The Edda: Shortest to Longest (+ Many Updates) (Patreon)

Happy new year to all! 

Patreon remains as buggy a platform as ever, but I'm going to try organizing this message by topic as there are a few things to cover. 

1. Patreon Messages. Long-time supporters will be tired of hearing about this, but Patreon messages don't work. At minimum, I don't get notifications for them, and there's nothing on my home page to show me when there is or isn't a message. I'm not good at checking for them manually, and though I occasionally do, I can't even always see them when I check for them manually! So for new supporters especially, remember that the best ways to get in touch are just a) to comment on posts like this, b) to post in the Community page, or c) to email my assistant Stella at [admin AT JacksonWCrawford.com]--remember the 'W' between my first and last names in that domain name. 

2. Fires. The news was slow to report on this outside of the Rocky Mountain states, but parts of Colorado experienced the worst wildlfires, in terms of property damage, that the state has ever seen on December 30th. The number of deaths remains unknown. I live pretty close to where this happened--Stella considerably further--but we're both fine. My post office almost burned down, and some friends were evacuated, but I am about as lucky as someone in the vicinity could have been. I don't go to Boulder proper often, but I did a couple days ago and as far as the post office there is aware, no mail for me was lost in the subsequent looting that did affect that post office (many of you sent kind Christmas cards and outrageously thoughtful gifts, like these fantastic Teton range glasses from Anders T. pictured above!). If you want to help the victims of these fires, here are some organizations you can donate to that will directly help those in need.  

3. Crowdcast with Archaeologist Axel Krogh Hansen! Don't forget that on Sunday, we have a live Crowdcast interview with Axel Krogh Hansen, the Swedish archaeologist who excavated a missing piece of the famous Hunnestad runic monument. You can register here and that registration link ought to display the time in your local time zone. This will be a fantastic opportunity for you to talk to a scholar on the cutting edge of some of the biggest news in this field.

4. Stella's New Year's Post. I'm not a big or important enough creator for Patreon to enable the "teams" function on my page, so Stella can't make general posts like I can. But Stella wanted to wish all of you a happy new year too. 

5. The Poetic Edda, from Shortest to Longest. I'm an obsessive tracker of what I read, having kept track of everything I've read since January 1, 2009. Although I don't even share these lists with anyone anymore, it's still a way in which I encourage myself to excel previous records, and to maintain my language skills (since I track the language that texts are in). I still adhere to the rules for defining and tracking "titles" that I formulated in 2009, which rules have some flaws--for example, an Eddic poem or a book of the Bible counts as a "title," even though the difference between the length of 3 John and Jeremiah is considerable. Still, this has actually encouraged me to maintain language skills that I otherwise might let slip, since the temptation to get at least one "title" on the board for a language does keep that language at least peripherally in my reading command, and starting out short is a great way to gradually encourage reading longer titles. 

I'm fascinated by the Bible, and make use of audio Bibles in various languages to help me stay in touch with the sound of the spoken language too (for example here is most of the Bible read in Icelandic and here's the New Testament read in Faroese). There is a list of books of the Bible from shortest to longest that I've made use of for a long time in encouraging these language-maintenance reads, and it occurred to me that for someone learning Old Norse, it might be cool to have a list of the poems of the Poetic Edda from shortest to longest for similar reasons--start with the shortest, get the pride and satisfaction of doing that, and gradually work your way up to reading the longer titles. So in that spirit, here are my word counts of the poems and other pieces of the Poetic Edda (in Old Norse), from shortest to longest:

- Dráp Niflunga 167
- Guðrúnarkviða III 291
- Frá dauða Sinfjǫtla 337
- Baldrs draumar 384
- Helreið Brynhildar 387
- Grógaldr 438
- Guðrúnarhvǫt 601
- Brot af Sigurðarkviðu 632
- Guðrúnarkviða I 741
- Hamðismál 752
- Þrymskviða 794
- Oddrúnargrátr 828
- Grottasǫngr 846
- Alvíssmál 866
- Hymiskviða 887
- Guðrúnarkviða II 1,090
- Fǫr Skírnis 1,130
- Rígsþula 1,134
- Reginsmál 1,146
- [Hyndluljóð + Vǫluspá en skamma] 1,161
- Atlakviða 1,219
- Sigrdrífumál 1,237
- Vǫlundarkviða 1,250
- Hárbarðsljóð 1,286
- Fjǫlsvinnsmál 1,308
- Helgakviða Hundingsbana I 1,318
- Vafþrúðnismál 1,402
- Fáfnismál 1,417
- Grípisspá 1,462
- Vǫluspá 1,613
- Sigurðarkviða en skamma 1,689
- Grímnismál 1,711
- Helgakviða Hjǫrvarðssonar 1,753
- Helgakviða Hundingsbana II 1,947
- Lokasenna 2,003
- Atlamál 2,899
- Hávamál 4,264

It's nice to note that there are some crowd-pleasers mixed in all the way from the shorter titles to the longest here. Titling, and division into poems and pieces, is my own; there's a lot of variation between scholars and editors on the edges.

So anyway, if you've been meaning to read Hávamál in Old Norse but feel too daunted by it--after all it's the longest poem of the Poetic Edda by a wide margin!--maybe start with the short prose note Dráp Niflunga and work your way up from there, rewarding or crediting yourself however you choose along the way. 

"All rising to great place is by a winding stair." -Bacon

All the best for now, and thank you for starting another year for me with your generosity and kindness,

Jackson Crawford