A.
Welcome to the episode I am calling whispers with Hugnin and Mugnin.
They are the two loyal raven spies of Odin.
He named them after Thought and Memory.
And in this special episode, at this time of year, I am going to share memories of how
this podcast journey began and also share my thoughts for the future.
So please grab a spot on the meat bench, a horn of ale, a platter of meat, bread and
cheeses and let us begin.
Let us look back at the origin story of Valhalla conversations.
And it all began in 2021 when MCM Comic Con, hosting in London that year in the autumn,
were looking for fan-based content to put on a digital program to stream online, the
digital ticket holders alongside their physical program and physical events.
Because of course this was set in the aftermath of the COVID pandemic, so social distancing,
crowds.
Large events were still turned down, they were not as popular.
In a way they still have bounce back, but we will see for that.
But yes, they were looking for fan-based content and it got me thinking, well if the content
can be made by fans then it can be on anything potentially.
And I have always lacked a nearby or even local group of people who related to my passion
for viking stuff, whether it is history or mythology.
I am a bit of a black sheep in my own friend network in this particular interest.
And I will always remember the one piece of advice the MCM page gave on submitting an
application of content was, do not invite Gal Gadot, who of course played Superman, not
a Superman, sorry, Wonder Woman, without actually genuinely inviting her and seeing is she would participate.
So they really did want people, if you are going to throw celebrity names into your application
in the hope that they get in, they really want to have some faith that person will be
there.
Now of course I got thinking, who could I get to talk to about viking stuff, in particular
North mythology and especially in fantasy fiction.
Thankfully I had quite a cast of possible guests to join me on this slightly adventure
and the first one I picked was Joanne Harris.
She wrote of course the Runemarks series, well two of Runemarks and Runelight, the Gospel
of Loki and the Testament of Loki.
Thankfully when I emailed her she was quite amicable, responsive, positive, she did not
fob me off or ignore my email, which is always plus.
I think this is going back quite away now, I have not gone in three years but my brain
is not what it used to be.
She suggested another guest might be Francesca Simon who wrote The Monster's Child which
is a book all about hell and how she became the goddess of Helheim.
And then I think Francesca Simon suggested Professor Caroline Larrington who is a true
Oxford professor and knows the ins and outs of North mythology from the sagas and eddas
and beyond.
And remarkably I managed to unite all three of them and we had this really good discussion
about North fantasy.
We worked together, well I did some drafts of the blurb for the panel to go with it,
came up with the title The 540 Doors of Valhalla because it does have 540 doors and I thought
that quite reflected the vast array of fantasy fiction which took from North mythology for
their things, characters, plots and whatnot.
We worked together on the blurb and then we submitted the application and we had a month
or two to wait and remarkably we then found out that he had been accepted.
So then I was in contact with someone at the MCM team to get the right graphics and templates
and have a deadline for when to send the recording in because thankfully it wasn't live because
I personally couldn't afford to go down to London and of course the other day they were
also busy with their own things.
So we recorded it, sent the recording down but following that I then got the crazy idea
of suggesting that we could do this panel again with the Jorvik Viking Festival because
I know they would love this kind of thing and at the time they also had their own podcast,
the Jorvik Viking thing podcast or that Jorvik Viking podcast to get dramatically correct.
And so she said well how about we not do it as a live event but do it again as a podcast
episode and we could premiere it during the Viking Festival and that was happening in
the following year because this was originally done for autumn 2021 so now looking at spring
time 2022 that was good, the ladies were all down for it again and I, being the humble
person I sent the call up was still welcome and included as a guest even though I wasn't
being the host and being the one asking the questions.
So we did that, it got moved back slightly bit because that year they trialled during
the festival during the May half-term holidays, is it a February half-term holidays again
because of the after Covid.
So yes so that happened so I was in a way a small part the Jorvik Viking Festival which
goes into the tick on my dream box because I've been a pilgrim, literally a pilgrim I
go to every year if I can of the Jorvik Viking Festival and then after that I thought oh I
quite enjoyed that but what else can I do.
And then something came up in October that year, 2022 and it was on Twitter, when Twitter
was Twitter, was a bluebird, not an X and not a place of box and not my people, that
it is now and there was a guy called Alex known as spells and spaceships, I think his
username he has a blog and he set up this crazy thing called Norse member which is where
he liked to come out and celebrate anything Norse, modern historical otherwise through
the month of November and I thought oh I could do something with that, what could I do.
And I'd already done the same panel twice but I didn't want to do that again, I wanted
to do something else so I thought I'd approach from other authors I've read and I liked and
the two authors I got involved were Amelia Dillon of Twisted Fate series or Beyond Fate
series following an interesting crossover between Adam and Eve and Thor across the whole time
span and Kat Rector who had written The Goddess of Nothing at all, I spoke to those two again
via email and again they were quite receptive and interested and engaged and we had a lovely
conversation and that was then put on to YouTube as my first ever episode of what would come
to be known as Valhalla conversations, so since then I have done 10 episodes and that's
not including the first one that started the whole crazy thing off with Joan Harris Professor
Caroline and Francesca Simon.
So since Amelia Dillon and Kat Rector I then had Helen Hollick, Patricia Bracewell, Sharon
Menick Connolly, they were soon to be joined by Justin Hill, they were returning guests
for covering the Vikings Valhalla TV series, Joan Harris and Francesca Caroline did indeed
join me again on my podcast and I think they were joining the episode where I officially
named it as Valhalla conversations alongside Genevieve Cornishek, Caitlin Felix, Louis
Stowell, we've had Tessa Gratton, Kate Hartfield, Aisa Wheatley, a comic writer, Field Cold
Halt most recently and also co-hosts of another podcast which is always great work, Kaya
Spartan and Johanna Wittgenberg, so thank you to all of you, without folks like you,
Sharon the same passion as me and who willing to join me who is just a humble nobody, I'm
just a humble bookworm and fan, none of Valhalla conversations would be.
If I hadn't had the experience with Joan Harris, Francesca Simon, Professor Caroline
Larrington at the start I probably wouldn't have then had the episode with Amelia Dillon
and Kat Rector, nor the episode with Helen Hollick and Patricia Racewell and Sharon
Bennett Connolly, just seemed like a piece of hell and that gave me the confidence then
to do more and like I wanted to do more again and so here we are.
I think I did a total of five episodes this year which is more than the last year because
it's been sporadic, I don't always have the time to do this, I do have a proper job as
well as being a parent, but to hit ten episodes and double digits I consider that quite a
mini milestone and success story and I'm quite proud but also humbled because without
these guests none of this would be here.
So I hope to any and all who have listened to those episodes you have enjoyed them.
Now I guess we should stop looking to the past and going down memory and start thinking
about the future and looking at the thought because I have got plans, I have got plans
and I am delighted to say that there are a few exciting little announcements to make,
not big ones but just little ones that might help spread the word so to speak.
So first off Valhalla Conversations is no longer just on YouTube, it's on more platforms.
We are now on audio platforms, you can now find Valhalla Conversations on Spotify, Amazon
Music, Podcast Index and on RSS.com.
The RSS is the main distribution point but you can find it in all those other platforms
individually as well.
So if you don't just want to watch my base and other people's faces you can just listen
to us and our conversations via wherever you like to listen whether it's in the car,
washing up in the kitchen, in hoovering, on your commute.
You can now tune in there and all future episodes will continue all 10 episodes and now on all
those platforms.
So if you have had friends who might like this podcast but don't want to watch on YouTube
you can now send them the link.
Direct them to Spotify, direct them to Amazon Music and hopefully they will discover us and
join the conversation and enjoy as much as you did.
But yeah, so we know all those platforms, we now also have our own Facebook page.
But if you want to comment on anything, find out the latest news, future guests coming
up.
I've been trying to use the Community tab on YouTube for the best of my ability but
I don't think it actually gets into anyone's feed much.
So I've gone for a Facebook page.
Now I know some people might not be on Facebook.
I am of course on social media as well so if you just want to follow my personal account
it's fine.
I mingle my social media work and podcast work with my own account.
So you can find me at soltacebecky on Instagram, Blue Sky and Threads and of course I also
run the Facebook page.
I've put blurbs and linked all 10 episodes up on that Facebook page as well.
So again please go over there, give it a like, give it a follow and then little episodes like
this, sneak peeks of new content will appear there and I have got plans for new content
because I've invested in myself as a content creator as well as a podcaster and I have
got devices and tools now that I can use to not just talk to people about biking usually
not pathology but also share my horde of books.
I have a lot of books that I've read.
I've reviewed loads of them on my blog.
Of course blogs are just so old news they like the...
Before the Millennium.
Before the Millennium was blog spain so I'm going to try turning them all into little
videos with me talking over the top and showing you the books and blurb and maybe reading
some snippets and experiment with a few styles but I would love to have your feedback on
what you might like from a non-typical book review.
I have decided that I am going to try and release 12 episodes next year, one per month.
So I am already making a wish list and indeed recruiting guests for future episodes including
in January we have got Joshua Gilligan.
He's based in Canada and he is an amazing guy.
His involvement in North Stuff in the modern medium sense is quite spectacular.
He's not written just two fancy novels.
I've got a huge dose of North quality and culture to them as well as a big dollop of
Lord of the Rings' esteness.
But he's also been involved with his own card game that's based on the Icelandic political
system which is called the Old Thingy.
He's co-editor of two books, Old and Most Modern Times, always handy to have on the
shelf.
The Crescent and the Northern Star.
Sorry Joshua, The Crescent and the Northern Star and it's a beautiful anthology including
previous guest Caitlin Felix's work of her possible up well potentially upcoming book
in 2025 covering many fictional but with a lot of research and ground to it.
The meeting of North cultures with cultures in the Middle East around Baghdad and one
side to the other and course Muslims and Heathens or Muslims and Pagans versus Muslims and Christians.
So it really is an interesting authority.
So he's coming in January.
February on the podcast, we are finally, some of you did vote on the One Community poll
that actually got votes that were interested in a review of Twilight of the Gods on Netflix.
We have got Arthur K. S. Byrd from the Women of the North World podcast joining us again
for that one.
I recently converted her into that series and we have a new guy called Sasha and he
is from slightly reckless games.
Now they've recently caught funding together through Kickstarter for a more rules system
based Berserk or Berserker.
I have yet to play it.
They're still going to be playtesting and hoping to get it in the spring.
It's a tabletop RPG I'm unfamiliar with.
I've not heard of that before or played the rules so it'll be interesting.
So that'll be possible future content with Sasha and slightly reckless games team.
For other potential guests coming up in 2015 include Ian Stewart-Sharp.
Now his lineage with North stuff goes in further than Joshua's although they have worked together
both of them on North for modern times.
Ian Stewart-Sharp wrote a mind-boggling book called The All-Farther Paradox which basically
gave Odin the leeway to rewrite history regardless of what the North freed.
And so the North, the people of the North became the most successful relation on the
planet effectively.
They were the ones who led the world forward in terms of technology, medicine, spirituality,
knowledge, technology etc.
And it's projected into a whole, then projected into a whole tabletop campaign world called
When the World Comes which I did get to play a little bit of on his new and ongoing actual
play podcast of the thoughts and memory saga which is based within When the World Will
Come and his podcast is called Vikings and Buggies.
I debut in episode 5.
So if you want to move along the link's down below.
So yeah so I could talk to him a lot about North stuff.
I've also want to invite at some point next year one of my co-adventurers on that gaming
podcast an artist called Sam Flegel.
He has done amazing art and go check him out on Instagram.
It's really stunning.
It all involves ink blotches and delicate paint work and inking and it's all based on North
mythology both from the Eddas but he's also painted a whole series of artworks to go with
the Volusper which is the prophecy of the Bolver and also the Havermal which is the
words of the Havermal from Odin which is basically his how to guide on the main of
life in a way.
But he's also working on Lottisana which is a load of artwork inspired, influenced by
the character of Loki which again is the play of the month all year in terms of nonsense
because no one wants that though ever once Loki so I'm hoping to get him on.
Also on my hit list for this podcast is How's Jacobs.
Now he is rather local to me and I came across him through a friend I made on a creative
media course and he is actually part of a Viking band.
Now not a heavy metal band, something akin to Waruna in that they replicate or inspired
by instruments of the time, music traditions of the time that kind of thing and his band
actually performed a whole soundtrack for a promenade performance of Beowulf in my
hometown that happened last autumn and unfortunately Loki played with my fate that year and I
just never got to attend it.
I had plans to, me and my colleagues had plans to go but by the time all those had
got rounds of getting tickets I forgot for one reason or another when I got round to
getting one they'd all sold out.
It was a sellout performance by the entire landscape of the centre of the town and they
got even reviews from the local and national newspapers because the Beowulf was a female
character not a male and they did other things which were revolutionary and unfortunately
I missed out a little bit but you win some you lose some.
So I really want to talk to him, I have sent him an email, I'm just waiting to hear that
from him.
Another guest I'm hoping to get on is a acquaintance I made at the Maryson Posing Minster
Bangley in August who I went to speak about Valkyries in Fantasy Eviction and his name
is Nuka Panara and he is from Iceland and he has a lot of knowledge and experience and
study and research in video games, depictions of Viking culture and North mythology and
yep I have lots to talk to about him on that.
Mainly because I've put a long list of games I have played or want to play I just need
time to play them all.
Slightly reckless games of course will come up at some point for their Morkborg, Mizzurka,
TTRPV, Genoed Cornishak I guess we've had on before in the Valk Ragnarok review episode.
I have finished her Witch's Hat book and I am currently reading her Weaver and the Witch
book.
Very, very good.
I'm hoping to finish that by the end of Christmas and then I would like to get her on top of
both of those books, they are both about really strong unique women characters both from the
mythology and the history and it's just, Chesky's wonderful.
Another acquaintance from the same conference in Savannah is an historian-archeologist known
as Emma Thompson.
She herself has got an interesting hobby research project going on into the representation
of Vikings and the Viking Age in tabletop RPG games.
She has a really fascinating presentation at Symposium.
We can't talk about the core of it because both me and her are hoping to get our research
published in the Symposium volume next year so that's another thing we have to do, there's
a busy writing.
But I just want to talk to you more generally about how Vikings are portrayed in tabletop
RPG games.
I have supported a number of them, or Kickstarter, and the interpretation depiction is always
like different, especially how they either weave the mythology into the creation and
breadth of the world that the player is playing or just as the lore and background.
So I might be swapping notes and sharing on that one.
I also have two other podcasters I quite like to do a podcast with.
There is Alina Minea who's historian but she is better known as Skould and she runs the
Shield of Skould podcast on YouTube.
She does her own series of lectures as part of a course, online course that you can attend.
Unfortunately my timing to her time zone doesn't always work out but I think we could have
some interesting discussions.
And one recent acquaintance that I've met is a historian who goes by the name of Fjorn
and he's known as Fjorn Skelz on Instagram and on YouTube.
She's just restarted releasing his own content on Viking Age History.
And again we both connected because we both share the passion and we want to talk to more
people who also get our passion and our interest.
So that is what a glimpse of the special guests I'm hoping to get on for 2025.
Yeah, might not be quite a whole file there but I think we've got a good chunk.
We've got at least January, February, but Instagram maybe in March, just down the legal
maybe in April, then Luca maybe in May, that's five.
And then we've got one, two, three, four, five, six, more so we've got to 11 already.
So I'm just a couple of, and I have got an idea for an episode to do with Israel Perfection
but I need to speak to some people first just to see if they're interested.
Because I have realised that a lot of my content so far, they're such on the mythological and
fantastical side or the Norse history in terms of one medium.
But I have read a lot of Viking Age History of Perfection so I think I would like to touch
base with that.
So yes, there you are.
We've had quite a conversation with Union and Union, Memory and Thought looking back
and looking forward.
So I hope you have a wonderful Christmas time, a festive break, seasonal holiday, whatever
you do at this time of year.
I hope you have fun.
I hope it's the people you love, friends and family and looking forward to debuting episode
11 in January with Joshua Gilliam.
So again, find the Facebook page, give it a like, follow details of good there when it's
coming out.
This was on my social feeds at Soltoysabeki at Instagram, Threads and now on Blues Guy.
Put any comments down below.
There are any guests that you would like to see, things you'd like to see me do, not
do, do I talk too much, do I not talk too much, do I not ask the right questions?
And of course, if you haven't subscribed yet, please do because there's lots more to come
and if you like Viking stuff, you're all welcome in my Valhalla and I do hope you join
us for future Valhalla conversations soon.
Thank you very much for listening.