For some of our readers, this will be the book you’ve been waiting for.

Ian Stuart Sharpe has produced an eccentric but highly amusing little book for the Viking fancier. Old Norse for Modern Times is not a language course or a dictionary, but a fun collection of modern phrases rendered into the language of the Vikings. The utility of this book will probably be limited, but it is a lot of fun, especially for reenactors, saga nerds, and Viking buffs.

Ever want to say, “I’ll make him an offer he can’t refuse” in Old Norse?

“Gøra mun ed hom boð slike, es hann getr eigi hafnat.”

Since Hamlet was in fact an old Viking (or pre-Viking) himself, he might actually have said, “Something is rotten in the state of Denmark:

“Eigi mun alt dælt I Danmǫrku.”

There’s also useful stuff for the contemporary berserker: “If I die in battle today, please delete my browser history.”

“Ef ek skylda falla i þessi orrustu, fyrirkom þú þá vefsǫgu minni.”

I must admit to some surprise in reading this book, in spite of all the knowledge I like to pretend I have. It generally takes more words to say stuff in Old Norse than in English – as a writer composing Viking dialogue, I’ve always thought of the Vikings as terse in speech. That’s probably just a function of English saga translations, it would appear.

A lot of us have pondered learning Old Norse at one time or another (I know I have, but I have trouble keeping track of just two languages). If you’re one of those people, Old Norse for Modern Times may serve as a good introduction.

Or you may want to read it just because it’s funny.