-Stieg Larsson, The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo (London, 2008), Chapter 1, p. 20.
The names of Norrland, referred to once before (see here), and of Norrheim have much the same meaning. (See Heim.) Norrland is the northernmost part of Sweden whereas Norrheim is a Norsified ally of the High Kingdom of Montival in SM Stirling's Emberverse.
Both names evoke a remote and cold realm, an appropriate setting for fantasies based on Norse mythology, although Norrland is in fact a real geographical location with modern industries and investment companies. A contemporary novel evokes the ancient past with its use of settings and place names.
3 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
Alas, those modern industries and other types of high tech corporations became less than useless when the Change hit Sweden and the rest of the world. But, Of course you knew that!
Sean
Tho' with the case of Norrheim, it's the snake biting its tail. The Asatruar who settle in northern Maine call their new home Norrheim precisely because it's evocative of Norse myth to them.
Also it's geographically appropriate; the climate, vegetation and landscape -are- quite like large parts of Scandinavia, and in the 19th century groups of Swedes did settle there.
So you get a kingdom of people with Old Norse names, worshipping the Aesir, in a landscape of snow and rock and pine-trees.
Dear Mr. Stirling,
And I actually found the Old Norse paganism of the "neo-Aaatruar," less ridiculous and intellectually absurd than the Wicca of the Mackenzies. Probably because sources like the ELDER EDDA and the saga literature acted as a check on their imaginations.
But I certainly hope the people of Norrheim eventually convert to Catholic Christianity.
Sean
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