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 ~ About & Frequently Asked Questions ~
 

              

About Me
About this Site
About Norse Religion - What is 'Asatru' or 'Heathenry', anyway?
Statement of Tolerance:
This site is dedicated to the spiritual and artistic enjoyment and mutual exchange of inspiration.
It is private, educational, and non-commercial. This is NO place for political, racist or otherwise intolerant agendas.

I´d be honored if you want to link my site! Feel free to use e.g.:
Odin's Gift - Asatru Poetry & Music Collection or  Odin's Gift - Norse Mythology Poetry Collection

Frequently Asked Questions  

- I´m interested in combining your poetry with my music.
- Can you make a recording of my song, or sheet music for it?
- I could translate a poem from English to another language (or vice versa)

Wonderful! Mail me and we´ll talk.

Do you speak (Old) Norse ?

Regrettably no, neither old nor modern Scandinavian languages.
My native tongue is German, and besides English I know a smattering of French, Latin, and modern Greek.
I´ve got a knack for etymology and when I read a text in a European language slowly, I mostly can get at least a rough idea about it.
The internet´s resources have been of great help with translating poetry to English from languages I do not actually master.

I´m looking for an Old Norse text / a Norwegian poem / a translation. Can you help me ?
While my time, knowledge and linguistics are limited, I´ll try to help you if you are stuck in your own research. 
Google is very helpful, as are Wikipedia - Free Enclopedia and the Viking Answer Lady
On the Poetry Links page are vast resources on Old Norse texts and online dictionaries.

I´m absolutely planning to have a tattoo with a nordic text, do you have any suggestions?
- What single runes, bind runes, words, or phrases? For ideas, try the Old Norse Motto Generator or Proverbs from the Old Icelandic Sagas.

- Which language? Translate your words from modern English. Freelang offers free online dictionaries for 263 languages, including
Old Norse-English, Old English-English, Icelandic-English, Old Frisian, and the modern Norwegian, Swedish, and Danish.
Cleasby-Vigfússon's Old Icelandic-English Dictionary. Modern Icelandic Dictionary. Modern Icelandic and Old Icelandic differ only little.

- Which alphabet? Unless you stay with the Latin alphabet, you need to transscribe the words into runes.
It makes sense to use the
Elder Futhark (around 150 to 800 AD) for an Old Norse text,
the Anglo-Saxon Futhorc (400 to 1100 AD) for an Old English text,
and the Younger Futhark (800–1100) for Icelandic texts.  Try out the Rune Converter.  

I cannot find the Icelandic original of "Lo, there I see my father" !
That's because Ibn Fadlan wrote the famous "Lo, there I see.." in his mother tongue, Arabic, not Icelandic,
and the film "13th Warrior" uses an adapted English translation of his text.
I keep getting requests on translating this into Icelandic, but I have yet to find someone to do that!

Is everyone here a believer in the old Gods?
Me, yes. A goodly number of authors follow (or followed) one of the Norse paths, but certainly not all.
This is a personal choice, and no criterion for submitting or enjoying this site :-).

Where did you find the Norse Mythology artwork? 
The images on Odin´s Gift come from a variety of sources. Many are paintings from the Romantic era
at the beginning of the 20th century, e.g. works from Arthur Rackham, or prints and engravings from the 19th century.
Some are drawings or photos of replicas or archaeological originals, e.g. of Gotlandic picture stones or bronze artifacts.
Several modern artists kindly gave me their permission to use their works.
Some images are in the public domain, while others are used according to the terms of a (Creative Commons) License.
And lastly, I licensed some from commercial stock image websites.

More Questions? Mail me!
 

FAQ Image: Licensed from 123rf.com