Learning is Fundamental!
Jun. 1st, 2019 09:46 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mdehnersFor the last few months I've been enjoying watching Dr. Jackson Crawford's Old Norse channel on YouTube. Formerly a professor in the California Uni system, he is presently returned to his home in Colorado teaching at U of Co Boulder.
I esp like that he uses the reconstructed Old Norse of the period the Eddas were written down, though it at 1st was jarring since I'd learned my ON using Modern Icelandic pronunciation.
He's a stickler for the most accurate translation as possible(even having his own published) and goes back to the Codex Regius NOT transcribed copies that are posted on some ON websites. I personally thought ALL the ON Eddic poems had been translated for the original CR. You learn something new every day. Which is a great thing IMO!
He isn't a co-religionist but has stated that he can't find a better guide to life than the Havamal; which he's got a stand alone book on coming out this Fall with the CR on one page and his translation on the other AND why he translates something so if it contradicts other scholars. Needless to say, that's on my Yule list;>!
In my personal life, his work has oft reinforced experiences with the Regin that differed from what I'd been taught or is on most websites. A good example is Hel. Pop Heathenry and most translators describe Her as half Lady half rotting corpse(or skeleton), which is NOT my experience in Trancework. He actually used Her as an example on one of his lectures on how the ON perceived Colors. The word(I believe Blaugh but I may misremember) that most translators read as Black is actually Blue(Black being a shade of Blue, which actually makes sense). Readings from various lays the word was mostly used to describe, well what we would recognize as a Goth look; Blue-ish White, Ill or recently Dead. NOT ROTTING, NOT A SKELETON. So, basically she's SUPPOSED to be seen as some Gothic Lady not part corpse. And on that....in another vid the word that's most oft translated as half is also used as "part". So, more accurately, She should be described pretty much looking like an upper class Lady with TB....a look that for some reason was considered very attractive for Women in Europe.
Cheers,
Pat
I esp like that he uses the reconstructed Old Norse of the period the Eddas were written down, though it at 1st was jarring since I'd learned my ON using Modern Icelandic pronunciation.
He's a stickler for the most accurate translation as possible(even having his own published) and goes back to the Codex Regius NOT transcribed copies that are posted on some ON websites. I personally thought ALL the ON Eddic poems had been translated for the original CR. You learn something new every day. Which is a great thing IMO!
He isn't a co-religionist but has stated that he can't find a better guide to life than the Havamal; which he's got a stand alone book on coming out this Fall with the CR on one page and his translation on the other AND why he translates something so if it contradicts other scholars. Needless to say, that's on my Yule list;>!
In my personal life, his work has oft reinforced experiences with the Regin that differed from what I'd been taught or is on most websites. A good example is Hel. Pop Heathenry and most translators describe Her as half Lady half rotting corpse(or skeleton), which is NOT my experience in Trancework. He actually used Her as an example on one of his lectures on how the ON perceived Colors. The word(I believe Blaugh but I may misremember) that most translators read as Black is actually Blue(Black being a shade of Blue, which actually makes sense). Readings from various lays the word was mostly used to describe, well what we would recognize as a Goth look; Blue-ish White, Ill or recently Dead. NOT ROTTING, NOT A SKELETON. So, basically she's SUPPOSED to be seen as some Gothic Lady not part corpse. And on that....in another vid the word that's most oft translated as half is also used as "part". So, more accurately, She should be described pretty much looking like an upper class Lady with TB....a look that for some reason was considered very attractive for Women in Europe.
Cheers,
Pat
no subject
Date: 2019-06-01 03:54 pm (UTC)I hope I pointed out during the Hávamál discussion series that yes, all the poems have been subject to all kinds of emendations. Unfortunately some have been pretty much hacked around, so there are places where one has to make some sort of guess. But there was once a fashion for absolutely slicing and dicing and rewriting.
Blá, and yes it's either blue, black, or blue-black. So Óðin's cloak, for example; would we call that blue or black? On what you say he says about Hel, think of Harald Bluetooth (blátönn). You've seen the color bad teeth go. I'd describe it as a blueish grey.
Frith,
M
no subject
Date: 2019-06-02 09:35 am (UTC)Last night I was watching a review of a book that my impression was a bit "hinky" and the reviewer pretty much reinforced my impression; the Norreana Societies 'Edda'.
I didn't know this was a totally new org, that the original had been disbanded many decades ago and that it had been "purged" of material deemed "Christian Influenced". As irritating the obvious Xian BS can be, doing the same that they did is NOT the answer. We both know enough eejits whose world views truly would make the Lore useless as a Spiritual resource. The FB's saying Sacrifice(of both Human and ANimals) was an Xian invention and we both can imagine what the Neonazis would do....
Cheers,
Pat