This Week's Requests (06/12) (Patreon)

Does it look inconsistent or discordant that I'm wearing short sleeves in this snowglobe landscape? Not as discordant as Old Norse written in the Elder Futhark or pronounced according to Modern Icelandic rules, as I'll argue in a forthcoming video about just how jumbled our popular conception of the timeline of all things Norse is.

Most projects are in medias res right now. Hackett is reviewing the proofs I returned for The Wanderer's Hávamál last week, and we're having some long discussions about cover and design in addition to the "more serious" work of responding to peer review etc. (more serious to the publisher maybe; as the author/creator I always want to get a cover settled on early so that I can visualize the book better and give you the reader a better picture of what to look forward to seeing). Following my joking advertisement for "Uncompahgre Coffee" in a couple videos, I also seem to be nearing a sponsorship deal that I think will annoy pretty much no one. And I have a major consulting project that's probably about to really get going and take up a lot of the rest of my summer.

This week on the Youtube channel, I've talked about the surprising role Norwegian kings play in Icelandic sagas and about a little-known scene from a mythical saga in which a woman sells her unborn son to Odin. 

Several of the translation requests this week were pretty abstract, which (as I've mentioned now and then) makes them hard to translate. I did what I could with them.

As always, folks, thanks heartily for your support, and all the best,

Jackson Crawford

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Below are this week's translation requests. Key things to keep in mind about translation requests:

1. Send them to Stella at admin@jacksonwcrawford.com (remember the "w").
2. I'll respond to them in a weekly post on Wednesdays.
3. Limit one request per month. Limit 18 words at $10 tier; 9 words at lower tiers.
4. Please don't ask Stella to "hold" part of a translation for later; just submit it piece by piece.
5. Old Norse is a gendered language. Please specify male, female, or both for any adjectives.
6. Old Norse can't be written in Elder Futhark. Nor can modern names be written in any Futhark.
7. Old Norse is a very concrete language. There may be no translation for a given abstraction.
8. I reserve the right to refuse requests if I find the content embarrassing or objectionable.
9. I take no responsibility whatsoever for anything you or anyone else gets tattooed.

—> Remi Cruzel requests "Change born with hope" in Old Norse and Younger Futhark

This is abstract to the point that I’m not sure I can picture what you intend by it, but if I take “change” as a noun meaning “a change that happens or is made,” that could potentially be communicated by Old Norse breyting. If I then take “born” as a part participle (as in “this is a person born in 1980”), you could tentatively render this as:

ᛒᚱᛅᚢᛏᛁᚴ  ᚠᚢᛏ  ᛘᛁᚦ  ᚢᚬᚾ
breyting fǿdd með ván
change born with hope

—> Michael Jakobsen requests "With your courage, healing, and wisdom. That we may live our lives in balance. And so it is!" in Old Norse and Younger Futhark

This is also very abstract. I’m not sure who this is addressed to (singular or plural “you”), but I’ll take it as plural. Another issue is that you don’t “live a life” in Old Norse; “live” can’t take an object like it does in that English phrase—but “live a life” is redundant anyway so I just render it “live” here (and "may live" is just expressed by one word in Old Norse, "live" in the subjunctive). Probably the closest expression to “in balance” would be at hófi—“in the right amount, in moderation.”

ᛘᛁᚦ  ᛏᛁᚱᚠᚦ  ᛚᛅᚴᚾᛁᚴᚢ  ᛅᚢᚴ  ᚢᛁᛋᛏᚢᛘᛁ  ᛏᛁᛚ  ᚦᛁᛋ  ᛅᛏ  ᚢᛁᛦ  ᛚᛁᚠᛁᛘ  ᛅᛏ  ᚼᚢᚠᛁ
með dirfð, lækningu, ok vísdómi, til þess at vér lifim at hófi
with courage, healing, and wisdom, so that we may live in moderation

—> Matthew Axvig requests “May Thought (Huginn) and Memory (Muninn) never fail us.” in Old Norse and Younger Futhark

Note that the equivalent of “may (verb)” in Old Norse is just to inflect the verb in the subjunctive, as I’ve done below.

ᚼᚢᚴᛁᚾ  ᛅᚢᚴ  ᛘᚢᚾᛁᚾ  ᚠᛅᛚᛁᛋᚴ  ᚢᛋ  ᛅᛚᛏᚱᛁᚴᛁ
Huginn ok Muninn fallisk oss aldrigi
Hugin & Munin may-fail us never

—> Brian Czerwonko requests “When darkness falls, we are reborn” in Old Norse and Younger Futhark 

Note that Old Norse doesn’t use abstract concepts like “darkness” as subjects of active verbs; I’ve substituted the more concrete language “When the sun sets.” For “reborn,” I’ve made the adjective neuter in gender so as to be applicable to a group of men and/or women.

ᚦᚬᛋ  ᛋᚢᛚ  ᛋᛁᛏᛋᚴ  ᚢᛁᛦ  ᚢᛁᚱᚦᚢᛘ  ᛅᛏᛦᛒᚢᚱᛁᚾ
Þá’s sól sezk, vér verðum endrborin.
When the sun sets, we are reborn.

—> Danny Keen requests "Children of Nidhogg", "These words kill dragons" (referring to written words, if that makes a difference), and "The driven" (As in, those who are compelled to follow a certain course of action. Plural, and if there's no default gender use masculine.) in Old Norse and Younger Futhark

ᛒᛅᚱᚾ  ᚾᛁᚦᚼᛅᚴᛋ
bǫrn Níðhǫggs
children of Nithhogg

ᚦᛁᛋᛁ  ᚢᚱᚦ  ᛏᚱᛅᛒᛅ  ᚢᚱᛘᛅ
þessi orð drepa orma
these words kill dragons

ᛁᚾᛁᛦ  ᛏᚱᛁᚠᚾᚢ
inir drifnu
the driven (masculine plural)

—> Stefan Telvian requests "Blood is (not) thicker than water" in Old Norse and Younger Futhark

ᛒᛚᚢᚦ  ᛁᛋ  (ᛁᚴᛁ)  ᚦᚢᚴᚢᛅᛦᛅ  ᛅᚾ  ᚢᛅᛏᚾ
blóð es (eigi) þykkvara en vatn
blood is (not) thicker than water

—> Jennifer Bailey requests "I call to you" (as a woman calling to a god) in Old Norse and Younger Futhark

ᛁᚴ  ᚴᛅᛚᛅ  ᚬ  ᚦᛁᚴ
ek kalla á þik
I call to you

—> Greg M requests "honor" and "loyalty" in Old Norse and Younger Futhark

This is another request that demonstrates how hard it can be sometimes to render abstract concepts in Old Norse, even when the concepts aren’t alien to Norse culture. It is actually hard to translate “honor” in Old Norse, and since this is requested so much I’ll probably make a video eventually about the difficulties with this word. The usual translations you’ll find, like sǿmð, don’t really have the same impact as the English word, and the closest thing with that impact is the somewhat more culturally unique word ‘drengskapr’—“drengr-ness.” 

ᛏᚱᛁᚴᛋᚴᛅᛒᛦ
drengskapr
honor / “drengr-ness”

ᚼᚢᛚᚢᛋᛏᛅ
hollusta
loyalty