Category Archives: Uncategorized

Uncategorized

Gjest Baardsen

Leave a comment

Nothing to review tonight. I have a sudden break in translation work (it only began this afternoon, and if recent history is any guide it won’t last long. As I fervently hope it won’t).

The video clip above (in Norwegian, but much of it is without dialogue) is from a 1939 Norwegian movie called “Gjest Baardsen.” For some reason it occurred to me to write a little about this character tonight. I am by no means an expert on the man, but I’ve read a little.

Gjest Baardsen (1791-1849) is sometimes called the Robin Hood of Norway. But in fact Jesse James would be a closer historical parallel (though his legend admittedly has a more Robin Hood-ish flavor).

Gjest already had a long rap sheet in 1827 when he was sentenced to life imprisonment in Akershus Fortress in Oslo (a major tourist attraction today for many reasons. I’ve been there, but not as long as Gjest stayed). During this imprisonment he did something visionary and memorable – he wrote his autobiography. In this book he portrayed himself as a clever rogue and a defender of the common folk, stealing from the rich and giving to the poor (as you can see in the clip above). A historian named Erling T. Gjelsvik published a serious biography in 2000. His conclusion was that in real life, Gjest stole from pretty much anybody who didn’t lock up their possessions well.

Not a real surprise.

He was pardoned in 1845, and supported himself until his death in 1849 by selling his books.

As a phenomenon of the 19th Century, however, Gjest is interesting. He was contemporary with my great hero, Hans Nielsen Hauge the lay preacher. Although it would be hard to imagine two characters more different from one another, there are similarities in their cultural impact. Both were common men who became famous through taking advantage of their literacy and the expanding publishing industry. A burgeoning, literate public was hungry for reading matter aimed at them. Those whose hearts were set on higher things read Hauge. The more carnal turned to Gjest Baardsen. And many, no doubt, read both.

Eventually, books like Gjest’s would be parents and grandparents to innumerable paperback novels, tabloid newspapers, blogs, and reality TV. But Gjest was, in one country, a sort of a grubby pioneer.

Uncategorized

Eating and plumbing

1 Comment
Kenyon, Minnesota back in the 1930s or so. Before my time, but this is pretty much how I remember it.

Yesterday was a good day. There’s been a sudden hiatus – for some reason – in my translating. I got a sudden reminder on Facebook that some of my high school classmates were meeting down in Kenyon (our home town) for one of our occasional get-togethers. (When there are five Wednesdays in a month, we try to meet at some restaurant for lunch on the fifth one. The lockdowns, of course, played hob with this admirable plan, but we’re back at it again).

We met at a new restaurant in town. I might as well mention it, as I liked the food and the service. Kenyon has not been a lucky place for restaurants since I was a boy. This place, Lacey’s, occupies a space where two restaurants have died over the last few years. But one of my friends, who’s stayed in town and knows everybody, said they have a good business plan and are doing a brisk trade. God bless them.

I genuinely enjoy these little reunions. I don’t know any of these people well anymore, and we have vast differences in beliefs, education, and politics. But we have two inexhaustible topics for conversation – our shared school experiences, and the multiple indignities of growing old. There’s a bond there. I suppose military veterans feel much the same. And our casualty list is, I expect, comparable. Members of my class started dying off fast after graduation, and they kept it up at a rapid pace through the years that followed. Somebody noted that we haven’t actually lost any for a few years now. It would appear that we few, we happy few, we survivors are a hardy lot.

A wiser man might have stayed home due to the driving conditions (it’s a tip of over an hour). The temperature lingered just around freezing all day, and what the meteorologists call a “wintry mix” kept falling. But in practice I found the road surfaces fine, and made it there and back without any scares.

An update on my great plumbing crisis – the way things have shaken out, it all proves to be not only a case of God’s provision, but of my own obliviousness. The Bible says, “Before they ask, I will answer them,” or words to that effect. (Actually I’m not sure it does. I’ve heard it quoted many times, but Bible Hub doesn’t produce a reference.)

I have a Home Service Warranty, and have had it since I bought this place. It had honestly never occurred to me that it might cover plumbing. I had what I assumed to be an adequate understanding of what warranties cover – not structural stuff, but appliances. And in my mind, plumbing was a lot more like a roof than like a clothes dryer.

But lo, I was wrong. My old pipes are covered, thereby saving me piles of money. I am gratified by this, but embarrassed to have almost missed it.

Uncategorized

Nitpicking in wartime

1 Comment
Elisiv of Kyiv, probably drawn from life. The earliest portrait of any member of a Norwegian royal family.

I am savvy enough about the current climate of opinion to be aware that it can be a dangerous thing to criticize Ukrainian President Volodymir Zelensky (for the record, I have no doubt that Vladimir Putin’s attack on Ukraine is both illegal and unjustified).

Nevertheless, I have to correct Pres. Zelensky today.

Something you probably haven’t heard about, but I have, is that Pres. Zelensky addressed the Norwegian Parliament (Storting) today, by remote video. I know this because I was listening to the Norwegian NRK radio network at the time, and heard it live. And I understood it perfectly because (for some unexplained reason) they broadcast it with simultaneous English translation – not Norwegian.

The full text is here.

Pres. Zelensky appeals, among other things, to the historical ties between Norway and Ukraine. He says this in particular:

Today, Russian bombs are flying at our land and our people. At the land where the Ukrainian Princess Elisiv of Kyiv was born and grew up. Wife of King Harald III of Norway, mother of King Olaf the Peaceful, grandmother of Magnus III, great-grandmother of Eystein I and Sigurd the Crusader.

This statement is in error – though the fault is probably that of the president’s speech writers.

Princess Elisiv (Elizabeth) of Kyiv (portrait above, taken from a church wall in Kyiv) was indeed the wife of Harald III, better known as Harald Hardrada, the freebooting Viking and mercenary who became king of Norway in 1046 and died in England in 1066. And she did bear him a child, a girl named Maria who was later declared a saint.

The mother of King Olaf the Peaceful, however, was not Elisiv, but Harald’s mistress, Thora Thorbergsdatter, daughter of Thorberg Arnesson of Giske.

What makes this fact of particular interest to us is that Thora’s mother was Ragnhild Erlingsdatter, daughter of Erling Skjalgsson of Sola, hero of my Viking novels.

The marriage of Ragnhild to Thorberg actually constitutes a plot element in my work in progress, King of Rogaland, currently nearing completion but delayed by heavy translation work.

Uncategorized

Surfing waves of sound

Leave a comment
Photo credit; Sincerely Media. Unsplash license.

Tonight, another pulse-pounding report on my ongoing conversational Norwegian project.

If you haven’t been following these posts, the situation is this: I know the Norwegian language well enough to be supplementing my retirement (and quite well, lately) by doing Norwegian translation for pay. But this facility applies only to the written word. I have a lot of trouble understanding it spoken.

To fix this situation, I took the advice of commenter Deborah HH, who suggested I download a radio app and listen to Norwegian radio. This project has worked far better than I ever hoped.

So here’s where I am. Each day, as a sort of sound track to whatever I’m doing, I listen to NRK all-day news (think the BBC, but in Norwegian for Norwegians). However, they turn the broadcast over to a BBC feed at night (around 3:00 p.m. my time). At that point I turn to Jæren Misjonsradio, a Christian station from Stavanger. A further wrinkle is that there’s no NRK all-day news on weekends. So I spend that entire period with the Christian station. This is not a trial – I rather enjoy it, and even feel it’s edifying me (“edification,” oppbyggelse, is a word we use a lot in Norwegian pietism).

However, there’s a sort of a whiplash effect. I understand what I hear on the Christian station pretty well by now. Enough to make me feel I’m making significant progress.

But when I get back to NRK on Mondays, I find I’m not comprehending at the same level. This is, I’m pretty sure, due to the fact that I listen to preachers on the Christian station, preaching the Bible. I can always recognize their texts, and it’s easy to intuit what they’re saying even if I miss some words. I know the jargon, and the customs of the tribe.

But when I’ve got people on NRK discussing the latest action in Ukraine, or who’s ahead in parliamentary polling, there’s a lot less predictable stuff. So I struggle a little, and have to revise my estimation of my progress downward.

Nevertheless, I am making palpable progress. And I suspect more and more that the process is more subconscious than conscious. When I concentrate on listening and interpreting, I have trouble. If I just relax, recognizable patterns swim into my ken.

I’m recognizing phrases more and more. It’s rather exhilarating, like surfing waves of sound. You’re not doing rational analysis when you do this, but responding with a kind of muscle memory of the mind.

Music, Uncategorized

Sunday Singing: For All the Saints Who from Their Labor Rest

1 Comment

Here’s a hymn I hope all of us know well. “For All the Saints Who from Their Labors Rest” was written by the “poor man’s bishop” William W. How (1823-1897) to an original tune composed by the great Ralph Vaughan Williams.

1 For all the saints who from their labors rest,
who thee by faith before the world confessed,
thy name, O Jesus, be forever blest.
Alleluia! Alleluia!

2 Thou wast their rock, their fortress, and their might;
thou, Lord, their captain in the well-fought fight;
thou, in the darkness dread, their one true light.
Alleluia! Alleluia!

3 Oh, may thy soldiers, faithful, true, and bold
fight as the saints who nobly fought of old
and win with them the victor’s crown of gold.
Alleluia! Alleluia!

Continue reading Sunday Singing: For All the Saints Who from Their Labor Rest →
Uncategorized

Listening comprehension

Leave a comment
Photo credit: Franco Antonio Giovanella . Unsplash license.

Still busy with my big translating project. I expect it will be done tomorrow. I worked through the weekend, and even had to work on Sunday, which I generally try not to do. But I kept the hours short that day, and made sure I gave myself time to relax on the sofa with an e-book in the afternoon. It was a beautiful day – not as beautiful as today (it almost got up to 70 degrees), but sunnier.

And a wonderful thing happened.

You may recall how I’ve been talking about “totally immersing” myself in Norwegian, to improve my conversational skills. I read the language well, but have trouble understanding it when spoken. So I started listening to Norwegian radio through an app on my phone. News from the state broadcasting channel, and a gospel station from Stavanger. Which meant the gospel station all weekend, because the all-day news channel turns into a BBC feed on Saturdays and Sundays.

So I was lying there on the couch, reading my book and listening to the gospel station. A man was preaching. And suddenly I realized I could understand him, pretty much.

I stopped reading and listened closely. Yes, I could follow him, most of the time. 75% comprehension, I’d say. Enough to follow his line of thought.

Now I need to explicate. He was speaking very distinctly and clearly, in the way of good preachers (though he was using a dialect, but I know most of the variant terms). And he was preaching from the Bible, so I understood all the quotations right off. So I’d compare my experience to someone learning to read with a beginner’s level book.

But being able to read a beginner’s book is a start. Listening to other things, I’m pretty sure I’m understanding more than I did. A week ago I was catching nothing but a few scattered nouns and verbs.

I lay there for a while with a feeling of wellbeing I haven’t experienced in a long time.

There’s a negative side-effect I find interesting. When I think about what I’m doing, there’s a small voice in my mind screaming “NO! YOU CAN’T DO THIS! YOU AREN’T ABLE TO DO THIS!”

Examining it dispassionately, I think it’s related to my shyness/avoidance. The insane guy in my head is trying to protect me from the dangers of human interaction, terrified I’m going to open another portal by which enemies may enter.

That’s just part of the deal, I guess. I’ll have to handle it.

A more pleasant side effect is that I’ve been sleeping well. As an old man, I’ve gotten used to a state of things where I go to sleep around midnight and wake up around 6:00 a.m. Then I try to get back to sleep. Usually without success. But now I turn on Norwegian radio and listen to it idly while trying to get back to sleep, and so far it’s worked. Which means I’ve gotten three straight nights of relatively normal sleep hours.

I still feel tired, but that’s got to be a good thing.

Uncategorized

‘Homeland of the Viking Kings’

Leave a comment

I have a lot to do. I can’t find any music that pleases me. So tonight you get a little promo video, telling you about Avaldsnes in Norway. This is where my great-grandfather was born, and it’s one of the places I’m going this summer (God willing) to play Viking — likely with some of the people shown in the video.

Have a good weekend.

Religion, Uncategorized

Ancient wisdom

Leave a comment
Cactus Watching the Sunset. Photo credit: Tom Gainor @its_tgain. Unsplash license.

Finished my paying translation for today. Working on the volunteer stuff now. I came across an expression that the author himself says is something “the old folks said” (and he’s writing in the 1890s). I have a vague idea what it must mean, but I thought I’d check with a couple Norwegian resources on Facebook. One was a former seminarian, the other a historian. Neither had ever heard of it. So I figure I’ll make my best guess, and footnote it, and chances are nobody will ever figure my mistake out if I’m wrong.

Here’s a story I came up with.

There was a young man who longed for ancient wisdom. He traveled the world, speaking to the wisest people he could find in Africa, the Middle East, and the Far East. He sat at their feet and listened to their wisdom, but his heart was not satisfied.

Eventually he made his way to the American Southwest. He heard of a Navajo wise man who lived in a hut on a mountaintop. He climbed the mountain, with much labor, and spoke to him. “I am seeking ancient wisdom,” he said. “What do you have to tell me?”

“For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life,” said the old Navajo.

“You don’t understand,” said the young man. “I was seeking ancient wisdom.”

“It’s 2,000 year old; what do you want?” replied the old man.

Religion, Uncategorized

Swimming in linguistic waters

2 Comments

Nothing to review, and I’ve done little but work in the last few days (no, that’s not true. I loafed yesterday. It was Sunday). So I’m journaling today, I guess. Yet again.

It was warm today, in the upper 30s. Tomorrow will be even better, and I don’t see a freezing day on the horizon. I approve of this development. I shall tip the waiter generously.

I complained, the other day, about my inability to understand spoken Norwegian, the language I translate professionally in text form. One of our readers, Deborah HH, suggested I listen to Norwegian radio. I thought this an excellent suggestion, and installed a Norwegian radio app on my cell phone.

My strategy (or wishful thinking) is to attack the problem subconsciously. I will just have the radio on, listening idly as I do other things. No sustained effort to understand what I’m hearing. My working theory is that that effort is a part of the problem. I know all these words. I just don’t process them when they come in through the audible gate. When I consciously try to interpret, I get hung up on individual words and lose the flow. What I need is an involuntary response. I’m hoping that as I listen over time, my subconscious will jump the gap and connect to my dictionary storage unit. Something like “total immersion” learning.

It took some searching to find the channels I wanted. Most Norwegian radio is indistinguishable from American radio, except for the announcements. They play music, and it’s mostly American music. I wanted talk, and in the Old Country language. There’s an NRK (Norwegian National Broadcasting) channel that’s all news, and that’s just the thing, as far as it goes. But around 2:00 pm (our time) they switch to BBC News, which is no use at all (in more than one sense).

But I finally found a channel to listen to after that. It’s Jæren Misjonsradio (Jæren Mission Radio). If the name Jæren seems familiar, its old name is Jaeder, and it’s the region where Erling Skjalgsson lived in his time (around Stavanger). A region with a great evangelical tradition, of which my ancestors were a part.

They feature preaching in Norwegian, which is good. I recognize the Bible passages, and that helps me along. And the music they play is mostly in Norwegian too – and some of it’s quite excellent.

Today I heard one preacher – a good one – and happened to notice his name on the crawl. Carl Fredrik Wisløff. This was thrilling. Wisløff was a prominent evangelical preacher, teacher, and writer in Norway up to his death in 2004. I used to sell some of his books in the bookstore at the seminary – we had a large stock of one of them. He even visited our schools once, I’m told, but that was before my time.

Now, back to work.

Music, Uncategorized

‘Ormen Lange’

Leave a comment

And the translation work keeps coming in. If I were tired of it, I would not tell you. Because I have an international trip this summer to support. Plus inflation to cover. Also, it’s nice to be needed, when you’re me.

It’s cold, cold, and I have to go somewhere tonight. But tomorrow’s supposed to be warmer, and Sunday warmer still. Maybe this will be the turning point – just as Daylight Savings Time falls, clattering like a muffler off an old car. Maybe spring is coming. Or milder weather, with some consistency, at least.

The song above is an old Faeroese ring dance song, translated into Norwegian. I heard it first from a Norwegian folk group, but their version doesn’t seem to be on YouTube. However, this one isn’t bad, and they illustrated it with footage swiped from the 1958 film, “The Vikings,” starring Kirk Douglas. For its time, that movie made commendable gestures in the direction of trying to be kind of authentic. In some ways. Sort of.

It’s still better than the History Channel series, now metastasized to Netflix, they tell me.

The song is about King Olaf Trygvesson (whom you may remember from The Year of the Warrior), and how he built and launched his great ship, Ormen Lange (the Long Serpent). The chorus goes:

The dance is loud in the hall, when we dance in the ring! 
Gladly ride the men of Norway to the Thing of Hildar (a kenning for battle).

The full text is here.