Since you've mentioned the Old Icelandic Rune Poem, I have actually
just been looking at a so-called "translation" of this on an Internet
website, which publishes such amateur translations. I was shocked to
see how bad it was, and not really surprised to see all the kennings
mangled particularly badly.

For example, both the kennings given under the first rune, FÉ,
are very simple gold-kennings, totally transparent to anyone
with a minimum knowledge of the system:

FLÆÐAR VITI = ocean's beacon = GOLD
GRAFSEIÐS GATA = grave-fish's road = serpent's road = GOLD

The translator obviously had no idea what to make of these
simplest of kennings, for he translated them as "flood-tide's
sign" and "grave-sorcery's way"! How these "interpretations"
are supposed to fit the theme of FÉ, I have no idea.

Hi all!

Thanks, Birgit for passing this on!

This is the first real feedback I've got about my translations, and I wasn't expecting it to be too positive...

It's true, there are a lot of amateurish translations out there. This was one of the problems I was trying to do something about. Up until I did this translation, the only translation of this text I could find was Thorsson's (and a couple more that were even worse!). I readily acknowledge that I am by no means a master of the language, but I have the same desire that drives many other such publishers to fill the void with something (however imperfect) rather than nothing. The paradox here is that those who have real skill in the language have no need to translate it, so the rest of us have to make do with whatever we can get or do ourselves. Certainly not an ideal state of affairs...

For what it's worth, I would happily take on any further corrections or suggestions anyone has to offer regarding this translation (with acknowledgement, of course), as I would very much like it to be more accurate ( http://www.northvegr.org/runes/007.html and  http://www.northvegr.org/runes/006.html ). Failing that, if any Icelanders have done translations of the Rune Poems, I don't think I would be alone in wanting to read it.

Regards,
--
Daniel Bray
dbray@...
School of Studies in Religion A20
University of Sydney NSW 2006 Australia