[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":70},["ShallowReactive",2],{"post-\u002Fblog\u002F2026-07-07-norway-just-won-a-great-victory-over-brazil-in-the-football-world-cup-next-up-is":3},{"id":4,"title":5,"author":6,"body":7,"date":55,"description":56,"draft":57,"extension":58,"hero":59,"image":60,"meta":61,"navigation":63,"noindex":57,"ogImage":59,"path":64,"seo":65,"source_received_at":66,"stem":67,"tags":68,"__hash__":69},"blog\u002Fblog\u002F2026-07-07-norway-just-won-a-great-victory-over-brazil-in-the-football-world-cup-next-up-is.md","Norway just won a great victory over Brazil in the football World Cup, next up is England. Will our great Viking…","Skalden",{"type":8,"value":9,"toc":51},"minimark",[10,17,24,36,39],[11,12,13],"blockquote",{},[14,15,16],"p",{},"Norway just won a great victory over Brazil in the football World Cup, next up is England. Will our great Viking warriors  Nusa, Bob, Ødegaard, Erik Haaland, Nyland and the other football Viking hero’s fight a worthy match against England. And is there any victory to be found in loosing such a match?",[14,18,19,23],{},[20,21,22],"strong",{},"The Skald:"," Ha — the whale-road is now a green field, and the storm of swords is a leather ball. Well, I will play along, but I will play as a skald plays: honestly. Of your Nusa and your Ødegaard and your Haaland I know nothing worth telling. I am a teller of the old tales — of Óláfr who fought under Kinlimafjall's cliffs, of Haraldr Sigurðarson who took his levy of half the men of Norway and sailed for England and did not come back. Ask me for a football tipster and you have knocked on the wrong hall-door; I would only be inventing, and a skald who invents is a skald not worth his mead. But the second half of what you ask — that I can answer, for the sagas answer it plainly, and the answer is: yes.",[14,25,26,27,31,32,35],{},"Consider Haraldr, the one they called harðráði, hard-counsel. Fifteen years he fought for Denmark. Tófi the earl came to him with honeyed words — ",[28,29,30],"em",{},"no warrior like you in all the northern lands, and England lies open"," — and Haraldr weighed it and believed it, and called out his levy, and sailed. At Stamford Bridge the English rode against him in a ring, and his men broke their shield-wall to chase them, and the arrows came from every side, and Haraldr went into the thickest of the crash of weapons, and there he fell. His sons, said Þjóðólfr the skald, would take the vengeance — ",[28,33,34],{},"and never shone the sun upon two nobler eaglets",". It was a lie kindly told. The vengeance never came. That was the end of the viking age, near enough, on English soil. And yet — we still tell it. Nine hundred years on, I am telling it to you now. That is the victory the old world understood: not the winning, which fate hands out as she pleases, but the going forward hard enough that the tale is worth the telling afterward. A man beaten well is remembered; a man who would not come to the field is forgotten before the mead is cold. So — if your lads lose to the English, they will be in respectable company. Haraldr lost to them too. Tell me instead which of the old tales you would like, and I will give it to you straight.",[37,38],"hr",{},[14,40,41],{},[28,42,43,44,50],{},"This conversation was had on ",[45,46,6],"a",{"href":47,"rel":48},"https:\u002F\u002Fskalden.app",[49],"nofollow"," — walk into the Norse world.",{"title":52,"searchDepth":53,"depth":53,"links":54},"",3,[],"2026-07-07","Ha — the whale-road is now a green field, and the storm of swords is a leather ball.",false,"md","\u002Fblog\u002F2026-07-07-norway-just-won-a-great-victory-over-brazil-in-the-football-world-cup-next-up-is-hero.jpg",null,{"source":62},"autoblog-ingest",true,"\u002Fblog\u002F2026-07-07-norway-just-won-a-great-victory-over-brazil-in-the-football-world-cup-next-up-is",{"title":5,"description":56},"2026-07-07T11:26:30.580Z","blog\u002F2026-07-07-norway-just-won-a-great-victory-over-brazil-in-the-football-world-cup-next-up-is",[],"lIyBWoYRhKooEdk8b70IglRE13KCZPZatW29U6ISsQY",1786352744231]