At 6:47:18 AM on Tuesday, April 21, 2009, AThompson wrote:

> Here is my translation. Forgive me, Brian. ‘Chafe-spear’
> was my lame little private joke, a feeble play on
> ‘Shakespeare’.

Nothing to forgive; it's just that medieval onomastics is a
major interest of mine, and between the incongruity of a
spear chafing and Patti's question, my curiosity was
aroused.

> Nevertheless, can you tell me what the Old Icelandic word
> is for the sore caused by chafing or rubbing.

I'm afraid not, though I rather suspect that <sár> in its
sense 'a sore' could be used. I'm not so sure about <skor>.
The whole family of words is related to <skera> 'to cut',
and its primary sense is 'incise, incision'; the sense 'to
chafe' for <skora> seems to be a secondary development.

Brian