The secret teachings of the secret are no longer secret!
It doesn’t matter whether you are a child soldier in Somalia or a Haitian quake survivor… you too can be healthy, tan, and sailing around the world on a luxury yacht! That’s what’s so beautiful about the secret… anyone can have everything, and lots of it too.
Oh, wait a minute… The Secret doesn’t mention anything about war zones, disaster areas, or societies in collapse. It just kind of assumes everyone is sitting around their three bedroom home wishing it was a mansion and frowning at their Toyota because it’s not a Mercedes.
Odin has a secret for you too: humans attract lightning.
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Did the Norse Gods Destroy a Statue of Jesus in Ohio?
News of this event was sent to me by a reader (thanks!) who figured maybe Odin blew Jesus away. But even though Odin tosses lightning bolts on a regular basis in the pages of this comic, I wouldn’t point the finger at him for this kind of thing. Blowing away statues of other deities seems a bit petty for Father of Thor. Loki on the other hand… definitely a suspect!
Of course, maybe Jesus himself blew the statue away. After all, isn’t there something in the Bible about not making “unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth — especially really cheesy ones”?
And then there is another theory, quite controversial and certainly ludicrous, but presented here solely for your amusement. Maybe, just maybe, liquid and ice particles above the freezing level collided and built up a large electrical field in the clouds. Positive and negative charges separated, resulting in a negatively charged cloud in the atmosphere and a positively charged Earth surface below. Soon, a giant “spark” occurred between the positive and negative fields, reducing the charge separation. The spark in this case occurred right between the outstretched hands of the touchdown Jesus. At this point, a mighty clap of thunder shook the land, a flash of lightning cut across the sky, the Jesus statue became hotter than the surface of the sun, and all that carefully wrought metal-and-plastic burned to the ground.
Nah, that’s preposterous…
Either Jesus blew himself away to protest his tacky portrait or Loki did it as a practical joke. Apparently the statue was made in Florida, probably by the same crew that paints faces on coconuts to sell to tourists. I say Jesus did it.
Stone Age Tools in Viking Graves Raise More Questions than Answers
We got some interesting news this week from the folks who get their kicks digging around Viking graves (archaeologists, *sigh*).
Just as today one might be buried with an antique Viking sword for good luck, back in the Days of High Adventure and Not Infrequent Death, Vikings were buried with stone age weapons that they considered special. Namely, flint axes and hammers, which may have been symbols of Thor.
Of course, what scientists are failing to say is exactly who wielded these tools and for what purpose they were welt before the Vikings acquired them. Simply calling the tool “an axe” is not enough, for as we Viking aficionados know, there is more than one purpose for such a device, from chopping firewood to settling a blood feud.
Were these tools used as weapons by badass proto-Vikings against Jotuns? Or did cannibalistic lizard people employ them to crack the skulls of dinosaurs? And who actually made the stones? Blabbering neanderthals or clever dwarves working deep underground?
Truly, the necrophiles have a bit more digging to do before making such bold pronouncements in a trussed up boob rag like National Geographic. But I guess nowadays you take what you can get, and it’s always cool to learn something new about the Vikings from a source other than Odin and Friends.
Odin and Friends turned 150 a month ago and I forgot to roll out the mead barrels to celebrate. That’s 150 episodes of floating head madness. It’s been a crazy few months so I’m pleased — almost surprised — that I manged to maintain my schedule while moving, traveling, building two websites, writing a novel, and preparing to move again (overseas, no less). Thanks to everyone who has been getting their Viking fix by following the modern day adventures of the Norse gods, including you chubby chasers and Amazon aficionados who only come here for the sexy giantess jokes.
Some highlights from the last 50 episodes:
- Technoviking becomes the Norse God of Dance thanks to apotheosis by YouTube.
- Thor and Mjolnir make sure the clouds of Migard stay in in good and working order. Important lesson in meteorology: don’t hook up clouds on a single circuit.
I’ve never put much stock in numerology, but I couldn’t help but notice on the calendar that today is the ninth day of the ninth month of the year two thousand and nine.
That’s a lot of nines in a row. The number nine was considered quite significant in Norse mythology, so I’m thinking this day must be auspicious for one thing or another. If you’ve been considering climbing a dangerous mountain, sacking a village off coastal Britain, or sailing for new lands amongst the icebergs, today might be the day to give it a whirl.
NINE SIGNIFICANT EXAMPLES OF THE NUMBER NINE IN NORSE MYTHOLOGY
Nine Worlds
The Norse universe contains nine worlds supported by the tree of life:
Ásgarðr (Asgard, home of Odin and the other Aesir gods)
Álfheimr (Alfheim, home of the Elves)
Múspellsheimr (Muspellsheim, southern realm of fire, chock full o’ demons)
Vanaheimr (Vanaheim, original home of Freyja and the Vanir gods)
Niflheimr (Niflheim, northern realm of fog and mist)
Nidavellir (home of the dwarves)*
Svartálfaheimr (Svartalfaheim, land of the dark elves)*
* Might be the same place, which leaves one realm missing. California?
Nine Days
When Odin sacrificed himself on Yggdrasil, he hung for nine days and nights. In return, he secured from the Well of Wyrd eighteen (twice nine) magical runes with powers straight out of Dungeons & Dragons.
Nine Nights
Freyr must wait nine nights to consummate his union with Gerd. Apparently worth the wait to sleep with the sexiest giant woman to walk the earth.
Nine Steps
During Ragnarök, Thor kills Jörmungandr but staggers back nine steps before falling dead himself.
Nine Rings
Odin’s ring Draupnir releases eight additional rings every ninth night, forming a total of nine rings of equal worth. How’s that for passive income?
Nine Daughters
Ægir has nine of them. Sounds like a lot of work.
Nine Mothers
Heimdall has nine of them. And I thought having three was tough.
Nine Saddle Sores
The god Hermod rode Sleipnir for nine nights on his quest to free Baldr from the underworld. Too bad Loki sabotaged his efforts.
Nine Survivors
There are nine surviving deities of Ragnarök, including Baldur, Hödr, Magni, Modi, Vidar, Váli, Hoenir, Sól’s daughter, and a ninth unnamed god who will rule over everything.
That’s right, this comic has reached the century mark. Started on April 1, 2009, Odin and Friends now has 100 glorious, floating-head Viking comics for you to enjoy. Visit the archive page to see the big list.
Hear ye, Friends of Odin and Friends, an important announcement:
Starting this week, Odin and Friends will begin updating three times weekly instead of the previous five day schedule. New comics will appear Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays at 5 a.m. Eastern Standard Time. For those of you who subscribe by email, comics will continue to arrive in your email box whenever the automated email server decides to send them (you may have noticed the Feedburner email service is quite whimsical about its delivery schedule… blast).
For the curious, here are a few reasons for the reduced schedule:
- It’s summer. The ice has melted. The sea beckons. The mountains call. Time to make war, not draw cartoons.
- Less is more? We shall see…
- I do more than make cartoons, friends. I make movies! I’m proud to say a script I cowrote is currently filming (Hail Odin). Although the writing phase is over (Hail Odin), I’m still doing work for the project. Lots of work.
- Toons and movies may be glorious, but the landlord doesn’t accept glory as payment. Hence, I must work for the kings and merchants of the world, helping them to secure treasure and territory.
So please continue to enjoy Odin and Friends three days a week, and if for some reason you feel like you need more, let me know and when the ice returns and I’m once again confined to my lair, I’ll work to resume a more rigorous schedule.
That’s right… Odin and Friends is 50 comics old today.
I’m also proud to say that in the two months since it’s inception, Odin and Friends has risen from complete obscurity to become the web’s premiere destination for comics featuring floating Viking god heads.
I spent a good part of the afternoon yesterday working on a couple of new “god heads” to help round out the pantheon, and I’m pretty excited by the results. Here’s a sneak peak at Sif, who will make her debut in the comic sometime in the next few weeks.
For those not up on their Norse mythology, Sif is Thor’s wife, and she’s known for her beauty and fantastic mane of golden hair. Working from mythological sources is great, because virtually every god or goddess is known for some well-defined attribute that can be cartoonized to the fullest.
I’m still working out how she is going to figure into the universe of Odin and Friends, but her hair is going to play an important role. Not a whole lot is known about her from the old myths, other than she has awesome hair and giants lust after her the same way they do Freyja. The proto-comics I’ve constructed so far involve Sif dealing with Thor and his strange attraction to giant women.
We got some interesting news this week from the folks who get their kicks digging around Viking graves (archaeologists, *sigh*).
