“The Cowboy Hávamál”

May 2, 2016 4:45 AM

5. You ought to have
a damn sight of learnin’,
before you step outside that door.
It’s a lot easier to stay at home,
but no one’ll listen to you if you stay there.

"The text called Hávamál (literally “Words of the One-Eyed,” or “Words of the High One,” either way a reference to Odin) might be considered a Norse equivalent of the Book of Proverbs, containing as it does a series of disconnected stanzas encouraging wisdom and moderation in living one’s life.

“The Cowboy Hávamál” is a condensation of the wisdom of the first, most down-to-earth part of Hávamál (often called the Gestatháttr, it includes stanzas 1-79, give or take a few) into mostly five-line stanzas of a Western American English dialect. I have not endeavored to render this dialect phonetically in a thoroughly consistent way, but only to present an “eye dialect” of sorts, to suggest the dry tones of the accent behind the words."


Written by Jackson Crawford, known for his retelling of Star Wars as an Icelandic saga (previously).
For comparison: a more traditional english translation; original norse text.

posted by aldurtregi (6 comments total)

MetaFilter: Sarcastic people sound smart
when they make fun of someone else.
But making fun dudn’t make you smart,
and that’s time you could be putting
into somethin’ more worthwhile.
posted by zamboni at 6:18 AM on May 2, 2016 [5 favorites]

Praise no FPP until archived, no user until buttoned, no
mod until retired...

Odin the Allmod was kind of a killjoy, wasn't he?
posted by GenjiandProust at 7:17 AM on May 2, 2016 [1 favorite]

I'll wait for the audio book, narrated by Sam Elliott
posted by rocket88 at 8:51 AM on May 2, 2016 [6 favorites]

THAT'S whose voice I was reading this in. Thank you.
posted by maryr at 9:46 AM on May 2, 2016 [1 favorite]

Damn Grandpa, is that you?
posted by ridgerunner at 11:11 AM on May 2, 2016

Everything about this is perfect
posted by WidgetAlley at 11:58 AM on May 2, 2016 [2 favorites]