--- In norse_course@yahoogroups.com, "Fred and Grace Hatton"
<hatton@...> wrote:
>
> Is Ingiborg the same person he is leaving in the first stanza here?

Yes, that's right. Probably my fault for not explaining the story
clearly enough. Sorry about that...

> för skundaðak
> I didn't hasten

I made exactly the same mistake when I first read this a few years
ago. The 'a' here is the 1st person singular indicative past ending,
rather than the archaic (poetic) negative suffix -a. 'skunda' belongs
to the same class as 'kalla'. In Modern Icelandic the past tense 1st
person ending has become -i like the 3rd person, so maybe it was that
that threw us. And the final -k is the suffixed form of 'ek':
'skundaðak' = 'skundaða ek' "I hastened [my] journey", "I hurried on
my way".