Sarah
Your comments and explanations were much
appreciated, especially in the clause where 'óvænligr' refers back to Hott. I
sweated unsuccessfully on that one, but now it seems so simple, thanks to
you.
Is there any chance of trying something else, once
others have also done the final translation of 'Bothvar'? I have the
luxury of early retirement and so more time available than most, so I can
sympathise with those of you who have to make a living. Nevertheless, I
have enjoyed the 'company' of you, Daniel, Xigung, Simon, Laurel, etc., who
shared difficulties and offered helpful suggestions.
A little more about myself: when I retired
from teaching, I did an MA at Leicester University in English Local
History. I applied the disciplines and methods of that course in
studying my local area of West Cumberland which was settled by Scandinavians who
were ultimately of Norwegian (not Danish) origin. Of course they had to fit in
with the British, Scots (from Ireland and Scotland), English, and later,
the Normans and Flemings who put in a delayed appearance 26 years after the
battle of Hastings. What a wonderful polyglot, multi-ethnic set of
mongrels we were up here! It's a shame we couldn't fit the Picts in. I had
already studied Old English and Classical Greek, and had acquired enough
Latin to read the local charters and other records in that
language.
Armed with all this, I did my own place-name study of the St Bees valley - I live in Whitehaven
at its northern end. It was the Norse elements in place-names and our
dialect words that led me to study Old Norse. For example, I was ten or eleven
before I heard the word 'winkles'. We called them 'cuvvins' which comes from ON
'kúfungr' - 'sea snail'.
Anyhow, the time spent on Old Norse has put my
history and place-names studies in abeyance for a while, but if we can't carry
on with our translations, I'll go back to them.
Could we have a consensus of opinion on
this?
Cheers,
Jed.