Hi Simon!

Just gone through your translation. It didn't seem to pose you much
difficulty this week. I'll just pick up on one or two minor issues...

en ekki vill hann þat skipa sem hinn hafði áðr
"but he doesn't want to occupy the one which he had before"

Here "hinn" means "the other" (man). Perhaps that's what you meant... the
pronominal system isn't always 100% clear in English.

Hann kippir upp í einhverjum stað þremr mönnum
He snatches up three men into some place

Here "í einhverjum stað" is in the dative i.e. no motion implied so "into"
is not quite right. I visualise this as B walking along the hall towards
the high-seat, coming to a certain spot and grabbing three blokes out of
their seats!

ok síðan settusk þeir Höttr þar niðr
and then they and Höttr sit down there

Here the "þeir Höttr" construction is like the one Haukur describes in his
Lesson 4 : vit Óláfr vegum orm. So Höttr is one of the þeir...i.e. Böðvarr
and Höttr sit down in place of the three men he has pulled out of the way!

Heldr þótti mönnum ódælt við Böðvar
It seemed to the men difficult to deal with Bodvar

Is that the same as
"the men thought Bodvar difficult to deal with" ? Yes, I suppose it is
really. "þótti mönnum" is one of these impersonal constructions where the
logical subject (men) is in the dative.

ok er þeim hinn mesti ihugi at honum
and they were greatly peturbed by him.

Literally, this reads "and is to them the most resentment towards him"

Tvau haust hefir þat nú hingat vitjat
It has visited two autumns now

perhaps we should add "here" (hingat)

Ekki er höllin svá vel skipuð sem ek ætlaða
The hall is not as well occupied as I intended

"skipa" can also mean equip or protect and "ætla" can also mean think, so
perhaps given the context this should be translated as "the hall is not as
well equipped as I thought"

Nú vil ek at menn sé kyrrir ok hljóðir í nótt
Now I want people to be quiet and silent (i.e. very quiet?) tonight.

Apparently, kyrr and hljóðr both mean quiet or still but one implies quiet
in terms of noise and the other in terms of movement. (But I can't, for the
life of me, remember which is which!) This is still the case in modern
Icelandic according to my lecturer, so perhaps one of the Icelanders can
shed some light on this for us?

Simon, you ask if tvá vetr can mean two years. Yes, it can. I think I'm
right in saying that an animal's age is usually given in 'winters' but a
person's age in ár / years.

Bye for now,
Sarah.

----- Original Message -----
From: <simonfittonbrown@...>
To: <norse_course@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Tuesday, May 27, 2003 6:23 PM
Subject: [norse_course] pls find letter/trans attached


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