> I corresponded for a short time with an Icelandic gentleman a couple

of

> years ago. We got into the topic of proper greetings.
> Would Heill og Saell or Heil og Sael also be proper usage, depending

on

> the sex of the person being addressed?
>
> Be well - Steven "Piparskegg" Robinson

Yes, that's fine; Icelandic/ON greetings are not simply a collection
of fixed forms, but rather collections of appropriate greeting words
which can be put together in any way which makes sense. Since there's
interest for this discussion, I'll try to detail the options a bit.

You may start the greeting/farewell with a commanding verb; then you
follow with an adjectiv, or possibly an adverb (only if you already
have a verb); then you may still load another adjective onto the
greeting, by interjecting "ok" (and). You may not have an adverb and
then an adjective combined.

There are three verbs available, for two different purposes:

kom (come) ...to initiate a greeting
far (go) ...to initiate a goodbye
ver (be) ...to initiate a goodbye

The traditional adjectives and adverbs are:

heill/heil ...meaning 'healthy'
sæll/sæl ...meaning 'happy'
vel ...meaning 'well' (an adverb; use only with "far")

So for example,

"kom heill" (greeting)
"kom heill og sæll" (greeting)
"ver sæll" (farewell)
"far vel" (farewell)

Those are just the typical quick greetings or farewells; Nordic
people, in full-blown formality, would sometimes greet each other with
longish sentences, like:

"Öllum mönnum þeim er þetta bréf sjá eða heyra, sendir Egill Grímsson
kveðju Guðs og sína,"

meaning,

"to all men (persons) who read this letter or hear, Egill Grímsson
sends God's greeting and his own,"

Óskar