“In The Depths Of The Forest Your Image Follows Me.”

crypt of the cathedral of Anagni, 12th century

emerald moth

Albrecht Dürer, Painting of a slice of agate, c. 1492

listen

I have a so far 20 chapter original content book in my google drive

It’s about magick in the Viking age. It’s low/mid fantasy, involving many references to actual myth, legends and stories from the sagas and eddas of the Viking age. The gods (not marvel but OG Norse gods) occasionally join the story in Midgard.

It also has a Manacled-style enemies to lovers (or maybe lovers to enemies), slow burn and with a hopefully unforeseeable, gut wrenching twist. Definitely dark at times. Not smut and no non-con tho.

I’m plucking a flower. Do I post it, do I not, do I post it, do I not. I think I’m gonna post it.

Albert Bierstadt - Autumn Landscape The Catskills

something about the cold November air, so fresh that it rinses lungs and and soothes your insides

I thought I had a pretty good grasp on what the mythical creature valravn from Danish folklore is but after diving deeper it’s more versatile than expected.

The version I was originally told is that a valravn (means “war raven” or more precisely “raven of the fallen” as in fallen people on the battlefield) is a normal raven that gained human intelligence by eating the flesh or brain of dead people after a battle. With the gift of intelligence also came the curse of only being able to fly at night. The only way to gain the ability to move around in daylight was to eat the heart of a young boy. Then the valravn would be able to turn into either a human or a raven/wolf beast and go wherever it wanted whenever it pleased.

But in the most well known song about valravens they’re all human men who were turned into ravens by either a witch or a female troll. A women was told her husband could only turn back if he drank her blood so she asks another valravn for help. It agrees in exchange for the life of her first son as soon as he has spoken his first three words, suggesting an infant would be too young.

In yet another version the valravn is a human who cannibalised dead people on the battlefield and turned into a raven or a human/raven/wolf monster that could only travel at night but would continue the cannibalism until it ate a young boy at which point it would be able to turn back to a human form.

So take your pick. You want a weird creepy raven that has decided it wants to be a human? Or a tragic story of someone who can only turn back by hurting their beloved? Or perhaps a wendigo style creature who became a monster after committing the taboo of cannibalism? Or maybe a mix? Because clearly Danish people in the past weren’t too worried about the valravn canon. The only generally agreed on lore is that they’re always male, can only travel at night and they eat humans or drink human blood to reach their final form or be cured.

"Forgotten by human hands, yet cradled by the earth's gentle embrace, beauty reawakens"

-Earthy Mama

Far, far away Soria Moria Palace shimmered like Gold

Loin, très loin, le palais de Soria Moria scintillait comme de l’or

Artist : Theodor Kittelsen