Recall that misogynist epithet "battle-ax" for an unpleasant, quarrelsome woman?

That appeared in kenning, specifically referring to giantesses* because of their skill with battle-axes in melee. "Here comes a battle-ax" meant "here comes a giantess."

* Lotte Motz, "Great Goddesses of the North"

The wiener is from Wien, or Vienna: a Vienna sausage.

The frankfurter is from Frankfurt.

The professor is slightly mistaken: "hot dog" is the name of the dish. By itself, the sausage is a frankfurter; only in a bun, it's called a hot dog.

And thanks for this! Reading it now.

Lotte Motz drew up her own classifications for jötnar, skessur, risar, þursar, troll, and gýgjur, though I don't know how widely these are acknowledged.
– "The Families of Giants," Arkiv för nordisk filologi 102
– "Old Icelandic Giants and their Names," Frühmittelalterliche Studien Band 21

What would optimal or desired responses look like?

I know it's beside the point, but I wonder what the function was for flipping the male/female symbols upside down.

I don't think any tide is turning. Baby steps, if anything, and none of it addresses the tsunami you mention.

I'm not as rosy-lensed as everyone around me, concerning this win. Voting just feels like anti-voting these days, hoping the wrong alligator doesn't take the seat.

Yeah, this is the first I've heard of Víðbláinn, the "wide blue," and what I'm turning up is that it may be a Christian heaven-analogue imposed upon Old Norse beliefs (perhaps nonexistent before 13th C.), which is always discouraging.

But yeah, the primary fallacy behind Norse or Christian or most afterworlds is that you go there with a body that can be tortured or pleasured, and where material wealth still has any value. I have no truck with any of that.

Hel tended the old and infirm in Helheimr, and received oath-breakers and murderers in Nástrandir. Lastly, Rán got all the drowned souls.

I don't think this is a comprehensive list of all the ways people can die (e.g., mauled by a bear, stillborn), but I guess it was the most important?

Yeah, Óðinn's Valkyries chose his warriors, half of whom partied and fought in Valhalla, awaiting Ragnarök, and half went to Freyja in Fólkvangr, and Hel received those who died of sickness and old age. Hel also gratified herself with kings. Menglöð received deceased maidens to serve her.

Is it, though? I'm reading it like, they need never fear the risk of these things, because they're guaranteed. Like that episode of Father Ted where he's scared the plane might crash, but once the engines go out, he's completely calm because there's no point in fretting over a certainty.