runes

Háskólavísur 13: The Turning Wheel

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Autumn rolled on as the months passed. The Skald finished his first semester courses in time to celebrate his birthday in a state of total rest. December was not so cold in Oslo as one might have expected. January made up for it, however, when winter arrived in earnest. After that birthday rest, however, a protracted fight with doctoral program applications commenced. It dragged on longer than expected, running into mid January, but at last it was finished. The new year brought a new semester, the last of the Skald’s MA in Viking & Medieval Norse Studes, which held some long-awaited treats: his master’s thesis and an advanced runology course, the latter to be examined by trial lecture. Once in the thick of things, the Skald considered his situation, and composed this verse:

The turning wheel brought time for rest,
as I completed courses and passed the solstice.
The future is foggy for my further studies,
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Preview of a New Rúnatal

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It’s been a while since I’ve posted. Though I haven’t posted, I’ve still been writing poetry, and a lot of it, and I’ll share some draft pieces today. What I’ve been writing lately will ultimately be a 729-line poem in the Anglo-Saxon style (the style debuted here on my blog), a New Rune Tally (aka “Rúnatal en Nýja” if you prefer Old Norse), inspired by the Rúnatal þáttr Óðins, which is Hávamál stanzas 138-145. (My poetic translation of that traditional Rúnatal is here.) A sizeable chunk of it will consist of tallies of certain things, with nine lines devoted to each item in each tally.

The whole poem, when finished, will be too long to fit in a blog post. Nevertheless, it will make its way to the world eventually, when it has been sufficiently revised and edited. The portions I preview today from the various tallies should be thought of as draft versions that are subject to change. Continue reading →

Oops! There was an Error in the Calculations!

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Alas, it would seem that there was an error in my calculations yesterday. It turns out that the stars are not right. Or maybe they were right, but only for yesterday. In any case, the terrifying madness brought on by my Cthulhu gnosis has subsided, and I have remembered who I am: an Asatru poet and writer, dedicated bringing the Mead to Midgard in service to Óðinn and Valhöll. Though it was only two days ago, it feels like centuries in a way.

For anyone out there who still hasn’t figured it out, I have only two final words about yesterday’s post:

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Convert to the Cthulhu Cult!

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After much intense study, I have determined that today the stars are right, and that the return of the Great Old Ones is immanent. As for the Ragnarök, I don’t know when that will be, but it doesn’t matter: the Great Old Ones will clearly get here first. All will be destroyed, for we are mere insects compared to these incomprehensible beings, and they regard us no better than the average human regards insects. Thus, I have converted my religion to that of the Cthulhu Cult. In the end, this won’t spare me from their destructive return — it simply means that I’ll get to enjoy some power, prestige, and good times before I too am destroyed at the end of it all. I encourage my former fellow heathens to join me in my conversion instead of attempting a futile resistance. Thus I am using this blog to further the cause of expanding the Cthulhu Cult.

How shall that be done? Though I have converted to the Cthulhu Cult, I still have the skills in poetry and runes that I have acquired, and I feel it best that I use these skills in service of my new masters instead of discarding them. So today I first provide a poetic Call to Cthulhu for those who would honor and serve Him, followed immediately by a rendering of a key phrase in runes that His worshippers may carve as an act of pious devotion which will also add to His power.

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A Runic Poem of the Nine Noble Virtues

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Over a year ago, I posted a poem about the Nine Noble Virtues. Today I present a second poem on the Nine Noble Virtues, one that takes a different approach. For this poem, I went through the rune staves of the Elder Futhark and paired a single stave to each of the virtues. It is in six stanzas of fornyrðislag. The names of the runes and the virtues are capitalized here.

A mainful song
I sing of virtues;
nine they number,
noble they be.
Useful to have,
they help my quest,
riding the road
to Runes and Mead.

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Audio for The Rúnatal

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Four weeks after its posting as text, I now present an audio recording of my poetic translation of the Rúnatal, which is Hávamál stanzas 138-145. For those who seek after the runes, there is much essential lore in these eight stanzas.

Here is the downloadable file of me reciting the poem:
Eirik Westcoat – The Rúnatal

And here is the inline player:

Enjoy! Feel free to share the file. For details, see the Creative Commons link below.

This post is:
Copyright © 2013 Eirik Westcoat.
All rights reserved.

The linked audio file of The Rúnatal is:
Copyright © 2013 Eirik Westcoat.
Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives License.

The Rúnatal: A Poetic Translation

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Now, for the first time on this blog, I am posting my own poetic translation of a short passage from the Poetic Edda. It is of Hávamál stanzas 138-145, which are sometimes called the Rúnatal, because they deal with Odin’s winning of the Runes. Regular readers may notice the rather odd stanza structure here. This portion of the Hávamál is rather irregular in the use of the long lines and full lines of the ljóðaháttr meter (and in stanza length), and I have followed the original pattern of lines rather than try to recast it into completely regular meter. Nonetheless, I have aimed to keep it poetic and alliterative at the expense of absolute literalness. I have tried to maintain consistency in the translation when possible. That is, when particular and important Old Norse words occur more than once in the passage, I try to translate them the same way each time. Man translates two different words, mann and þjóð, but I think it is better that way. In some cases, words were added that don’t have correspondences in the original for the sake of the meter, such as wyrd and mammoth in the first stanza. They are, however, quite appropriate for describing that tree. Translation always involves compromises, and it is at least as much art as science.

For nights all nine,
I know that I hung
on that wyrd and windy tree,
by gar wounded
and given to Odin,
myself to myself I gave,
on that mammoth tree
of which Man knows not
from where the roots do run.

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A Special Sumbel Toast to Odin

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It’s been nearly three months since I last posted sumbel toasts to this blog. The previous ones were short, two stanza toasts. This time, I present a longer, more formal toast in honor of Odin. It is the sort of thing that I write for the more elaborate sumbels that take place at large Asatru gatherings. It is written as a seven stanza ljóðaháttr drápa, with the final stanza ending in a galdralag couplet; the refrain is italicized. To make it more friendly to my readers, I have completely anglicized the spelling of the Norse names and words. I originally wrote it as part of a three round sequence of toasts; I may post the other two toasts at some point in the future. This is also a likely future audio recording.

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