Me as a Virtual Reality Viking (Patreon)

Here's a sneak peek at the virtual-reality Viking that I provided the voice for, in an upcoming exhibit at the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia. Visitors have a chance to row a viking ship, and I shout things at them like "Fram!" (forward) and "Hraðara!" (faster). I don't think the viking's appearance is based on me.

October in Review. October was the first month of Patreon shoutouts at the end of videos, and the first month of using the new microphone. I think both have been reasonably well-received.

The Patreon shoutouts are in an almost random order, though because I have to keep track of who's gotten one already somehow, you're more likely to get one sooner if you've been with me on Patreon longer.

In mythology videos, I did a long run of Óðinn-themed topics this month, like whether Alfǫðr really meant "Allfather" originally, how Óðinn's wisdom in Hávamál compares to other wisdom literature around the world (which led to the ranch porch reading of Ecclesiastes), and how deep Óðinn's connection to the dead goes. I also enjoyed diving into the question of Heimdallr's origins, and redoing my video on the Norse creation myth, two videos that featured some of my favorite mountain backdrops yet.

I posted my interview with the Northern Myths podcast, in which I talked quite a bit about translating the Eddas and sagas, as a bonus video one Saturday. They post all their episodes on their Youtube channel too, if you want to hear more of their takes on the Eddic poems.

I posted three more videos in my Old Norse lesson series, which is slowly coming back to life: vocabulary about the family, preterite-present verbs, and some more about indicating possession in Old Norse (often a challenge for people who want to talk about "my" something or other, which is more complicated in Old Norse than in many modern languages).

In sagas territory, I talked about the sons of Ragnar Loðbrók. November is going to feature more saga talk, as I've been revitalizing my lectures for my sagas class and some of that has fed and been fed by lectures and stories of these old Icelandic heroes that I think will be of interest to you.

Having Stella handling much of my email has been a huge improvement in my time management, especially since I'm still spending most of my time grading midterms from two weeks ago (230+ students, remember). This is especially important with giving me more time to focus on messages and emails from Patreon supporters, which I reply to in the order I receive them (lately, I've managed to reply within a couple days mostly, which is a huge improvement over the late summer/early fall when my email was getting truly unmanageable). 

Thank you for your generous Patreon support this month, and best wishes to you in the month going forward.