this is how i would read the text about the horses, xigung. (and i'm raised
on an icelandic farm) very good analysis.
seems norwegian 'máltilfinning' (language-feeling?) is quite similar to the
icelandic one.
færa í sel just means to move your sheep and the people and things
pertaining to them to the summer pastures, which will have a house, or
shelter for the people, there. it's like they're moving their farm, or as
much of it as is movable, to it's summer residence. this was done in iceland
into the 20th century. the sheep walked around freely, but were herded into
a fenced-off area each day to be milked. so the 'sel' had to have men or
boys to herd the sheep, as well as women to milk them and make butter and
whatnot from the milk. this would leave mostly men at the farm, to bring in
hay and do other things that need to be done there during summer (the main
reason to take the sheep to the 'sel' is so that the fields can grow in
peace, to maximize the harvest of hay. now that we don't use the sheep's
milk anymore, we just send them off on their own, no need to join them in
the summer pastures). horses had to be at the 'sel' to take the produce back
down to the farm proper. 'færa í sel' is a set phrase in icelandic and
refers to this movement in spring of such a large portion of a farm's
activity. this is a cultural reference, and grammar won't tell you the
meaning, no matter how you beat it up.
hope this isn't too late, and that it helps a little.
berglaug

----- Original Message -----
From: "xigung" <xigung@...>
To: <norse_course@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Wednesday, November 26, 2003 2:33 PM
Subject: [norse_course] Re: Hrafnke/ i sel



Hi Alyssean,
I think many of these are just standard phrases,
and analysis can only bring you so far. In the
end one has to accept the general usage such terms
have had, and still have. In some cases the exact
meanings may even have been lost. One can then only hope
that a careful consideration of modern mea
nings will
make one feel more comfortable with certain older meanings
that one chooses among the alternatives.

The meaning, after comparing several translations, seems
to be that horses often have a habit of "shying away"
from direct human contact: Often they may indeed be inquisitive,
but when you try to approach them within a couple of feet
the usually "move away" -- hence the preposition "undan",
as our Swedish friend documented so well with examples
from Swedish.

("to shy" = to recoil)

And so I do very much agree with you that the text
by itself does not supply you with sufficient evidence for
particular meanings. It is more like recognizing a situation
before one's inner eye, that make things clear. Of course,
Iceland being a unique setting, it is a matter of "knowing
your Icelandic" first, before you are able to see the meanings
clearly. Myself, having the handicap of only knowing Norwegian,
I find that things often make sense in terms of Norwegian
references. But then, of course, I do miss things when the text
touches upon things that are typically Icelandic and that
differ elsewhere.

"Ok er hann kom til hrossanna, þá elti hann þau, ok váru þau nú
skjörr, er aldrei váru vön at ganga undan manni, nema Freyfaxi einn;
hann var svá kyrr sem hann væri grafinn niðr."

The general meaning here (a crucial point in the tragedy)
is that Einarr _wanted_ to take one of the other horses.
But on that particular day, the horses that were quite easy
to approach on other days, were now recoiling from contact.
And strangely enough it was _only_ the forbidden Freyfaxi
that made himself available that day -- because he stood
as if his feet were buried in deep sand.



kyrr - don't rock the boat, but stay 'kyrr'.
(still, quiet, peaceful)


Best regards
Xigung



--- In norse_course@yahoogroups.com, "Alan Thompson" <athompso@...>
wrote:
> Hi Xigung
>
> Thanks for your reply. Your analysis is enlightening on a general
level, but I have to say, for me, the text still does not provide
sufficient evidence that it is the sheep that are being moved to the
shieling or that sel here refers the pastures rather than the shed. I
guess we'll just have to leave it at that.
>
> With respect to the "ganga undan" issue from another of my messages,
I suspect you are right, but I still can't help thinking that a horse
being ridden could be visualised as a horse "walking out from
underneath a man," just that the horse isn't totally successful
because the man remains on its back!
>
> By the way, your computer does weird things to my text. I wonder:
does that happen for anyone else, either when you read their messages,
or when they read mine? It seems to happen mainly when I have my
keyboard set to the Icelandic keyboard.
>

I think it is because the new "unicode" is incredibly complicated,
with thousands and thousands of strange characters from all over
the world. One therefore has to make sure that one chooses the
right settings, both when sending, as well as when receiving
unicode/formated text. I have little experience with it yet.
But as a rule, it is good to consider that what you send always
tends to behave in almost any strange way, whenever you
dare to go beyond good old ASCII. Personally, I have often
used the iso-8859-Latin-1 chars. But I know now that lots of
people were probably never able to receive it properly.
Maybe that is why there are quite a few new systems around
that go beyond the once so simple HTML, and now you have "java
script", "XML" and other stuff that I do not quite understand.





> Alysseann




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