These headcanons are unorganized, but all substantial and important to becoming familiar with Rasmus as a character.

• Rasmus has a pretty big family — a few younger “brothers”: Geiri (Faroe), Hjalti (Shetland), and Fálki (Iceland); a half-sister named Idunn (Nord-Norge); and a some children: Ole (Oslo), Åsta (Bergen), Ingebjørg (Trøndelag), and Embla (Jämtland), just for starters. Geiri, Hjalti, and Fálki are not actually related to him, but Idunn and the kids are.

• Rasmus ADORES children and is prone to baby fever. He will hold and play with anyone’s baby and gets along well with toddlers and even older kids. He is slightly embarrassed by it but he can sometimes be found wandering into kids’ stores to look at the toys and clothes. Most telling of his love for children is the fact that his national day is celebrated not with a show of military might, but with parades of kids, who he believes are his strength. One of his greatest shames, conversely, is how harshly German children were treated in his country immediately post-WWII. He did, in fact, support their deportation in blind rage. Whether or not it was justified is up to your opinion.

• He works at the Norsk Institutt for Kulturminneforskning as the Director of Archeology! He loves his job and is very dedicated to it. A typical day at work finds him in the office on Storgata, but he vastly prefers field work over sitting at his desk. His preliminary focus of study is medieval archaeology; for the past couple of decades his passion projects have been old town Oslo and farms in Telemark and Trøndelag. NIKU has an emergency line that can be called if a historic or cultural site is in immediate danger for instructions on how to prevent damage — Rasmus is typically who they send to respond to these calls!
He ended up with this job after originally working for the Riksantikvaren when it was established in 1912, and before that he was one of the founding members of Fortidsminneforeningen, or the Society for the Preservation of Ancient Monuments. Fortidsminneforeningen was one of the first cultural preservation societies to be founded across the world.
If you asked him why he chose archaeology, he’d simply say it’s just what interested him, but the actual reason is because he feels less lonely in the company of objects (and people…!) from the distant past. They feel familiar and comforting to him. His greatest wish is that one day he might touch something his late father once also touched a thousand years ago.

• Albin is actually the one who pushed him to study antiquarianism and subsequently archaeology. After the four hundred year night with Denmark, Rasmus was left with a shattered identity, and piecing himself back together was naturally the first step. He’s typically proud of his culture and likes to share it, and will act like criticism towards it doesn’t get under his skin, but it absolutely does. Pointing out that Norwegian can’t be spoken without uttering at least one word of German or that bunad beadwork is Italian in origin, for example, will put a lump in his throat. It makes him very, very self conscious and feel like he’s an impostor with nothing to call his own. (It is a common self-depreciating joke that Norwegians have no culture, merely culture they imported.)

• His home is in Slemdal, a residential neighborhood in the Vestre Aker district of Oslo. He has pretty much always lived in the west end, but in Oslo’s early days (chiefly when it was called Kristiania) he lived closer to the division line. His house is a relatively recent build and he shares a private driveway with four neighbors off of Dalsveien; he’s tucked into the back corner of their cluster of houses at the bottom of a slight incline, and both his front and back doors are hidden by the hedge, so no one really knows when he’s home unless his car is parked in front. It has heated floors throughout, even in the showers, and tiling in the bathrooms and entryways were cut locally from otta slate. He really loves his house and neighborhood and doesn’t see himself moving anytime soon if it can be helped — he is just a short walk from the closest metro station that can be ridden all the way to his work, produce and flower stands, a couple of grocery stores and a takeout place. He loves the view from his library upstairs as well, you can see the Holmenkollen ski jump from the window <3

• The outside and inside of his house are white, but NOT plainly so! He’s hand-painted intricate rosemaling accents on the outside, and on the inside, invited his cities and regions to paint their traditional rosemaling variations on the doors. He also has a little tiny moss-covered stabbur (similar) in the corner of his yard where he keeps his bike, ski equipment, and surfboard, and a miniature version of the statue Fru Fortuna mounted to the top of his normal shed at the end of the driveway. Not that he really needs it, but there is a bird scarer kite on his roof, and a tall flagpole bearing a Norwegian flag vimpel.

• He has a motor home, like many others, and uses it to travel and stay wherever field work brings him. Lately it has been all over Trøndelag, specifically the island of Storfosna, which he’s grown fond of. His true second home is a cabin on Engeløya in Nordland, across Vestfjorden from the tourist-heavy Lofoten Islands. It was Rasmus who discovered the multiple Viking-era graves at Vikhamn there.

• On the topic of tourism, Ras does not at all hate tourists. He wishes they’d be more considerate and environmentally conscious, but he is kind to them and helps them when they approach him. If there is anything Ras does hate, it’s cruise ships. There loud, they stink of diesel wherever they go, and they do not belong in his fjords — at least, that’s how he feels about them. Luckily Norway is banning ships not powered by alternative fuel from its most heavily trafficked fjords in the next couple of years, and the general public hopes that next will be a permanent cap on ships carrying over 700 passengers period.

• His relationship with janteloven is…complicated. He values selflessness and humility but understands that the Law of Jante was supposed to be a criticism of cultural norms. Interestingly, his opinion on janteloven also influenced his opinion on a cultural phenomenon Norway is known internationally for: black metal. He sees it as a natural and expected reaction to the laws, a social rebellion that he could get behind, were it not for the fact that black metal fans were behind numerous stave church burnings.

• He LOVES SOCCER. Both his national team and his internal series, of which he’s a Vålerenga fan.

• That being said though, Ras isn’t very sporty himself. There is a distinction between “sport” and something called “idrett” in his mind, and he’s more fond of the latter. Sport is competitive, and he is not (unless his opponent is Albin) — idrett however is more about making the most of one’s own able body and ties closely into friluftsliv, the idea of living closely with nature. He enjoys activities that exert force, like skiing, running, and hiking.

• Surfing, believe it or not, is another outdoor activity he really likes and is good at. Hoddevik is well known for its surf camps and its beach is a prime location for catching good waves. At least once a year Rasmus takes the ferry from Bergen to Selje and goes surfing in Hoddevik for a weekend.

• Plays the seljefløyte, meråkerklarinett, and fiddle. Specifically, he owns a Hardanger fiddle that is nearly 200 years old. He refurbishes it himself as needed, but it’s not often necessary, as he takes care of it like it’s the most precious thing in his possession. It’s certainly one of them. Whenever he feels intensely about anything, whether it’s anger or happiness or love, he finds relief in expressing it through his fiddle. He’s also a talented singer and is pitch perfect! His favorite songs to sing are old laling tunes for calling cows from far away and church hymns.

• At Nidaros Cathedral in Trondheim there is a stained glass panel depicting Rasmus as a bishop, casting his gaze down at the Cor Norvegiae where Saint Olav’s remains used to lie. The panel was originally painted and installed in the 1300s and deteriorated greatly over the next few centuries until the 1800s when restoration work began. Ultimately the glass had become too brittle to repair and an exact replica was commissioned and inserted in the original’s place in 1870 — it is the only glass work at Nidaros that was referenced from an original piece. The sentiment of the panel was that Rasmus would always be watching over his kings in their final resting place.

• All that being said, Nidaros is extremely important to Rasmus; it is, after all, not just the consecration site of his kings and St. Olav, it is literally called the Heart of Norway. It feels like a safe place to him. There has only ever been one attack on Nidaros, five hundred years ago at that, but it left a permanent mark on Ras’ relationship with Aksel and honestly left him traumatized. In 1537, during the Reformation, St. Olav’s shrine and precious relics were evacuated to the archbishop’s castle in nearby Skatval ahead of a raid by Danish authorities. An armed force, including Rasmus, was left to guard the castle after the inevitable attack on Nidaros. When the Danes came they fought until the Norwegians were forced to surrender on May 17th, and Rasmus was gravely injured and held back as the relics were smashed for smelting in Copenhagen. St. Olav’s casket was taken away, the reliquary that he’d worn for hundreds of years snatched off his neck, and Catholicism became banned and punishable by death. Aksel has never apologized to him, and he hasn’t been able to forgive him for it all these years. Albin has apologized for his marginal involvement by finding the last known relic and returning it to Rasmus as a gesture of genuine sorrow during their union.
Easter is a rather…emotional time for him, since it was Easter day that the raid on Nidaros began. It was also easter day that the Eidsvoll meetings began, and the same day in 1940 that Nazi Germany began its invasion of Norway.

• Ironically, despite how turbulent a time it is for him, Easter is one of his favorite holidays. He tends to spend it by himself, going on solitary hikes or road trips, drinking hot coffee, eating oranges and nibbling on Kvikk Lunsj wherever he finds a good place to stop with a view. His top favorite holiday, Seljumannamesse, is less festive though. It is a remembrance day for Saint Sunniva, the patron saint of western Norway, and is the oldest holiday in Norwegian law.

• Rasmus is Catholic. Not Lutheran, not pagan, Catholic. This makes him a minority in his own country, and it hasn’t been easy. After the Reformations there was a persistent counter-reform movement led by Norwegians in the military and Catholics in hiding, and many Norwegians expressed a preference for “the old faith” but were so out of the loop on what actually happened they didn’t realize Lutheranism was not Catholicism. Rasmus stubbornly clung to his beliefs both because of his personal strong connection to Asterias and because he wanted at least one thing that Denmark could not take from him. It wasn’t until 1843 that the ban on Catholicism was partially repealed, and he lived labeled a “dissenter” until 1969.
He is pious, but selective about who he opens up to about it. He does still retain some of his beliefs from before Christianity, but it intersects heavily with it nowadays (as in, “of course elves exist, God made them”).

• Ras is also somewhat superstitious. He experiences something Norwegians call vardøger, “premonitions” of sorts that tell of someone or something’s arrival. Realistically, vardøger can be attributed to pattern recognition, but Rasmus seems to get them ahead of entirely unexpected visits and events and is seemingly able to predict weird details. He tends to know what people look like before he ever meets them face-to-face and gets feelings in his gut when other people are talking about him. Similarly, he believes in hug, which are essentially spirits or projections of the self that cause vardøger to begin with. Hug can possess people or be innocent manifestations that relay messages or memories for whatever reason. This may or may not have been passed down to him through his mother, who had the same gift — the ability to see a person’s four-folded soul.

• He believes in fylgje, too. Fylgje, like vardøger, are guardian spirits that often take the forms of women or animals in Norse mythology and folklore. Fylgje may be associated with a whole clan or unique to the individual and represent the person’s fate, as well as ties to their ancestors. Ras’ fylgje is a rabbit that has frequently appeared in the dreams of those closest to him, as well as his own. It is always the same cream-colored dwarf rabbit. His fylgje has even appeared to him in real life before — he just didn’t and still hasn’t realized it.

• Perhaps most interestingly, although he was a bishop before the Reforms and his cleric education made him a respected religious figure of authority afterwards, Rasmus was/is in possession of a rather large grimoire, or svartebok. Folk “magic” was often performed and protected by priests in 1700s-1800s Norway, not with runes, staves or alchemic circles, but with everyday objects like farm equipment, food, and animal remains. If he were to be confronted about it, he would say it’s merely a compendium of interest…but he has used it, in desperate situations. It’s unlikely anyone would discover it, as it’s locked away in the storage area of his cabin’s stabbur loft along with other relics of medieval Norway he refuses to let go of.

• Books in general he is protective of. Rasmus has always been literate, but his proficiency really took off post-1400, when the survival of his culture depended on their recordings in literature. During the four hundred year night Rasmus’ nose was buried in books every single day; it was common to see him walking around not just with a cane (necessary especially in the 1300s when the plague weakened him by killing 2/3rds of his population) but also a worn tome full of fairytales. He can recite some of them word for word, as well as folk ballads, which were sung fairytales. Some of his favorite books are the Summa Theologica by Thomas Aquinas, Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy, and Terje Vigen among many of Henrik Ibsen’s works. Victoria by Knut Hamsun used to be one of his favorites but he has a complicated relationship with Hamsun after…certain events!

• He has three pets: a white and gray tabby forest cat named Møffe, a cream Netherlands dwarf rabbit named Fnuggi, and a black and white spotted Holland lop named Hopsa. Ras loves his pets as if they were his own kids, especially the bunnies. He has such soft spots for rabbits that around his house and among his belongings you’ll find them as designs on things like notebooks, pouches, rain coats, keyrings, socks…he even has a big bunny plush that he carries around when he’s alone sometimes (otherwise it sits in his vanity chair in his room). Fnuggi and Hopsa are free roaming but have their own hutch and play area in a room upstairs.

• Ras once lived on Svalbard for a whole year as a testament to his care for the islands. If he was ever needed for government business in Oslo, he would simply fly in and fly back out the next day. He quickly became a part of Svalbard’s tight-knit community and made friends he still keeps up with today. Before he moved back to Oslo, the community in Longyearbyen surprised him with his own tailored Svalbard bunad, complete with the polar bear sølv. Per traditional requirement, you can only wear Svalbard’s bunad if you’ve lived there all four seasons!

• Rasmus has been married three times; to Aksel (political and largely against his will), to Albin, and to a woman named Tove. Tove was allegedly* from a family of farmers in the Hardanger area and though she was born before mandatory education in Norway, she was very, very smart. They met through a national writers’ guild that had a conference in Oslo in the mid-1800s and Ras took a liking to her immediately. She became sort of a Diana figure in western Norway, where she was nicknamed førstedama (the first lady) and much beloved for unapologetically speaking Nynorsk in her ”country bumpkin” accent around Oslo.
*Tove did not have any living family. Rasmus has never been able to find the graves of her supposed relatives, nor any trace of that farm ever existing in Voss’ landskasse. Fálki speculates that Tove was actually a huldra Rasmus attracted after playing his fiddle “for the lively hulder” in the woods, as he does sometimes to this day.

• Ever since the mass immigration to America, Rasmus has gone out of his way to hold the door open for Norwegian Americans. Two of the states – Colin (Washington) and Ciel (Minnesota) – are of Norwegian descent and he considers them nephews. In 1898 he had his voice recorded on a phonograph that was brought to the US to be played for Norwegian American gatherings; it was a message that he remembered them, thanked them for their love, and wished nothing but the best for them. Today this phonograph is on display at the Nordic Museum in Seattle and has been digitally recorded for visitors to listen to.

• Ras has always been involved in the Norwegian Navy to some degree, even before it was officially organized; in the early medieval ages, bishops were made commanding heads of the Leidang, and his affiliation with seafaring continued even into the Kalmar Union and absorption into Denmark. He loves the sea, ships, and everything to do with it — he even likes model ships, which he has positioned around his house in windows and on shelves. He also builds and donates votive ships to various churches around Norway, including his neighborhood Ris kirke and Sankt Olav domkirke.

• Besides Norwegian and English, Rasmus is fluent in Danish, German, and Latin. He knows enough Swedish and Icelandic to hold conversations in them, and understands Faroese and some Finnish. He even knows a tiny bit of Irish and Scottish Gaelic, but doesn't speak them much anymore. As far as his mother tongue goes Ras speaks standard østnorsk regularly but will occasionally slip into local dialects depending on where he is or who he is speaking to. He can of course write in both bokmål and nynorsk.

• When Universitetet i Oslo opened in 1813, it had only five professors and seventeen students, and Rasmus was one of them. At the time it was called Universitas Regia Fredericana and served as a platform of higher learning aimed at preparing young men to participate in government and politics. Post-separation from Denmark, its focus expanded to include the study of Norwegian folk culture, which what he studied. Before UiO, Ras regularly went to Katta, the Oslo cathedral school. After moving to Oslo in the medieval ages he became one of its administrators, but of course, the Reforms put an end to that.