I don't think anybody mentioned that the verb 'þurfa' is often found as an impersonal. In practice, this means you can skip the subject, that you can think of as "one":

"the blind (man) (one) needs to lead" = (one) needs to lead the blind man

Did you look up the verb? This is what Zoëga gives, see meaning (2):

þurfa (þarf, þurfta, þurft), v. (1) to need, want (ekki þarft þú at ganga í hús mín); with gen., þ. e-s, or þ. e-s við, to stand in need of (ek þyrfta nú guðs miskunnar); Gunnarr kvað einskis mundu við þ., G. said there was no need of anything; (2) IMPERS., þess þarf (við), it is needed; þess þyrfti, at, it would be necessary that; with acc. (hversu marga munu vér menn þ.); ekki var sá leikr, er nökkurr þyrfti við hann at reyna, it was no use for anybody to strive with him in any game.

Diego

--- In norse_course@yahoogroups.com, Sabin Densmore <sabin@...> wrote:
>
> Hi, all.
>
> I'm working on translating the Old Norwegian rune poem, and I'm stuck on
> the ís verse:
>
> Ís köllum brú breiða; blindan þarf at leiða.
>
> I've got a passable translation for the first phrase: "Ice we call a
> broad bridge". The second phrase, though, seems to me to have to be "the
> blind [man] (blindan) needs (þarf) to (at) lead (leiða, inf)". I've seen
> it translated as "... to be lead," but I don't know how what I'm
> assuming as the infinitive form "leiða" gives us "to be..."
>
> What am I missing?
>
> Thanks in advance,
> - sabin
>