If you’ve read A Tale of Scorched Ash and Elm, or been a part of the ARC team for Child of Ash Heir of Fire, you’ve noticed a pattern. Midwinter arrives, the fire gets built, and at some point a horse bites the dust. When someone asks about this, they typically have the look of …
Were the Days of the Week Really Named After Norse Gods? (It’s More Complicated Than That) Here’s a piece of Norse mythology trivia that circulates constantly online, in classrooms, and in the kind of books you find in the mythology section of a large chain bookstore: Tuesday is named after Tyr. Wednesday is named after …
And Why Pop Culture Gets Him Wrong The Norse God Freyr is one of the most important gods in the Norse pantheon. He is also one of the most consistently ignored, misrepresented, and flattened by modern pop culture, and that bothers me more than I can reasonably explain in a single blog post, but I’m …
A Viking Dark Fantasy Author Explains Here’s a question I get asked a lot: how do you research Norse Mythology for a Viking dark fantasy series? The short answer is: very carefully, and with a deep suspicion of whatever you thought you already knew. Because here’s the thing nobody tells you when you first fall …
Elves in Norse Myth vs. Leifthasir: Álfar, Dark Elves, Seidr, and Viking Fantasy Worldbuilding Norse elves were not tiny fairies or Tolkien-style forest immortals. They were shining, powerful, ambiguous beings tied to gods, ancestors, fertility, death, and the land. In Leifthasir, those mythic roots become a living people shaped by Seidr, divine abandonment, war, exile, …
The Viking Age gives us a complicated picture of women warriors: legendary shield-maidens, rare archaeological evidence, and legal systems that discouraged women from taking up masculine roles. In Leifthasir, that tension becomes the foundation for a fantasy world where women can fight—but never without consequence. Were There Women Warriors in the Viking Age? The idea …
The Viking world did not think about sexuality the way modern readers do. Despite popular media depicting the ancient Norse as an egalitarian wonderland of acceptance and diversity, the truth is that history doesn’t match that picture. When I began writing A Tale of Scorched Ash and Elm I knew I had to choose the …
Historical Seiðr vs. Seidr in Leifthasir: Norse Magic, Myth, and Fantasy Worldbuilding Let’s dive into Seiðr in the world of the ancient Norse, and Seidr as we see it in Leifthasir. What Is Seiðr in Norse History? In Old Norse tradition, seiðr was a form of magic associated with prophecy, trance work, spirit travel, fate, …
I recently picked up “The Witch’s Heart” by Genevieve Gornichec at my local library. I had been recommended this book years back by a friend, but I was never able to find it. My first experience with Gornichec’s work was in “The Weaver and the Witch Queen,” which I very much enjoyed. Her retelling of …