Thank you for the exercise, Haukur. Great job.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Dan Bray" <dbray@...>

> In light of Lazarus' contribution, I'd like to revise my translation to
"Two
> brothers built that house. Somerled carved runes." I didn't know that
Somerled
> was a character from the book...

My mistake was thinking 'thAT' was supposed to be transliterated as 'þið'
which I think is the pronoun for dual action?

> It appears that the YF "hagall" rune is being used for "e" or "a"
> interchangably (like "úr" for "o", "u" and "v"). Thus "somerliði" can
replace
> "sumar liði" in my previous attempt.

This was a major problem.

> Also, Lazarus, I can't find any listing for "garðu" in Zoega or Cleasby,
> normally the verb for "guard" would be "varða", wouldn't it? In context,
> "g[e]rðu hús" for "gørðu hús" (to build a house)

Zoega says that 'gerða' means 'to build a fence around' so I took that to
mean 'building an obstacle to the outside' or 'protect' which reflects in
the modern english 'Guard' (actually from 'garðr' but the words may be
related). That's how I got 'guard' instead of build. I could have said
"built a fence around" but that wouldn't be as poetic and simply "guard".
But as the author is among us, he knew what he was writing.

> I think would be more
> appropriate. Also, "reist" is from "rísta" (to carve), not "ríta" (to
write).

You are correct but I feel it is semantic. The words are directly related.
I chose to translate as 'write' because it's a closer modern root word and
the meaning is more accurate. I don't know of a instance of the word 'rista'
being used to mean carving anything other than runes (like carving a statue
or a turkey), but I am probably mistaken.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Haukur Thorgeirsson" <haukurth@...>


> Well done, Dan and Lazarus both!

Thank you.

> I inquired back what time and place the runes should be from and got
> "Norway, mid-8th century". Unfortunately there are very few inscriptions
> preserved from that time. The closest long inscriptions are probably
> the Norwegian Eggjum slab, around 700, and the Swedish Rök and Sparlösa
> stones from around 800. Both Eggjum and Sparlösa use the shape that later
> was used for 'hagall' to represent 'a'.

That I recognized.

> All three inscriptions use some
> runes from the older futhark.

From my POV Eggjum is an Elder inscription. The only rune changed is
'oss/ansR'.:
The Eggja Rune Stone (656 Kb)

I can't find any Elder runes on Sparlosa. Where are they?:
The Sparlösa Rune Stone (146 Kb)
The Sparlösa Rune Stone (93 Kb)

I have to admit,Rok is a ridiculous rock. It's got symbols all over it from
every angle and possible rune-theory. A truly inspired erulian.:
The Rök Rune Stone (The front side), Östergötland (160 Kb)
The Rök Rune Stone (The back side), Östergötland (253 Kb)
The Rök Rune Stone (The two narrow sides), Östergötland (166 Kb)
The Rök Rune Stone (The top of the stone), Östergötland (57 Kb)

> þat - I decided to use this pronoun for 'this' and having it come after
the
> noun. This is what I think is most appropriate for this time period. Of
course
> I may be mistaken.

Here was my error.

> sumarliþi - The ON/Icelandic form of the name 'Somerled' is 'Sumarliði'.
> (My brother is sometimes called that, as he was born on the first day of
summer.)
> I was not certain whether I should use 'r' or 'R' in 'sumar' but decided
on 'r'
> on the basis of some precedent I have forgotten now. I don't think any
Sumarliðar
> are known from such an early time - but that doesn't make it impossible
that the
> name was used back then.

Very tricky. Goes to show that translations need supporting evidence for
verification.

> raist - A common well known form.

I once saw 'raisa' mispelled 'raist'. I know it was mispelled because it was
a modern scribe who admitted the mistake. That's why I offered it as a
possibility.

> I asked the author how competent the carver of the inscription should be
and
> she insisted that he should be very competent and get everything right
(authors
> tend to like their characters). If she hadn't said that I would have made
it less
> phonologically accurate; perhaps deleted a vowel or two. That would, in my
opinion,
> have made the inscription more authentic looking.

LOL!! Absolutely right!

> Would this inscription be considered authentic if it were found on a piece
of wood
> (preserved for some miracle of circumstance) from the 8th century? I can't
be sure
> and I don't know everything there is to know but I think so, yes. It's
certainly much
> more convincing than the Kensington stone and people are still debating
that one. :-)

Good job.

> Lazarus - the practice of separating words with dots or other markings was
not
> employed at this early time.

Not to argue too much but:
The Vadstena bracteate c.450ce-550ce uses colons as punctuation at the end
of each aett.
The Kalleby formulae uses a single dot to separate two phrases/words
c.400ce-550ce.
The Roes Stone uses the triple colon from c.750ce.
The Garbolle box uses a cryptic five dot punctuation mark from c.400ce.

There are more but then I seem like a jerk. I'm just pointing out that
punctuation was in use before 800ce in a general sense. Now, was it used in
the region where the inscription was supposed to have taken place in? That
is another story and one I can't say.

I really enjoyed this.

BTW - here is the awesome site where the runestones pics I posted are from:
http://home.no.net/ekerilar/

-Laz