Welcome to Balhalla Conversations podcast. I'm
your host, Becky Hill, otherwise known as Soul
Chaser Becky, and I am a proud Viking geek. I
fell in love with the history, culture and mythology
of the Viking Age and I have been on an endless
quest for more ever since. Join me as I discuss
all things North with those who have been inspired
by Viking Age history and North mythology in
their creative works or those who have studied
the sagas and archaeology and review how such
subjects are being presented to modern audiences
today. If you like Viking stuff you are welcome
in my Valhalla and I hope you stay. for the conversation.
Welcome everyone to episode 13 of Valhalla Conversations
podcast and my special guest in this week's,
well, this month's episode in the month of March
is a special friend of mine, Ian Stewart Sharpe.
Welcome, Ian. Hello! Thank you for having me.
This has been top of the agenda for a long time.
You've teased me for a while, so I hope it's
all worth it in the final analysis. Well, whether
viewers are familiar with you or not, they will
be by the end of this episode, hopefully, because
you've got quite a collection, a portfolio, to
your... name I should say really of Norse stuff
and some of them I have read some of them I've
even played with directly so to speak. And kickstarted
and supported on Twitter and provided marketing
quotes for? Yes and I could say I'm in your unofficial
agent for a particular podcast. Exactly exactly
I think I pretty much owe my entire career to
you so thank you. Oh thank you. I will be expecting
an invoice next month. No, it's fine. I do all
this for the love of anyone who does anything
fun with North stuff, which you definitely do.
So to give a brief introduction, you have written
two fantasy novels. I call them fantasy, but
they are a bit of sci -fi in between. The first
one is The All -Further Paradox. The next one
is Loki's Way to Which I have to confess I haven't
actually read yet. But you know my life has been
rather busy, hasn't it? We'll do a quick synopsis
here. We'll narrate it now. Go for it. Explain
to our viewers and listeners why they should
read The Old Father Paradox and Loki's Rager.
Well, partly because every Norse aficionado needs
to support creatives in this space like us. I
was just talking with... the lovely friend of
the podcast, Caitlin Felix. And she said, I must
send you a copy of Rand's Daughters, which is
her debut novel. And I said, no, no, no, no,
no. I'm gonna go buy it. There's no point us
all sending each other these free things. You
need to buy it and respect it for its merit.
We are, yeah. coiling struggling creatives. I
obviously have faith because you can't support
things by just writing about Norse alternate
history and so that's what it really is is the
Viking verse is an alternate timeline where the
Norse never Christianized and so at some point
back in the past and there are various tipping
points but certainly before 1066 battle of Stamford
Bridge and the invasion of Howard Hardrada there
is this tipping point where the Norse instead
of losing those battles they start to win everything
and they turn the tide against Christianity so
that the modern world faced with that tipping
point becomes a Norse pagan present and that's
where the Viking vest is set and so the Allfather
paradox is a pun on the grandfather paradox.
Grandfather paradox being a temporal paradox
that is all about you go back in time, you kill
your grandfather so therefore paradoxically you
can't be born so you can't go back in time and
kill your grandfather. The all -father Odin takes
the place of the grandfather in that elaborate
pun and that's how the history has changed. Odin
as A maverick god of mayhem and mischief goes
back and changes the timelines to make sure that
he doesn't get expunged in Ragnarok. Did you
want the long answer or the short answer? That
was very precise. I personally wouldn't know
how to explain it myself sometimes. Besides,
the way I've summarized it is, imagine if the
Vikings were good at everything. They invented
science, they invented maths, they invented technology.
they then went into space. And that's as far
as I get usually. That's perfectly valid. And
in actual fact, there is that Marvel series that's
been running a while now called What If, which
is as if the Hulk didn't take, Bruce Banner didn't
take his gamma radiation and turn it to someone
else. It just speculates and postulates on all
of those kind of different alternative scenarios
in the Viking versus very much. Norse mythology
brought the life and the gods tinkering with
Fate in order to defy fate comes from this came
from a couple of things actually I think you
have to be careful what you wish for because
when I wrote your father paradox my what if was
You know, I was facing my own kind of personal
brand new up because I had a company collapse
uh brexit had just happened donald trump had
been elected and i was thinking oh my god how
come the world get any worse what if we could
just turn back time and do it a bit differently
and that's what then led to this series of novels
of course ragnarok is itself inherently cyclical
and so you know we've got disaster just coming
back time and time again uh and we live in interesting
times once more As I say within the book, there
is seldom a single wave. The doom keeps coming
back. I must admit, you kind of, it is, I guess
how I describe it is revolutionary in how deep
and detailed you go into rewriting history in
order to create this paradoxical universe. It's
just staggering. That's half the fun, right?
And so partly that came from the fact that Old
Norse, the language of the Vikings, and English
are so similar, right? They're kissing cousins,
and so I know that you've got all of the props,
but I'm just going to skip ahead and mess up
here, but Old Norse Modern Times, Old Norse Modern
Times. I actually wrote that with another friend
of the podcast. Slowly we're accumulating everyone
in the Viking world on our respective podcasts.
Anyway, it says Josh Gilligan put that together
with me, as well as a professor called Angrim
over Dalin, who is a professor of Icelandic medieval
literature. And we put that together because
it is hilarious just how similar some words are
and how easy it is to translate personages like,
for example, Shakespeare. William Shakespeare
in Old Norse would be Wilhelm Schackegier, right?
But, you know, because that's how the components
break down. Charles Darwin becomes Carl Divert.
Albert Einstein becomes something like Albrecht
Einstein and the whole... That kissing cousin
nature of the language, the fact they're so similar,
is just so fun to play with. So you can take
these great names of inventors, historians, scientists,
and generals and norsify them, look at them through
the black mirror of this Norse lens. And so that's
fun. Some don't work. I mean, things like Isaac
Newton. is difficult because Isaac, being a very
biblical name, doesn't know the first engineer.
But Newton does. Newton just becomes Newton.
There's so many rich cultural influences on the
English language that started off as Germanic.
You go back to Alfred the Great's time. And a
traveller in the core of... Alfred the Great,
ninth century England, from Norway was mutually
intelligible. It was only after the Romance languages
piled in with William the Conqueror, who was
himself of Norse descent, as a Norman, that we
got this influx of alternative words and Latin
-based stuff. Anyway, that's the kind of thing
that I mess around with. far too much and you're
the only person who's ever listened to it at
all. Well I am just just staggered because it
is it kind of only hit me how deep this rabbit
hole and I quite like the description of a black
mirror. but but a north north a north black mirror
because There are times where it's not kind of
like a nice world because it's gone down this
other route And of course that all comes through
in your other publications, which i'm going to
show to the camera And the first one which I
followed was the jotten wall If I can get it
without glaring out my virtual screen, which
is a series of comics Um that follow an amazing
sci -fi -esque tale. So is that where you first
found my stuff? I think so. I think so. You have
to be careful with your J's and your Y sounds
here. No, I do it all the time. I do it all the
time. Because even on the podcast, I'm sure we
talked about it in the Vikings of Banff and stuff,
then one of the characters there is a Jarl, right?
But so many times I say Jarl. And it is natural
for an English speaker to go for the J when the
more correct Nordic pronunciation would be Jotun.
But honestly, I do it all the time and I wrote
the bleeding thing, so don't worry about it.
Well, it still happens. I happen to be championing
indirectly a soon -to -come new Viking Age game
called Norse. and their trailer keeps happily
popping up in my algorithm feed on my socials
and its subtitles and you can tell it's subtitles
kind of like automatically within the text has
not been put in my personal books when it says
kind of this land is ruled by petty kings and
yarls it puts the word jazz which just makes
me chuck out petty kings and jars anyway but
yes um it was either the yotem ball or the yotem
yeah yotem autumn of the autumn collection which
I of course kickstarted, supported on kickstarter,
I should say. You kickstarted, I supported it.
And then that led me to eventually this beautiful
beast of a book which is quite aptly blurring
out, there we are, When the Wolf Comes, which
is your absolute heroic volume of a playable
tabletop universe set in this paradox of time
which you've created and established through
comics and books and then into a campaign book.
You just seem to keep expanding it amazingly
well and I'm very impressed. Well thank you.
I suppose it comes down to having too much time
on my hands. My wife will shoot me for that.
She's constantly saying, what are you doing now?
Why are you doing that? Haven't you had enough?
But there's just so many fun little things. So
without spoiling, Loki's wager for you just to
go back to that. Because again, each of the books
take these kind of little moments in history
and turn them around, right? So the first book
tells these little vignettes of history. from
the perspective of Churchward and Michaels, who
is a kind of Anglican clergyman who's standing
in a church in Gospoth in Cumbria, which is a
real cross with a modern depiction of, yeah,
there you go, that exists in Gospoth in Cumbria,
you can go see it. And as part of my... book
tour I did go and see, a thousand year old cross
telling the story of Ragnach is an amazing thing
to see. But this guy, Chet Gordon -Michaels,
he is the modern audience's gateway, the lens,
the person who can interpret all of this changing.
world around him. And then Loki's Wager is, again,
another series of vignettes, but they include
things like the siege of Kiev, but the 1204 version
when... the Tartar Horde, the Mongols came through
and it was called in the Norse terms, Kruligan.
And so you have this notion here of this Kievan
Rus which had been settled by Pyrenean princes
by offshoots of the Swedish royal family who
had their own huge step planning empire. And
then suddenly the Mongols sweep in. And I just
love the notion that had this Kievan Rus' been
part of a fledgling Norse empire as opposed to
an offshoot of a Christianized world, that it
really would have been horse archer versus shield
ball. And so there's a story in there that tells.
a retelling of the siege of Kunigal, the siege
of Kiev, of the Battle of Kalka, which was where
a lot of the Kievan princes were slain in battle
and ultimately the Kievan Rus was brought under
the Tatar yoke during that. And you'll be glad
to know that one of your good friends Steve from
the podcast, that was the battle. in which his
character died. So the alternative history version,
he died in the battle of Khalkha, as he says,
with an arrow to the knee and a sword to the
head. Well, a bit of pain, and then hopefully
no more pain, depending on which way round it
happens. The fascinating thing is, well, he's
in a lot of pain now. Just his daily existence
is obviously a grind thing. But the point is
to find these kind of obscure but fascinating
moments of history and then norsify them and
again because Odin is involved and this is around
the time of the advent of gunpowder how do you
stop Genghis Khan and his Mongol horde if you're
Odin well yeah give the Vikings artillery and
that changes things around because they don't
go quietly they marshal their resources they
bring the powers of the Earth are the, I've got
these kind of castes or six which are equivalent
to monastic orders, but the Earth are the Vedandi
and the Skuld drawn from the names of the norms.
fate they weave the powers of sparkraft and savor
and they change the course of the battle as well
so it's like uh i don't know the battle of helms
deep that people might know from lord of the
rings but authentically norse i well i just love
i love it all and you can really tell with the
amount of detail but you go to that not only
did you do a lot of research i'm going to assume
But you've also enjoyed doing a lot of this research
and then, as you say, literally playing with
the what -if. And just to clarify for viewers
who keep thinking, why does he mention this podcast?
Well, I know we're on a podcast, but there was
another podcast and that links me and Ian very
directly. His campaign book, When the Wolf Comes,
he's actually playing a set of adventures from
it called The Thought and Memory Saga. And I
had my own character debut in episode five. And
Sinks, you lasted longer than most. I did thrive.
I'm trying not to. But yes, because it's called
Vikings and Valkyries and it is a wild ride.
It is full of unexpected surprises, mayhem, chaos.
It's something every D &D fan will love. It's
actually not played using Dungeons and Dragons
rules. It's the Shadows of the Demon Lord rules,
which I'm unfamiliar with, but I now have a taste
for and experience of. Thanks to debuting briefly
as which I would love to be on it every episode
So it's it's very familiar to fans of D &D but
as we say, this is the Vikings and Valkyries
podcast. We call it vnv See, ah And hope that
we don't get sued by wizards of the coast as
it is a slip of the tongue It's vnv very similar
very easy to pick up layered on the shadow of
the Demon Lord. You know, that book that you
showed, When the Wolf Comes, translates it into
my Viking -verse setting. So the simple way to
describe that campaign is, in two words, space
vikings. Because that's where, that's where things
end up. Yeah, it is a rollercoaster and it's
good fun to do. No, but you play a D &D campaign
as well. How many do you play? At least one D
&D campaign, right? I am currently in, technically,
three? Three. By different people? Different
people. There's one that's regularly on the Monday
night with my other good D &D friend, Wade Ingram,
of Bardic West fame, which I actually managed
to recruit one of his cast of Bardic West, Danina.
I didn't know that you actually play with him.
You play with him. I thought you were just a
fellow imposter. Oh, I've been a fan for a while,
but Wayne is also a full -time DM. He runs various
games and one -shots through startplaying .com,
which is very paid per session. And I was able
to join him for a one -shot last autumn. And
then, no, was it last autumn? No, it must have
been actually earlier, last spring. And then
a spot came up on his Shattered Obelisk campaign,
and I joined that. And so my character managed
to complete that. And then we've just completed
a shorter campaign taken from the Candlekeep
Library book, and then we're going to start the
Beckley campaign next week, so it's all exciting.
And I am playing a Norse fighter, ironically
enough, which shouldn't surprise any people who
follow me at all on socials. My question to you
about that is, because the MS leads into why
we do our podcasts for When the Wolf Comes and
have that Vikings and Valkyries flavour, is of
your D &D campaigns, how many PCs have died?
Only one campaign has had a death and unfortunately
it's been the same player every time. Thankfully
he kind of like, he came around, what was it,
it wasn't Shattered Obelisk, he was playing Halfling
and he died really close to the end, but then
we were rescuing his brother as an NPC, so we
then started playing as his brother. No, he didn't.
He played as a weird, um, oh, authentically -faced
elf. I forgot what they call him. those monsters
with tentacles. It's like a mind flayer but with
a fairy. It was a very weird NPC character for
a little while but they didn't last long and
then as we rescued his brother who was an NPC
we just let him play as his brother until the
end of that campaign. So yes, it's been the same
play who's sadly died a couple of times but yes
yours Vikings of Valkyrie's podcast does have...
Just a bloodbath. It's just it's I think odin
is almost like in the dice and he just takes
a sacrifice every session Not quite every session,
but we have lost people Uh lost I think we've
said we've just recorded episode 18 last night
and we lost two Guest stars in that at once No,
that's not new. That's not new, actually. And
there's a kind of off -screen, off -recording
death as well that's woven into it. Yeah, we've
lost people to being savaged by bears. We've
lost people to being eaten by store worms. You
were... We're spoilers spoilers, perhaps we won't
give we won't give away too much in case anyone
starts suffice it to say that the whole schtick
is that You know in the in that Viking sense
Your fate is chosen for you. It's best to just
go down swinging Yes, I mean some of them do
I mean I remember listening to think is what
the early episodes before I came on Can't remember
his name. I want to say Josh, but I think it
was Josh. It might be the Jason. I'm sure it
was another J name. He went fought that skeletal
bear because the bones weren't buried or burnt
or something. And he decided to take it into
the fire with him, which I thought was very heroic.
He did rather well. Whereas I remember Josh Gilligan,
our mutual friend. Was he thrown off the roof?
He was. He was thrown off the roof by a draugr
though. So that's kind of understandable that
he wasn't purposely thrown off the roof. Although
I will say this, another friend of ours, Fionn,
Fionn the Scout, who is an academic of public
history, I'm hoping to get him on in August,
he of course was indirectly killed by the player.
Yeah, mercilessly gunned down. So it's an interesting...
as an author, and we do get authors and podcasters,
anyone who's got something, a way of telling
a story, Sam Flagel, an artist, for example.
We've got all of these people who come on who
convey their Norse -ness in one way or another.
And they all lend something interesting and new
to the podcast. But the core adventuring group,
which is a guy called... Christoph Adrian, who
we know as CJ, and Bill Hopkins, and Steve, who
we mentioned. They form the kind of core trio,
and they've been described by one reviewer for
the UK podcast scene, UK actual play podcast,
as the most hapless adventuring party ever. Because
what they do is they basically get everyone else
killed. But the joy is, and that's why I mention
all of this, because it's so different from a
traditional campaign, where you fall in love
with your character, you grow your character,
you're invested in your character, and that's
great. That's certainly a way of playing it.
But in this world, it's much more brutal and
unforgiving. It pays to kill off guests on a
weekly basis. It's actually incredibly difficult
then to keep everything going. This is where
you've been a great help as well, funneling guests
and potential ideas of guests through, because
keeping a guest roster when you just kill everyone
off. Ian doesn't do this deliberately it's just
the way off of the characters choices or the
dice are rolled I know for my own characters
exits and some characters did survive albeit
not just in the place they were meant to be like
an enus character she was indirectly left behind
unforgiving is what it is what I don't do is
pull any punches if you get put in a bad situation
and you do the wrong thing or you roll the wrong
dice then you can quite easily die. Now there's
plenty of mechanisms in the game, like inspiration
points, which I give out on the basis of a quiz
that I do at the beginning of. Yes, I tune into
the episodes just for the quizzes. So the quizzes
get, and the inspiration points allow you to
turn a failure of a dice roll into a success.
But our hapless heroes always forget to use them.
I've even given them a turn back time device.
You have you have indeed It saved one of them
in particular i'm not going to say who because
I got in trouble once on social media saying
who that was um, but yes i'm amazed i'm amazed
that in addition to you There are other listeners
who complain about spoilers. I mean, that's that's
great. It's great that there's a i'm so eager
to let you guys know how much I loved it and
I just immediately soon. So it's finished recording.
I'll be on any any any post I could find commenting
commenting to let you guys know because it is
a wild ride and it's just a lot of fun and it
is a wonderful rainbow spectrum of guests with
various north interests I mean you had a guy
from Marvel's superhero multiverse yeah yeah
Matt Matt Forbeck he's he's a kind of gaming
legend he's written all kinds of rule books and
top of the heap right now is his marvel superheroes
marvel multiverse book and he came on he came
on and yeah he's uh yeah he really is the sort
of person that you can go to something like garycon
or you know dragoncon and he's holding the limelight
because he's a rock star and he came on, and
he does hold the record for the quickest death.
I think he lasted 56 minutes. We're going to
publish a league table at some point. And I'm
also going to, and this is another little exclusive
to you. I'm going to do an Oscars, because again,
Oscar, my Oscar can be notified into Asgear.
So we're going to do an Asgear ceremony. We'll
do a series of awards. We'll have people vote
in. So best death, for example. And we'll have
people vote in, and then we'll give the awards.
Perhaps we'll do the golden rubber duckies. Something
like that. I just got my head in the Brits and
kind of like the Academy Awards in the UK, where
they do kind of like that montage of all the
great actors and directors and directors who
have sadly died in that last 12 months. All our
famous last lines. I mentioned that in the last
podcast because the other thing here with our,
you know, our core trio is they don't remember
any of the guests. So they say, who was that
guy who died at that time? I'm doing that thing.
And I just said, yeah, it was Gravebreaker. It
was, you know, it was, it was Evan and he died
doing this. So that in memoriam thing as far
as what goes on in their brains is kind of, oh
God, that's non -existent. Oh, well, I urge any
listeners of yours just to give episode one a
try and see if you don't get curious enough to
see what on earth can happen to this group and
how they survive to the next episode and to the
next episode. Because as you said, Bill, Steve
and CJ, CJ comes in a couple of episodes. Episode
three, episode three. Oh, he's before me. Oh,
yes. I can't believe I forgot I didn't actually
play with a guy. Yes, he was there. it was that
um but yes they are the not just hapless but
they are the most the three characters you would
never ever have thought to like survive an apocalypse
basically they just happen to be a walking survival
it's interesting because again storytelling right
so you sit and you write a novel it's all structured
and it's all you know planned out and it has
a beginning a middle and end and a reason why
and then when you get into this form of storytelling
you constantly have to adapt and grow and think
on your feet and Yeah, one of the things in a
recent episode is, again, I won't spoil it, but
I did have to just sit and think about why the
Norns, the great matrons of fate who control
the weave of destiny, why they would have chosen
these three trick chumps as the saviors of the
Viking versus the means to forestall The next
Ragnarok and uh, you know because you need to
have some kind of believability So again without
spoiling it I think i've I think i've done that
in a recent episode at least set the scene for
why these unlikely heroes are thrust into the
the weave of fate and uh, You know probably just
because they're cutting all of the threads on
a daily basis Well, I guess we should probably
consider If you can, when did you first start
getting an interest in all this stuff then, whether
it was the history, mythology, a bit of both?
How was it back when you were young, later on?
Yeah, you know, there's a photo of me somewhere,
if you're on Facebook, there's a photo of me
as a hello youth. I'm probably about 10 because
I'm wearing my... Tottenham Hotspur football
kit. And it's like that centennial year for Spurs.
Anyway, I'm on a Viking ship. My dad was the
sort of dad who took me around to places like,
you know, Bigham Hill and the various museums
like HMS Belfast on the Thames or the Globe Theatre.
You go and see all of those things as a kid.
So I was always a big kiss. the what -if element,
you know, I touched upon because I was thinking
about, you know, what if you could have this
do -over? What if you could change things around?
And I think that some of it is also born of playing
far too many games like Europa Universalis and
Civilization, because I take all of those, and
Total War is another one, I take all of those
kind of war. war games and civilisation games
and turn -based 4x games and I'd play out this
parallel timeline in my mind and I thought that
would just be a really good story because it
was literally what the real characters in the
Vikingverse are, at least in the novels, is it's
not necessarily the people but it's very similar
to the Foundation series by Asimov in the sense
that in the sense that it's the civilization
itself that is really the story. It's watching
those thousands of years unfold in a different
way, because you know what the real history is,
which perhaps you know what the real history
is, and many people... turns out south of my
Canadian border, don't know much about real history.
But in terms of how history plays out and how
it could have played out, that's the fascinating
thing. If you know your history, then you run
through all of that. So there was a lot of computer
game inspiration, there was a lot of historical
inspiration, there was my own thoughts around
what if. And so that was what it was all born
from. I'd originally, and it could have taken
a very different direction because I was originally
fascinated with doing something similar with
the Roman Empire, but there was already a series
of alternative history books called Romanitus,
which explored that. And there's a lot of good
alternative history stuff from people like Harry
Turtledove, but no one had ever done this Norse
thing. And then I think the last point is, again,
going more academic. There's actually a very
famous historian called Toynbee. published something
called The Study of History, and in his appendices
to this multi -volume work that probably came
out around the time of World War II. But it was
this huge magnum opus. And at the end of that,
he's got an appendix which is entitled The Abortive
Birthright of the, or The Forfeited Birthright
of the Aborted Scandinavian Civilization. which
pointed out the fact that there were all of these
points where they nearly took over the world,
right? They conquered London, Paris, they came
close to Constantinople, you know, there was
so many - They had a king on the English throne,
I will say that. Canute, canute, and half the
canute. And imagine if half the canute son hadn't
just choked at a wedding. Possibly poisoned,
possibly poisoned, but he could have stayed on
the throne and would have had a much different
history. That Canute's North Sea Empire, the
spanning England and Norway and Denmark, would
have been a fascinating construct to take into,
and that's one of the things I play around with,
so it's taking all of those ideas and Toynbee,
and you can find this online, it's a great read,
just to see what he was thinking as this counterfactual
history. And that really was the catalyst because
I thought, yeah, he joined all the dots for me
and all of that came together in a rush. And
then I sat and I wrote All Father Paradox in
about six months. What? Wow. I think that's all
I did because I was being paid off from a job.
The company had collapsed. They gave me a payout.
And I thought, oh great, I'm buying a book. So
there you go. Look at where you are now. Exactly
the same place. Well, it seems that path has
diverted. And I'm very glad it has, as much as
I feel sorry for you going through that rough
time of it. I am pleased that your imagination
has been that loose and these wonderful stories
and characters and this insane paradox world
has been out and I've been able to actually play
and experience it and it's just I mean the fascination
with the language clearly comes through from
this conversation so how much did you know of
Old Norse before you started writing Allfather
Paradox or did you have to do a lot of research
into that? Yeah, you know, there's lots of research
and it's constant research because one of the
things that I did, which is perhaps a little
rod for my own back is even in the RPG, I started
translating all of the character paths, right?
Because I didn't just want Wizard, Warrior, Thief.
I wanted... real Norse archetypes. I wanted real
Norse origins. I didn't want, you know, Tolkien's
pointy -eared elves. Although that said, you
know, Tolkien was, you know, based an awful lot
of his stuff on Norsemen. I digress a little
bit there. The point is, is I started to put
in the Old Norse translations for every spell.
every weapon, every character class, every monster,
and actually, I wonder who beyond me actually
cares here, because it's like, are people gonna,
instead of calling themselves an outlaw, are
they gonna call themselves an outlaw? Perhaps,
it depends how much they get into the role playing.
I've worked on the basis that I'm the kind of
Uber nerd on this stuff. I've gone to where no
one else will go. And so I throw things like
that into the Norse quiz that we do on the podcast
and then just stump everybody. But it's good
fun. And I think there's an intellectual curiosity
that extends and is exciting and invigorating
of its own accord, in addition to just publishing
books. I'd probably do that stuff in the background
anyway. And I don't know, you might be a little
bit too young. Do you remember Mastermind with
Magnus Magnuson? And the black chair and the...
Unfortunately, I think I am just a bit too young
because I know he was around at the age of the
Yorvik Dig. And that was also just before my
times. And so the funny thing is with Magnus,
that's a great Icelandic guy. And he's written
all kinds of Viking books. You can go back and
see all the Viking histories. But he was the
original host of Mastermind. And Mastermind was
this very archetypal quiz show. And they'd sit
you down there. And you would have a specialist
subject. You'd sit in a dark room. And it was
actually based upon the producers. reminiscence,
remembering of his time in a Gestapo spot, under
Gestapo interrogation. So we try to recreate
that in the form of mastermind. They asked you
all of these questions on a specialist subject.
You had two minutes to answer as many as you
can. And if you didn't get that last one, you'd
say, I've started so I finish. And they have
read that last question for you. Anyway. The
reason I say all of that is because that would
be my specialist subject and that's the reason
I like asking the quizzes at the beginning is
because There's so much stuff out there that
you can read so many great academics so many
great Authors and what we do here is fascinating
in itself because you bring everyone together
and you explore things and I think that shared
passion is a wonderful thing to explore. Yep,
it's purely what this podcast is fueled on. Next
time let's do Norse Mastermind and everyone has
to sit on a backchair. But you can't see it now.
Yes, you can't see it virtually. I was just thinking,
wouldn't it be awesome if someone went onto Mastermind
and their special subject was your Vikingverse,
because it's got enough content behind it to
be a specialist subject in its own right. Yeah,
I'd be the only one that could fact check it,
though, that was the thing. The funny thing is,
the funny thing is, again, just going back to
the podcast, is that I like that. you ask the
questions. I always use the questions to kind
of thematically tease what's going to happen
in the adventure. And the one we recorded last
night is a doozy because I asked them to name
all of Loki's children. And yeah, I won't put
you on the spot here, but it's actually quite
difficult. to do. But each of them, each of those
children, each of those children of Loki has
got a wonderful and rich story of their own,
including, you know, being cut up if they're
fed to your brother and then your own entry was
used to tie your dad up. I don't think I remember
that he has those two sons and that's their unfortunate
fate, but I personally could not remember their
names on my head. It's always the monstrous children
from Anger Boda. There you go. But you would
have had your inspiration point for at least
knowing that he had kids with Sigan. Yes, because
Sigan is the much forgotten goddess of unknown
origin. And this is the one thing which I love
discussing with creatives like you. There are
unfortunately these gaps in this pantheon and
their backstory and their history and Especially
with the female types of characters not just
the goddesses, but they cannot devour those the
witches the giantess is Even the norms and the
valkyries we've got names, but we don't know
much beyond that and is my is my personal philosophy
on that is that You got to bear in mind that
I like the you know the Greek and Roman pantheons
that were well documented by a very literate
society, who were geographically encapsulated
and rubbed their shoulders with each other and
had all this trading commerce and trade of languages
and lived in that rich melting pot of the Mediterranean.
What you actually have in the north is many different
tribes who constantly migrate for hundreds of
years, who come in contact with those Greek and
Roman civilizations. And it's a little bit like
excavating an archeological dig, in that I think
many, many, many layers. So Sigan, for example,
is not much about her apart from these kind of
fragmentary remains, which are like shards of
pottery that you find at a dig. But she would
probably, just a local deity in a certain part
of the North, could be Germany, could be Scandinavia,
who was told in a story and kind of got embellished
and woven in here. And this is the thing is that
there's, it's just this fragment, this tapestry,
this mosaic, and it's all thrown together. all
of these regional deities, these regional names,
originally the chief of the pantheon was probably
Tyr, and certainly amongst the peasant class,
Thor was always the most prominent, but now we
call Odin the Allfather simply because he was
the god of rich men, pretty much. It's just a
tapestry in itself. There is nothing written
down and nailed down, apart from three centuries
after this age we're talking about. So you've
got a thousand years of people believing all
of this stuff. Christianity comes along. Then
300 years later, someone tries to codify it through
the Christian lens. And so of course we don't
know anything. All we've got is this. speculation
into this very murky dark world, where we can
just pluck glimpses of things. It really is like
looking at the night sky and seeing a few stars
and imagining what those things might be. Because
that's all we've got. We don't have a full and
complete picture. Even the newer Heimer, the
nine home worlds, this was a quiz. They're not
listed anywhere. That was really interesting
when I heard that quiz. That was really interesting
to learn. No definitive list. They're mentioned
and you can pluck them together, but the fact
that, you know, what are they actually called?
Because some of the names, whether Niflid, Viliw,
and Svartalfheim, you know, are about the same
place, are they? Who knows? Because no one ever
described it. Elves and Dwarves, Alfar and Dverga,
probably the same things. I was going to say,
because they were described as dark elves, not
dwarves, but dark elves is what I remember. Dark
elf and verger are often used interchangeably.
Vanir and alfar are used interchangeably. You
can't codify it in the way that you can codify
it in a rule book. In D &D, you know, here is
my fighter, here is my elf. Here is my dwarf.
I know what the difference between them is. You
know, a wizard does this and they can cast these
levels spells. It's not that simple in Norse
myth. And so when you sit and you try and force
it into the constraints of a rule book, you have
to make massive liberties and try and justify
them as best you can. And so that's what I attempted
to do. But it makes you think every single time,
oh my God, I'm trying to put this stuff in a
straitjacket, but there is no definition of any
of these things. Do you think that's why these
gods and these tales, these stories have survived
so long in popular imagination in a variety of
mediums? Because of course I am working on my
own little debut academic article about the kind
of like Valkyries and their persona and reception
in the 21st century. And a lot of it is to do
with visual stereotypes, which started off with,
I believe, at least in Valkyrie's case, with,
of course, Wagner's great opera cycle of things.
And that image of a Valkyrie looking like that,
that's just stuck in the public consciousness
ever since. Similar with Marble doing that with
Thor. Now everyone thinks Thor is a blonde with
a winged helmet. which is tricky. But of course
the fact that these are these gaps I think allow
creators such as authors, artists, I mean Sam
Flegel, we've mentioned him, he's doing wonderful
things with Interpreting Loki Center and he's
coming up in April, Views of Business, so look
out for him. It allows, especially in terms of
fantasy, a creative freedom to explore and expand
beyond this unknown boundary, because there is
no boundary, because it's unknown. So in some
cases we do feel like we have to honour what
little we know but because of the little bit
we can go that bit further and show these different
angles of course always reflect in some way modern
issues and themes and worries and concerns etc
with these characters from such an age, such
an age ago so there's this nice gap, this collective
bridge of creativity between the now and the
past. Yeah, there is definitely something inherently
fascinating about the fatalistic nature of these
things, because it's all death, right? However
you skin it. Valkyries are death. They are the
choosers of the slain. Vikings go around causing
death, or Valhalla, the hall of the slain. There's
so much of it that is about how we face down
our fate. I think that's the interesting thing.
I was just looking around, not because I wasn't
paying attention, but I was looking from my Dictionary
of Northern Mythology, which is the Simic, but
Rudolf Simic. Have you got that? No, I've got
a... very old dictionary, it is me looking at
my bookshelf. It's Cassell's dictionary, Norse
Myths and Mythology. It's a 1990 reprint in 2002.
That's the code dictionary I have. I've got huge
encyclopedias of Norse mythology, but they all
tell slightly different things. If I remember,
I'll send it to you afterwards, which is Rudolf
Simek, S -I -M -E -K, and he's a very good book
that really does explain some of the etymologies
of the words, when the linguistics of the words,
it helps you identify where they, you know, their
origins. So Valkyries are a good one. Just one
more thing while I remember, Thomas Denmark is
an artist who is producing a book of Valkyries,
the art of Valkyries. You might want to reach
out to him, find him on Instagram. They do send
me details. Thomas Denmark, yeah, I was chatting
to him about all things Valkyrie. He teaches
in San Francisco, teaches out in San Francisco,
I think. Anyway. But if you do it during this
year, when you've got this seven hour gap, then
you're fine. I will try my best. He's a good
guy. He's got lots of great Valkyrie pictures
in that Wagnerian sense, because where I'm going
with this is you go back far enough And the kind
of, the Hunnish period of history where the various
hordes are descending on Rome, probably around
that time was the first time that the Norse surfaced
in the records and they were historical records.
And that's when they first came across gold and
brought gold back to the North. And around that
time, Valkyries were probably just demons of
death who did the bidding of the gods of war
on the battlefield. They were not. But some beautiful
shield maidens, which is much more of a Gaelic
or Celtic myth, this notion of the shield maiden.
And so then with the eventual Viking invasion
of... what we now know as the Emerald Island,
the mixture of the Christian myth and the Gaelic
myth, then I think you get, again, another layer
to the weave where things start to evolve. Nothing
is set in stone. Nothing is sacrosanct here.
Everything's constantly evolving and threading
in these stories. And so when you get to the
Battle of Clontarf and you get to those myths
and... and the stories there of the Valkyries
and weaving their looms with the heads of men
and the entrails of fallen warriors. Yes, skulls,
swords and spears. It's hugely powerful. But
it also shows then how the path, the trajectory
of what people thought the Valkyrie was. grew
and changed to the point where they started as
demons of death, nothing to do with women at
all. Then they become these choosers of the slain
sent on behest of the Isid of Odin. And then
eventually through nationalism, through the lens
of the 19th century, they become these Rhine
maidens of Germanic. mythology and tied to that
interpretation of myths and they become a costume
because that's what they are. That version is
a costume to entice people to, if you don't like
the singing, at least stare at the cleavage.
And they're almost fetishistic in that sense.
Very over romanticized, absolutely. And that's
exactly the right word, because that is born
of that romantic era where they are romanticizing
the past. And so you ended up with a romanticized
Viking. I mean, there is also partly to blame
for the horned helmets, after all. It's the costume
design of people really, because I was... Always
name the costume designer. It was Emile or Doppler,
Emile -Kolpler -Doppler, or Doppler, that's the
surname I remember studying in another article,
that's the foundation of my Valkyrie research.
There was another podcast I was listening to
called You're Dead to me. It's on BBC Sounds.
Brilliant. There was one about Old Norse literature,
and they had one of my favorite BBC historians,
Dr. Elina Ramirez. And her little nuanced window
at the end was, they hold helmets come from this
opera. And it was purely because so they could
be seen from the back of the auditorium. Otherwise,
no one would know who was a Viking and who was
a god. So they put horns on the bikes. That actually
makes sense visually as to why they did that
visually, and it wasn't just because they believed
the Vikings were barbarians, which is what I
grew up thinking. That's why they've got horns
on because they're barbarians, they're demonic,
they're not Christian -esque. But that whole
issue has stuck. Just the sheer folly of fighting
in a horned helmet. First of all, you have to
make them. Then they'd have to be practical.
If nothing else, the Vikings were practical.
How would you get them to stay on? Why would
you wear them when they're clearly of advantage
to anyone who was trying to grapple you with
their dice 20 bill? It's not going to happen.
This is a thing that slightly irks me about the
remake, the live action remake of How to Train
Your Dragon, because that is based on a children's
book. Of course, children only know Vikings with
hard helmets. in a fantasy setting and it is
a fantasy book because there are dragons in it
and everyone has a horned helmet and in the remake
trailer you just see this battle lineup of everyone
with various sizes and angles of horns and I'm
like no no it actually takes efforts to um stick
that in people's minds you only have to look
at the Minnesota Vikings anything I mean in Victoria
where I live we have the vikes Which is the name
for the the teams? Victoria fights everything's
got horns There's so many sports franchises that
it's just become iconic It's a brand image now.
It's I mean again, here's rubber ducky rubber
ducky with horns This is the one that cj threw
So yeah, I mean, I don't know that it can be
undone at this stage. And I spent, I don't know,
seven years, 10 years on various bits of social
media. And I used to do like Norse facts of the
day or Norse words of the day and, you know,
tell myth in bite -sized form. you know social
media is now an utter total mess but back in
the day you'd have you'd always have people just
pop up and say oh i didn't know that you know
the vikings don't vikings you know didn't wear
horn helmets it's something i think us that know
that find it simple just have to live with because
it's been going on for centuries i don't think
it's ever going to stop Um and it's probably
just as an image problem as much as kind of people
thinking of English shrink or their tea with
their little finger up and they're just kind
of like oh oh what ho and all that kind of nonsense.
It is yes the stereotype and it's easy for people
to just go plop you sit there I mean even the
great unwashed barbarian um you know that D &D
archetype is kind of drawn from Conan or those
myths which were again, I mean, that mythos has
a kind of northern realm to it so it's not quite
the same thing but anyway everyone's just thinking
the archetypal barbarian is muscled wears fur
and has a horned helmet and a lot of our role
-playing games and a lot of novelizations of
writing stuff continue to perpetuate these stereotypes
as opposed to fight back against them. And so
it was always to try and get back to the authenticity,
to get back to as much plausibility as much,
we have this as well, heuristicity as possible.
That's the key to everything that I'm trying
to do, to make it very grounded in actuality.
Historicity, historicity is the word I'm trying
to say. But this is the funny thing, we're doing
a video podcast as opposed to an audio podcast.
When I do the audio podcast, if I stumble, I
can just edit it out. And oftentimes even now
when I'm talking to you, I'm almost saying the
same sentence again with a slightly different
cadence because when I record my own one, I will
just repeat myself and choose the best version
of what I've just said. and knowing that I'm
going to edit that out. So it's an interesting
new approach to the visual podcast because I
can't censor myself as I go. Well, I just don't
do scripts. So I'm always tumbling over my own
words and my own tongue, quite literally. So
we've talked in places about your many works
so far. Have you got anything else in the pipeline?
We almost forgot. Yes, so I am working on a new
Viking Age version of When the Wolf Comes. So
we just talked there about the fact that When
the Wolf Comes is kind of space Vikings. It's
set in a pagan, parallel pagan present. And a
lot of people did come out of the woodwork and
say to me, oh yeah, but I want to just play as
a real Viking. I want to just play in the Viking
Age. And so... Again, Shadow of the Demon Lord
rules, which is such, again, a kissing cousin
to D &D. They're so easy to pick up and play.
I actually think they're better because Rob Spraub,
the guy who came up with this rule set, worked
on third and fourth edition and did all kinds
of D &D stuff. And then he went away and said,
I can do better. And I really think he did in
terms of the core mechanics in the very simple
light game, but with mechanics like wheels and
woes. that make it just a little bit more fun
a little bit more uh easy for a group to you
know combine and coalesce anyway i digress because
i am going to create and have written most of
a game that has an awful lot of viking ship combat
has viking settlement so you can go and build
your own village and grow it from grow it from
kind of that one long house to a fully fledged
town. You can go on Viking raids because, again,
that's a key component of going out and trading
and raiding and plundering and all of those kind
of rules of their trading being a key part of
it. The front cover, which you can mystically
reveal now, does... does show on the front, Mikkegaard,
which is the Old Norse name for Constantinople.
Constantinople at that time, all the way up until
1453, was pretty much the largest city on the
planet. It was the crossroads of the world. It
was the successor to Rome. It had so much wealth
and knowledge and the Kievan Rus, so we've talked
about the eastern wing of the Norse and their
Varangians nearly conquered it on at least two
occasions, possibly a third. And again, that
would be an amazing change in history, had they,
instead of being the bodyguards to the Byzantine
emperors. if they'd have actually just taken
over the thing. Oh gosh, now you've got to be
imagining Harold Hadrada offering the emperor
and just claiming the throne, which she totally
would do. Exactly, which she totally would do.
And so imagine then, so we've got a Viking age
that you can play in, where the emperors of the
noble world, the heirs to the Roman Empire, Are
people like Harold Harder on it? And so I've
actually set it, and you can see on the cover,
there's a great big nebula burning in the sky.
That's the Crab Nebula. The Crab Nebula in 1053
was visible to civilizations across the world.
The Chinese, the Japanese, the Byzantines themselves
remark upon the fact that in daylight for 14,
15 days, you could see this supernova in the
sky, and it persisted for many more years at
night time. It was also the year when there was
the great schism between the Eastern Orthodox
Church and the Roman Catholic Church and the
two religions went on their particular way. And
so there's so much historicity to play with there.
There's so much to... Enjoy, this was just after
Blythe Erickson had sailed to Vinland. This was
shortly after Ingvar the Far Traveled had sailed
all the way into Sirkland, which is probably
modern day Georgia. There's so much to explore.
It's such a fascinating era. And to layer in
this, my tried and... improved and patented,
you know, notification of everything into that
Viking Age. Just take it a little bit further.
So 1066 will never happen. The Viking Age will
never end. And you get a chance to play in it
as, you know, anything from an Arabian to, you
know, one of the Byzantines themselves, if you
want to play that culture. I think there's just,
there's this fascinating turning point, this
crossroads in the world. And again, the Allfather
Odin peering down and tinkering with all of it.
I'm going to give you a question because it's
linked to another guest I'm going to get on in
another episode because I don't know if she's
quite signed up to Vikings or Curies. I think
she's just too busy. Our mutual friend Emma from
I want to say the University of Leicester. We've
received lots of emails but yes she was a bit
too busy to come and be Mercilessly killed off
I'm sure she would have loved it if she had the
time because she ran a brilliant one shot when
I met her in Savannah for my debut conference
last summer because I know she is particularly
interested in not just how these Games like the
one you're working on portrayed the Viking age,
but also how they reflect gender roles and address
the kind of like modern needs for equality in
an age where there wasn't equality So although
you've mentioned by being a Varangian, would
women characters in your game be able to be Varangians?
Because of course, that was exclusively male
from what we know of history. Yeah. So that is
a good game design question. And I'm going to
fudge the answer because I haven't quite determined
that. I mean, certainly, I've created it. That's
fine. I know you're still working on it. So I
can always ask you. We'll do a part two of this.
No, I definitely have things like. a shield maiden
plus path. And again, the path of the vulva,
the path of the cirrus will be largely female
-focused because there was just a natural way
in which women tended to become healers, at least
within the northern cultures. May well differ
if you play... a Greek or a Byzantine culture.
There's an awful lot of learning and education.
The first hospitals were actually in Constantinople.
In the Muslim world, Baghdad at that time was
head and shoulders above everywhere in terms
of learning the house of wisdom, all of that
kind of stuff. So depending on your culture,
we'll... Ultimately determine what you can play
at least as far as the rule says could send once
you get it home You do what you like. It's your
game is there to have fun I'm just trying to
give you some guidelines as to how it would have
been played if you were rolling, you know skull
dice and and you know drinking from the skull
caps of your enemies Oh, well, I will definitely
have you back on the podcast once that is all
ready to kickstart and launch, and people sound
the gala horn and let everybody know, and hopefully
everyone will throw money at it, including me.
I definitely will. Well, I'll be delighted to
come back. I was really meant to be a little
bit further ahead, but as you know, podcasts
take time. Hurting CJ, Bill, and Steve on a weekly
basis is actually a full -time job. Absolutely.
Well I salute you for it and thank you for it
profusely. It is a world ride Vikings of Valkyries.
Please go check it out. All good podcast channels,
audio and of course on YouTube. If you're watching
on YouTube I have the playlist of all the episodes
down on my channel page. Do check out Vikingverse
.com where you can find out details of Ian's
wonderful portfolio of books. And you can listen
to the Old Norse pronunciations because somewhere
in that list, as well as some free comics, so
you can get a taste of the Yogan War, you can
click through to Old Norse pronunciations of
the phrases that are in the book and that will
be... extremely useful for anyone who wants to
wander into their local supermarket and say things
like, these are not the droids you're looking
for. In Old Norse. If you went in and just said
that in English, you'd probably get trapped out.
In the Old Norse also. I mean, I myself have
got the book. I just actually haven't had a chance
to look through it, but I think I might try it.
I mean, it's just a case I've got no one to try
Old Norse on who would really appreciate it.
Go to the website, learn how to pronounce the
phrases and start. Every one of your new episodes
with just the phrase of the day Could do I might
try that Or just make you just make your guests
have to say the old north phrases a warm -up
It's a challenge. I'm trying not to scare people
off. I'm just about learning people Well, it's
been a real delight chatting to Ian, and we both
know that we could just be talking for hours
and hours because we both have such a passion
shared across literally half the world. If you're
missing Canada, I'm in the UK, so there is a
bit of a time gap. And I really ought to go and
do the day job because my CEO has been calling
me three times through this podcast. Priorities!
Well, do send in my apologies. I will not keep
you any longer. I will be on the podcast again
soon. And thank you so much for your time. And
thank you to you viewers and listeners for listening
and joining us today. Thank you very much. Thank
you very much for listening to this episode.
I hope you enjoyed the discussions between my
special guests and myself. Please do check out
the episode blurb for links to their works and
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