Hi Everyone,

My local heathens have taken to using me as a translation resource.
Since I'm not so confident in my ability to translate into Old Norse,
I thought I'd run my attempts past the list before responding.

They are trying to say
Sword and Soil Hearth (or Hearth of Sword and Soil)
The words they have found for these are
Sverð ok Jörð (or Jarðvegr) Eldstó

They intend 'hearth' in the sense of 'home', 'family', 'small heathen group'.
Eldstó looks like it's likely to be especially focussed on the fire. (Would
arinn be a better word for what they have in mind? Or some other word I don't
even know.)

If I'm reading dictionaries right, jarðvegur is soil in modern icelandic,
but the closest I see in old icelandic is jarðveggr (with 2 Gs) meaning
earthen wall. So I'm not sure what word would be most appropriate.

If these words have the right connotations, putting the whole phrase into
Old Norse doesn't look like it has any surprises, and I think I know the
normal word order (and declensions for these words). But I'm not 100% certain,
so I'd best display my attempt in case it's wrong.
eldstó sverðs ok jarðar

Comments?

--
Arlie

(Arlie Stephens arlie@...)