--- In norse_course@..., "dan or amy" <feline14@...> wrote:

>I find some things by Motz very hard to buy, but so too, much
>of the stuff coming from Icelands"scholars" I think some of the
>reason so much icelandic scholarship is not being translated may be
>due to the fact that it is worthless. You people seem to be able to
>read the lore, but not understand it. I guess you believe
>Jormundur's scholarship to be accurate since he is icelander?

Hello Dan,

I'm sure all of us who are interested in the Old Norse language
are grateful for your assessment of Icelandic scholarship, and the
general inability of the Icelanders to comprehend the old texts.
Let us all avoid reading the garbage they produce, since it is not
even worth translating. Thank the gods we have the Americans to
explain it all to us. I'm rather disappointed, though, that you
don't mention the names of any of those abominable Icelandic
scholars, though - surely you can list some names for us to avoid,
since you are so familiar with Icelandic scholarship?

I have to disappoint you, though - Jörmundur Ingi Hansen is a good
bloke, and a friend, but he is not a scholar, and I'm pretty sure he
has never claimed to be one, and would simply be embarrassed
to be thought of as one. The same goes for me, and I'm pretty sure
that Haukur would feel the same. But that doesn't change the fact
that we are Icelanders, and that we don't need to be scholars in
order to spot errors in Icelandic grammar, Old and New.

You seem not to have noticed that this list is dedicated to
the study of language, not lore. I quoted the strange writings of
Lotte Motz simply because they contain some of the best available
examples of how easy it is to go astray and end up with nonsense,
when you try to understand the old source texts without the proper
linguistic training, not because of any interest in her UPG ideas
about Old Norse myth. Unfortunately, a degree from one university or
other is no guarantee that everything you write is sacrosanct truth.
And in the field of Old Norse studies, a scholar can hardly be
taken seriously, when his/her command of the Icelandic language
is at the level of a ten-year-old Icelandic child.

Regards
Eysteinn