A Profound Thought™ struck me when I recently re-read Thrond Sjursen Haukenæs’ Old Christmas Customs, and I have been reading myself into a rabbit hole ever since. I haven’t yet read enough to be able to unravel the question at the end of this post. I’m working on it, though I doubt the answer is out there.

We begin with Christmas in rural Norway, which by the beginning of the 20^th century, was typically celebrated the same way throughout the country. The baking was completed in the first half of December, the beer had been brewed after the barley harvest, and a goat, a lamb, or a pig was slaughtered close to Christmas Eve, so that the Christmas meal should consist of fresh meat.

Now, when we compare these customs with the way in which The Saga of Haakon the Good says the Norse folk marked their sacrifices, the similarities are quite interesting.

It was an old custom, that when there was to be sacrifice all the bondes should come to the spot where the temple stood and bring with them all that they required while the festival of the sacrifice lasted. To this festival all the men brought ale with them; and all kinds of cattle, as well as horses, were slaughtered, and all the blood that came from them was called “hlaut”, and the vessels in which it was collected were called hlaut-vessels. Hlaut-staves were made, like sprinkling brushes, with which the whole of the altars and the temple walls, both outside and inside, were sprinkled over, and also the people were sprinkled with the blood; but the flesh was boiled into savoury meat for those present.

Quite similar in a number of points.

Of course, the different ways in which a community can celebrate a holiday are limited, and feasting seems to be widespread, but here’s the interesting bit: the yearly slaughter on Norwegian farms took place in the autumn – after the now fat billy-goats came down again from the saeter. The meat from the autumn slaughter was preserved (salted, cured, dried, pickled) for the coming year; why should meat eaten at Christmas be fresh?

So is this custom of eating fresh meat at Christmas a bloody remnant of old Norse religions, which may have survived through to the beginning of the industrial period?

In my latest post, on the forthcoming volume of legends of the undead draug, I write: "I am still meditating on how to include in a paperback the information behind the links." These links give useful background information on the geography of this part of the world, folkloric figures generally unfamiliar to readers of English, and more or less obscure heroes of Norse literature. Additionally, some links point directly at the source literature in Old Norse or Danish translation. To include all this kind of material on paper would require an annotation apparatus that risks overshadowing the texts themselves, which would be quite unfortunate.

So how do I deal with this matter? Do I publish in ebook format only? Or do I cut down the amount of information included in the printed book? Or do I move the notes to a place in the book where they may be overlooked while the texts are being read? I am leaning towards the latter solution – writing brief introductions to each text or group of texts, in which I can address potential difficulties a reader of English might face. Of course, a bibliography will have to serve in lieu of links to the original literature.

One of the consequences of this solution is that the contents of the ebook and physical edition will diverge to a degree, with the ebook having direct links to independent information and the paper version containing my own ruminations. But still, isn't it about time we employed the many possibilities that hypertext affords us in serious non-fiction?

I will diminish, and go into the West

Current events are exhausting; perhaps it is becoming cliché to point it out, but it remains true. Social media are full of current events. Social media are therefore exhausting. Now, as I withdraw from social media – for peace of mind’s sake – I shall increase my presence here, back on a personal blog, safe and free from the interference of various bad actors.

These blogposts appear on the website’s front page, are archived under their own banner (above), and are syndicated, allowing you to read them from the comfort of your own RSS reader, should you choose to do so. And as for content, all I can say is that they will reflect my interests, as abiding or as fleeting as they may be.

It's been a while since I had a weblog that served as a weblog; my old Blogger sites were places I posted my work, and little else. This site is something different, though, which brings me to the purpose of this post: what has this waning year brought, both positive and negative?

The year progressed as years often do, until June, when Wolf Thandoy (my editor) and I completed the main round of editing The Complete Norwegian Folktales and Legends of Asbjørnsen & Moe, paving the way for publication some time next year. This event came roughly twenty years after I translated my first folktale in the summer of 2003 (just to see if I could do so).

Although progress on Asbjørnsen & Moe was the most significant event, personally, the most obvious change in my sphere of activity, was the removal of my Blogger blogs, following reports of impending indiscriminate data theft in the name of “artificial intelligence” by some of the world's biggest corporations. Taking the blogs down was not a decision I took lightly, but it was an easy one. Although I had made my work in unedited form freely available for personal use, I refuse to work for Silicon Valley’s profits without explicit consent and significant remuneration.

Inspired by the end of the heavy editing, and as a reaction to the shock of realising the scope of this project (i.e. the heft of the books), I developed my publishing plan in new directions. Not only will there be a complete, annotated collection in three volumes (my original plan), but there will also be a three volume editon without annotations, and a single ebook edition, also without annotations. All of these editions will be illustrated with the images that every Norwegian expects to accompany their beloved folktales and legends.

Lastly, I registered and set up this very Website, and after fiddling around with wiki software, and refusing the Wordpress bloat, I have settled on the current format. I have little interest in bells, whistles, animated banners, and the rest of the stuff that makes surfing the Web so wearying, so this is what you get. I hope it is readable, and I strive to be informative.

The new year

The new year should see the resolution of the Asbjørnsen & Moe project, which should free more of my time to complete the projects I have temporarily placed on the back-burner. I have two volumes of Regine Normann’s nothern legends to edit and publish, as well as a volume of draug folklore and stories, and I have at least two essays that are in differing states of completion; I am looking forwards to seeing those in print. I have enough to keep me busy, you might say.

But first, the holidays! I hope yours is as relaxing as it can be.

Today I have installed and uninstalled three wiki systems and not a few blogging engines. None of them gave me what I wanted: control. Textpattern seems to give me the basics of what I want (readable Web documents), and the rest is tweaking. Since this site is now linear in nature, you'll just have to come along for the ride.