmyth, so we'll save Ragnarok for later.
3) There's a whole chapter that flows from one myth to the other without a new title, and in the end the whole point is that some witch's toe fell off while Thor was carrying her through a cold area, and Thor just threw it into the air for good measure, and that's why there's this star somewhere referred to a cold witch's toe thrown in the air by Thor. They had a weird value system.
4) Thus rime-giants/Jötunn. See? It all comes back around!
5) According to Wikipedia, the combination of both 'heims (as we call them in the hood) is called Eitr. This is the substance of all life, but it is also made from poison, and the same poison of the World Serpent (coming soon to a blog near you!).
SPOILER ALERT: Ragnarok does not destroy the universe, but rather it starts it over. A major theme throughout Norse mythology, and general mythology, is that from life comes death, and from death comes life, so this is a really good example.
6) I'm sure I've said this before, but my favorite part of Norse mythology is the arbitrary stuff.
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