{"id":46590,"date":"2026-04-04T00:00:21","date_gmt":"2026-04-04T04:00:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.oafe.net\/blog\/?p=46590"},"modified":"2026-04-02T20:28:34","modified_gmt":"2026-04-03T00:28:34","slug":"for-more-information-search-meet-bears-near-me","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.oafe.net\/blog\/2026\/04\/for-more-information-search-meet-bears-near-me\/","title":{"rendered":"For more information search \"meet bears near me\""},"content":{"rendered":"

We had a lot of fun discussing the origins of Alder's name<\/a>, so let's do the same for Bodvar<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Mythic Legions<\/i> Bodvar gets his... her? their name from a Scandanavian folkloric hero, Bödvar Bjarki, who was the grandson of a king and had the ability to shapeshift into a bear (also he had one brother who was a moose-centaur and one who had the legs of a dog). Gamers among you may recognize the him as one of the optional bosses Dad of Boi<\/a> could fight.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

It's interesting to see the ties between this Nordic tale and ones from England: like, there's a whole \"sword in the stone\" thing going on with the three brothers, where their father left weapons for them embedded in a cave wall, but each of them can only draw the one intended for them, or the fact that pretty much everything Bödvar does has parallels in the story of Beowulf, who, you'll remember, was himself from Geatland (in southern Sweden); basically, Bödvar and Beowulf were tales of the same guy, just being told by different people. Like how Ben Affleck<\/a>, Christian Bale<\/a>, Michael Keaton<\/a>, and Adam West<\/a> were all playing Batman, with a lot of the same events, but definitely some differences, too. Or maybe it's more like the relationship between Superman<\/a> and Hyperion<\/a> or Gladiator<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The most accepted etymology for the name Beowulf is \"bee-wolf\" - not \"wolf\" as we think of it today<\/a>, but as a generic term for a dangerous animal (same way \"apple\" was just the generic term for any fruit<\/a>). And what kind of dangerous animal would be involved with bees<\/a>? \"Bee-wolf\" is just a fancy name for a bear! Much like you're not supposed speak of the devil lest he should appear, ancient Germanic\/Slavic hunters had a taboo against using the actual name for the creatures they dealt with, which is why our word \"bear\" is completely unrelated to the Latin ursus<\/i>; instead, it comes from the same root as \"brown\" (*bher-<\/i><\/a>), suggesting that people would euphemistically talk about going out to hunt \"Mr. Brown.\"<\/p>\n

Bjarki is the diminutive form of Bjorn, the Old Norse word for bear. Bodvar comes from *bhau-<\/i> (the root of words like beat or battle) + herr<\/i>, or otherwise \"battle-master.\" Or warlord. Warlord Baby-Bear! Cubby the Destroyer!<\/p>\n

<i>And now, some more OAFEry:<\/i><\/H5>