Gleðileg jól, and a special Patreon offer through Dec. 24 (Patreon)

Between now and Dec. 24th, send me a Patreon message or an email (jackson.crawford@colorado.edu) with your address, and I will send you a holiday card in the mail with a handwritten quote from the Poetic Edda in runes. Let me know if you want a specific stanza (e.g. Hávamál 77), otherwise I will pick a random stanza (probably from Hávamál). It can also be a stanza from e.g. Krákumál or the Waking of Angantýr, or one of the poems in The Saga of the Volsungs or The Saga of Ragnar Lothbrok, if you like.

Thanks for weathering another year with me, and for your continued support. In 2017, knowing you Patreon supporters have my back has allowed me to do a lot of things I couldn't possibly have done otherwise. Most importantly, I'm not living as hand-to-mouth as I was for many years, and as many people in positions like mine are. 

Recently Patreon announced a change in the way it would charge patrons, and then walked it back after an outcry. In 2018, I'm considering some changes to my Patreon page, too. When I started out, I set up two "tiers" when I started (at $1/month and at $10/month) because Patreon encouraged that, and I offered translation into Old Norse at the $1 level and into runes at the $10 level. In practice, most supporters have asked for this benefit either once or never, with the vast majority of requests coming from the same few people. Also, most people who want something written in Old Norse also want it in runes.

So I'm considering this change: At the $1 level, I'll do any translation for you up to one sentence long, into Old Norse and/or Old Norse in runes. What the $10 level will buy is a single longer translation (up to a stanza), and the option to have it hand-written and delivered to you by mail. This will mean phasing out all translations longer than a stanza, because I simply don't have time for them (they take hours, and my day job just doesn't allow me that many hours). But I will also endeavor to post more "patreon-only" content for all of you, like the extra translations (e.g. Krákumál), the new Poetic Edda reading series, and some new ideas I'm working on for the first few months of the new year. And as always, I will be available to answer questions from Patreon supporters. Let me know what you folks think.

For now: Gleðileg jól, og farsælt nýtt ár.