This Week's Requests (09/18) (Patreon)

The Wanderer's Hávamál goes to press in a few days. After the initial run is printed, it will still take a while for copies to get to warehouses and eventually start getting shipped out, but we're on target for the official release date of November 15th (as I've said before, these dates have been cautious in the past, so it's possible you'll get a copy earlier if you pre-order one from Hackett or Amazon). I anticipate having the first physical copy in October probably. 

We finalized the look of the cover today; it will be different than the last two books if you have one of those. Even on the paperback, the cover will be a different (I think sturdier) material, and will fold in both on the back and front (so you can use the flap for a bookmark, for example). My editor rewrote the bio that we've used on the past two books, producing what you see in the picture on this post. 

Since my last translation & update post, I've posted a completely non-Norse-related video about the new Utahraptor skeleton at the Morrison Museum, as well as part two of the new series of readthrough videos for Hávamál, covering stanzas 17-38. The first video in that series had some horse guest stars, and this second one has a moose, a detail that I at least enjoy.

By the way, these readthrough videos (and their predecessor series from a year and a half or two years ago) do not really overlap with what you get in The Wanderer's Hávamál. The book's Commentary mostly focuses on giving you extra content and context related to the stanzas, while the videos focus on the fairly straightforward task of simply rendering the Old Norse word-by-word into English. Of course, the book has both the Old Norse and English text, on facing pages so that you can see the same stanza in both languages if you like comparing the original thing with what I did with it in English.

There will also be ebook/Kindle versions of The Wanderer's Hávamál. There might also be an audiobook; that's uncertain as yet. The format in each case will probably "break up" the book so that you see each stanza in Old Norse, then in English, then any Commentary from the back on that stanza, instead of one whole Commentary section that you have to digitally "flip" to.

Below are this week's translation requests as delivered to Stella by Tuesday of this week. During the semester, I will try to keep making these posts on Wednesday but this is sometimes challenging given that this is the day when we have most of our meetings at CU.

Thank you very much as always for your support. All the best for now,

Jackson Crawford

*

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 or even for unexpected things that speakers of Old Norse simply never conceived of.

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 do with these requests, including anything you or anyone else gets tattooed.

10. This is not a commercial transaction. Small translations are done for supporters as a personal favor. No translations for commercial purposes.
11. I write Old Norse in runes in a more archaic form than I typically write it in the Roman alphabet. This includes e.g. es instead of er for "is," vas instead of var for "was," umb instead of um for the filler word, etc.

—> Chris Cilincione requests "art of love" and "art of war" in Old Norse and Younger Futhark

I’d probably render these as compounds:

ᚬᛋᛏᛅᛦᛚᛁᛋᛏ
ástarlist
art of love

ᚢᛁᚴᛋᛚᛁᛋᛏ
vígslist
art of war

—> Michael Jakobsen requests "Oh Stag! Forest King with Antler Crown! While I’m hunting, please reveal yourself so my family can eat." in Old Norse and Younger Futhark

ᚼᛁᛅᚱᛏᛦ  ᛋᚴᚢᚴᛅᛦᚴᚢᚾᚢᚴᛦ  ᛘᛁᚦ  ᚼᚢᚱᚾᚼᛁᛅᛚᛘᛁ  ᛘᛁᚦᛅᚾ  ᛁᚴ  ᚢᛅᛁᚦᛁ  ᚢᛁᛏᛦᛅᛋᚴ  ᚦᚢ  ᛏᛁᛚ  ᚦᛁᛋ  ᛅᛏ  ᛘᛁᚾ  ᚼᛁᚢ  ᛁᛏᛁ
Hjǫrtr! Skógarkonungar með hornhjálmi! Meðan ek veiði, vitrask þú til þess at mín hjú eti!
Stag! Forest-king with antler-helmet! While I hunt, reveal yourself so that my family can/might eat!

There isn’t an exact equivalent to the “oh” or “o” that often precedes an addressed name in older English and some other European languages, nor is there an equivalent to English “please” (beyond the table-mannerly “do so well and…”), so I left these out. Later Old Norse does use kóróna (borrowed from the Latin word) for “crown,” but in early works a crown is just treated as a kind of helmet (likewise, “antlers” are just “horns” in Old Norse).

—> Brian Peluso requests "Handmade for ______" (so added name can be male or female

ᚼᛅᛏᚴᛅᚱᛏ  ᚠᚢᚱᛁᛦ
handgǫrt fyrir
handmade for