Might have been better

Today the Canadian Ambassador came to visit Víkingaheimar, which was so nice. We wandered around the exhibition, he had lots of great questions, and he even took his hand at playing the sailing game. Unfortunately, he opened the door that said his ship was sunk by the miðgarðsórmur. So then he mentioned that when he was a kid, he he had stamp collection that included an image of Kraken, a huge octopus-like sea-monster that was said to sink ships in the North Atlantic. He wondered if the folktale of the Kraken could be related to the Norse miðgarðsórmur. Now, truth be told, we were being a bit liberal in having our game include an event where one is sunk by the miðgarðsórmur, since really Víking mariners seem to have more the idea that he swam very deep in the ocean and was not typically going around sinking ships. But the current he stirred up while swimming could indeed sink ships, if the captain was not a good navigator.

Now of course the Ambassador has in his head the idea of two different, terrible sea creatures, one from the Viking Age and one stemming from the Canadian maritime fisherman tradition. I think this is unfortunate, because I think for all of us, having one cold-blooded, unseen, unpredictable, spiteful imaginary sea-monster is probably enough.