--- In norse_course@..., birgit001@... wrote:

> In a message dated 2/24/01 2:50:17 PM Pacific Standard Time, xigung@... =

> writes:
>
>
> > If you want to look at the new
> > file I just uploaded, called "~Krákumál_FJ.rtf", you
> > will see (at least it now does from mine) that it looks
> > fine if you have WinWord installed. Please report back
> > any problems you might have.
> >
>
> Keth,
> It looks beautiful! The only thing that is odd is
> ho,lða
> for example, in verse 6 (is that the o with tail?)
> Birgit

Hello Birgit, thank you for responding!
Yes, in verse 6, line 9, where it says:
"dreif órr ho,lða hausum", I have used an "o" with
a comma after it to represent o-tail. That may seem
peculiar, but the reason is that Finnur Jónsson, who
was the editor of Krákumál, used both a long and a short
o-tail. That is, he used:
a) an "o" with a little "hook" (or tail) underneath it.
b) an "o" that has a forward-leaning accent on top of
it, as well as a hook/tail underneath it.

In order to represent Finnur's orthography as faithfully
as possible, using *only* the "Windows 3.1 Latin 1 Symbol
Set", it was necessary to find a simple way to represent
these two characters as as unambiguously as possible.
That is because using, say, a "ç", a "q", a "@" or an "ö" for
hooked/tailed o, is only satisfactory to a very limited extent.
In particular, if you want to mix Old Norse text with English
text (e.g. commenting a poem) you'll need the q for the English
part of the text. Also, there are no ç's or q's with accents
on them. Hence the only remaining option seems to be to use
two characters. Later, when unicode becomes more widely available
or a new Old Norse font that displays the same characters on all
platforms, it will be easy to replace "ó," and "o," by the
appropriate new characters.

Note that the "Windows 3.1 Latin 1" symbol set, includes ALL
ON characters, except hooked/tailed-o (long & short), and
possibly also the hooked-e as well as the a-v ligature,
which are characters that also appear in some Old Norse texts
that have been published in the so called critical editions.

But even Finnur Jónsson published the skaldic verse in TWO
versions, called A and B, where one (I think it was A) was the
unnormalized version, which was held as closely as possible
to the de facto format used in the original medieval
manuscripts, and version B was the so called "normalized"
spelling, that leans somewhat more towards modern Icelandic
spelling conventions.

I did take a look also at Finnur's A-edition of Krákumál,
and what is remarkable is that I can hardly see any accents.
There are, however, many letters that are written cursively,
that is, letters that are printed leaning forward at an angle.
(sometimes called "italic")

I also plan to rectify Kock's Krákumál edition, so that
it too becomes optimized for the "Windows 3.1 Latin 1"
symbol set. I also have Finnur's Danish translation of
"Kråkemål" written up, together with Egilsson's explanations.
In case there are listmembers who read Danish (Schleswig
Holsteiner's sometimes speak Danish) they might be interested
in having a copy.

Best regards
Ketho