>>Eysteinn you might be surprised to find out that Vigfusson
>>translates endlanga sali, as livelong hall and Larrington
>>translates it as long hall.

I wasn't primarily commenting on the
translation of the word "endlangr".
I was simply pointing out that it goes
with "sali", not "daga".

And, no, I'm not at all surprised at
Vigfússon's quaint translation. The
translations in the CPB are full of
errors, but so are most modern translations,
sadly enough.

The meaning of "endlangr" in this
particular stanza is not easy to get
across in English, but a German
translation I have seems as good as
it can get: "in dem langgestreckten
Sälen". But a too-exact translation
would be a mistake, I feel, - the
"end-long" hall is simply a BIG/EXTENDED
hall, which accentuates the lord's sadness
as he sits there alone. Not forgetting
that this is poetry, the implication
is almost "alone in the empty, echoing
halls".

An adverbial meaning has been claimed
here, but this isn't really possible
with a static verb like "sitja" used
thus with the accusative. Freyr can't
possibly sit along the length of a hall
(or many halls - "sali" is plural).
With a non-static verb such a meaning
is, of course, possible, as perhaps in
Völundarkviða 16: "hún inn um gekk /
endlangan sal", where the implication is
that "she walked along the hall", "she
walked the whole length of the hall".
But such a shade of meaning is not
possible with the verb "sitja" taking
the accusative "endlanga sali" (plural).

Regards
Eysteinn