kuckenburg:
Naglfar, the nordic ship of the dead - the story to...
Naglfar, the nordic ship of the dead - the story to it is quite interesting and you can find a lot about it on the internet.
This was part of my intermediate examintation in March, 2014 and was done in Photoshop (A2).
In the norse mythology the ship is supposed to be made entirely out of finger- and toenails of the deceased. That is why there was the old custom of cutting the nails from the dead, so they could not be used to finish the ship and Ragnarok would not come that soon.
Although corpses, bones and kind of root-snake-things are displayed, I still imagine it being made of toenails. I think about it a bit like a makabre skulpture.—
The head of the ship is suposed to picture Hræsvelgr, a giant with the figure of an huge eagle. In old norse his name means “Corpse Swallower”. When he uses his wings, he creates the wind that blows over the lands. I kind of imagined his body to be the ship (the swallowed and trapped corpses trying to free themselfs) and his wings to be the sails.
One funny fact about this picture: One of the friendly undead in this ship just always makes me think of The Cat from Kiss. I mean, this is a serious ship of the dead that is part of Ragnarök, and all I see is funny painted men with whiskers.
