This Week's Requests (for 08/14) (Patreon)

For whatever it's worth in a pretty small category, it looks like there were enough pre-orders for The Wanderer's Hávamál to catapult it up to "No. 1 New Release in Norse & Icelandic Sagas" on Amazon.

To answer a few frequent questions about the book real quick:
-The official release date is November 15th (though past releases from Hackett have been a little early).
-I will do at least one public event in connection with its release, at Boulder Book Store in Boulder, Colorado. It's too expensive to travel much further, and very few bookstores are willing to invite an author they've never heard of (my books sell much better than people who don't care about Norse mythology ever believe).
-The book does include both the original Old Norse text of Hávamál (adapted by me directly from the Codex Regius) as well as (on facing pages) a revised English translation by me, a commentary on the text, and some other things. See this video for more about what's in the book.
-At this stage, I have no idea if there will be an audiobook. It might be pretty hard to make that work, given that it's a dual-language text that's meant to be used together with the commentary in the book.

Recent videos have included a look at the weirdly different origins of the word for "and" in the various Germanic languages, the long-awaited (by a few) part 3 of Gisli Sursson's Saga, a ranch-porch video about approaching our sources and people's scholarship with a healthy skepticism, a presentation about the importance of the number nine (9) in Norse myth, and a tour of what's new, special, or unique about The Wanderer's Hávamál.

As happens from time to time, travel and work kept me from getting to this week's requests on Wednesday. But as usual in one of these posts, I post the requests Stella had received by Tuesday along with my usual (slightly updated) caveats.

Thank you for your support, and all the best,

Jackson Crawford

*

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 (or as near to that as I can).
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 some abstract words.
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.
10. Small translations are done for supporters as a personal favor. No translations for commercial purposes. 

—> Norman Thomas requests "macropus rufus," "bufo calamita," "pan troglodytes," and "cassia fistula" in Old Norse, directly from Latin/Greek into Old Norse.

Macropus rufus
I.e. “red long-footed,” thus: rauðr langfǿttr

Bufo calamita
I.e. “toad of reeds, reed-toad” thus: reyrpadda

Pan troglodytes
I.e. “herder cave-dweller,” thus: hirðir hellisbúi

Cassia fistula
I.e. “pipe cassia.” The pipe as an instrument was called pípa (a word borrowed from Romance languages), while a normal pipe is called a strá “straw.” The plants of the genus Cassia are not found in Scandinavia and there is no separate Old Norse word for them: modern Scandinavian languages call them “cassia.”

—> Colleen Borst requests "As our fates are woven, we weave our fate" (f) in Old Norse and Younger Futhark

ᛋᛁᛘ  ᚢᛦᛚᛅᚴ  ᚢᛅᚱ  ᚢᛁᚱᚦᛅ  ᚢᚠᛁᚾ  ᛋᚢᛅ  ᚢᛁᛦ  ᚢᛁᚠᚢᛘ  ᚢᛦᛚᛅᚴ  ᚢᛅᚱ
Sem ørlǫg vár verða ófin, svá vér vefum ørlǫg vár.
As our fates are woven, so we weave our fates.

I’ll note that the “weaving” of fate is a foreign concept in Old Norse (the Greek Fates weave, but the Norse Norns carve), and the use of a passive verb phrase is pretty unusual in Old Norse. To be more culturally Old Norse, one might say “As the Norns carve our fate, we carve our fates”:

ᛋᛁᛘ  ᚾᚢᚱᚾᛁᛦ  ᛋᚴᛁᚱᛅ  ᚢᛦᛚᛅᚴ  ᚢᛅᚱ  ᛋᚢᛅ  ᚢᛁᛦ  ᛋᚴᛁᚱᚢᛘ  ᚢᛦᛚᛅᚴ  ᚢᛅᚱ
Sem Nornir skera ørlǫg vár, svá vér skerum ørlǫg vár.
As the Norns carve our fates, we carve our fates.

In both of these I’m taking the English word “as” in the meaning “(just) as, (in the same way) as.” If the idea is rather “(at the same time) as, while,” I’d change them:

ᛘᛁᚦᛅᚾ  ᚢᛦᛚᛅᚴ  ᚢᛅᚱ  ᚢᛁᚱᚦᛅ  ᚢᚠᛁᚾ  ᚢᛁᛦ  ᚢᛁᚠᚢᛘ  ᚢᛦᛚᛅᚴ  ᚢᛅᚱ
Meðan ørlǫg vár verða ófin, vér vefum ørlǫg vár.
While our fates are woven, we weave our fates. 

ᛘᛁᚦᛅᚾ  ᚾᚢᚱᚾᛁᛦ  ᛋᚴᛁᚱᛅ  ᚢᛦᛚᛅᚴ  ᚢᛅᚱ  ᚢᛁᛦ  ᛋᚴᛁᚱᚢᛘ  ᚢᛦᛚᛅᚴ  ᚢᛅᚱ
Meðan Nornir skera ørlǫg vár, vér skerum ørlǫg vár.
While the Norns carve our fates, we carve our fates.

—> Charles Gatlin requests “Too stubborn to quit” in Old Norse and Younger Futhark ("we are" as the implied subject/verb, referring to a m/f group)

ᚢᚠ  ᚦᚱᛅᛚᚢᛏ  ᛏᛁᛚ  ᛅᛏ  ᚴᛁᚠᛅ  ᚢᛒ
Of þrálynd til at gefa upp.
Too stubborn to quit.

Thanks for the extra context; this suits a mixed group of men and women. Note that for “quit” I used gefa upp, “give up,” a rare time when an English idiom matches an Old Norse idiom.

—> Aaron Finos requests "shieldmaiden/shieldmaidens," "baby/babies," "in training," "warrior/warriors," "explore," and "adventure" in Old Norse and Younger Futhark

ᛋᚴᛁᛅᛚᛏᛘᚬᛦ  ᛋᚴᛁᛅᛚᛏᛘᛅᚢᛁᛅᛦ
skjaldmær / skjaldmeyjar
shieldmaiden / shieldmaidens

ᛁᚢᚦ  ᛁᚢᚦ
jóð / jóð
baby / babies (plural is the same in Old Norse)

ᛅᛏ  ᚾᚬᛘᛁ
at námi
in training

ᚼᛅᚱᛘᛅᚦᛦ  ᚼᛅᚱᛘᛅᚾ
hermaðr / hermenn
warrior / warriors

As I’ve mentioned many times before, there really isn’t a consistent word for “warrior” that implies it’s a separate occupation or a separate phase of one’s life. I use the conventional translation, hermaðr “army-man” here, but in terms of cultural associations with that word the entire concept is a poor fit in Old Norse.

ᚴᛅᚾᛅᚦᚢ
Kannaðu!
explore

This is a command used to tell one person: “(Go) explore!”

ᚢᛁᚦᚠᛅᚱᛚᛁ
víðfǫrli
adventure

There’s no direct translation for “adventure,” so this is something like “far-traveling.”

—> CK requests "Tomorrow owes you the sum of your yesterdays. No more than that. And no less." in Old Norse and Younger Futhark

ᛘᚢᚱᚴᚢᚾ  ᛁᛋ  ᚦᛁᛦ  ᛋᚴᚢᚴᛏᛦ  ᚢᛒ  ᛅᛚᛏ  ᚦᛅᛏ  ᛁᛋ  ᚠᚢᚱᛏᛅᚴᛅᛦ  ᚠᚢᚱᚦᚢ  ᛁᚴᛁ  ᛘᛅᛁᛦᛅ  ᛁᚴᛁ  ᛘᛁᚾᛅ
Morgunn es þér skyldr um allt þat es fordagar fǿrðu. Ekki meira, ekki minna.
The morning owes you all that the previous days brought. Not more, not less.

This is a pretty classic example of how ideas that seem simple to us are impossible to express the same way in Old Norse. First of all this is difficult because in Old Norse “tomorrow” and “yesterday” aren’t nouns; they’re adverbs describing the time an action occurs (“I’ll see her tomorrow;” “I ate there yesterday.”) There’s also no real language of math, and beyond that, “sum” or an equivalent definitely isn’t used as an abstract noun to mean “the total” like it is in English.

—> Randy Brown requests "Words are air. Action is steel." in Old Norse and Younger Futhark

ᚢᚱᚦ  ᛁᛦᚢ  ᛚᚢᛒᛏ  ᛏᛅᚦᛁᛦ  ᛁᛦᚢ  ᛋᛏᛅᛚ
Orð eru lopt. Dáðir eru stál.
Words are air. Deeds are steel.

As usual, the more concrete vocabulary of Old Norse really doesn’t have an abstract noun for “action,” but I substituted “deeds,” which is also more parallel with “words” (a grammatical parallel that would appeal more to an Old Norse poet).

—> Mikael Alsö requests "landowner's wife," "wife," and "wife of a slave," in Old Norse and Younger Futhark

ᛒᚢᛅᛏᛅᚴᚢᚾᛅ
bóndakona
landowner’s wife

ᚴᚢᚾᛅ
kona
wife

ᚦᛁᛦ
þír
slave's wife

The word for "wife" is just "woman;" it becomes "wife" by context. Thus kona is just "woman," and þír is just "slavewoman."

—> Stella Nathaniel requests "Eyeball Smasher" in Modern Icelandic. I did try to figure this out half-assedly, but 1) I'm obviously not overly familiar with my vocab choices, and 2) I'm still not real sure where to 'cut off' words in compounds in most cases/how to make them grammatically correct, especially in terms of changing a verb to a noun (like here, 'smash' to 'smasher'). Anyway, my guess/try for this was something like "Augnboltmölbrjótinn" which sounds/looks appropriately badass but is probably incorrect. I won't bore you with explanation more than necessary, but it's basically a Dune/Sturlunga saga mashup; the relevant part of the Dune quote is "as a diamond-cutter shatters his gem with a blow of a knife" with 'eye' as a poetic term for 'diamond' (not historically cited but personal).

Modern Ice.: augnknattarbrjótur
Old Norse: augasteinsbrjótr (or potentially augnknattar-)
eyeball-smasher

Old Norse actually is pretty inconsistent about how to render agent nouns (the “doer” of whatever verb); the common type in the suffix -ari is late-ish. In this instance, brjóta “break, smash” does have a well-attested old agent form, brjótr, which I use here, and which has continued in Modern Icelandic use as brjótur. Typically the eyeball is the augasteinn (“eye-stone”) in Old Norse but seems to be augnknöttur ("eye-ball") in Modern Icelandic (where augasteinn seems to have become "pupil"). That compound might have existed in Old Norse too but I don't see it attested; anyway the genitive is -knattar. A compound with three elements here is fine, but I think you’d get the same message across with just “eye-breaker,” augnabrjótr/-brjótur, too.