indicative for subjunctive: blessings & curses

Hi Haukur,

I think I might have found the line I was thinking of, but if so I
misremembered. This is in Gríms saga loðinkinna. The hero has
found a beached whale and has just started carving it up when the
locals arrive and ask what he and his men are up to:

Grímr kveðst fyrr hafa fundit
hvalinn. "Veiztu eigi," sagði Hreiðarr, "at ek á hér
reka alla?" "Eigi veit ek þat," sagði Grímr, "en hversu
sem er, þá höfum at helmingi." "Eigi vil ek þat,"
sagði Hreiðarr.

G. said that he'd found the whale first. "Don't you know," said
H., "that I own everything that is washed ashore here?" "I don't
know that," said G., "but be that as it may (?), we'll [still] have
half." "I don't agree to that," said H.

(Literally "how as is". But I guess Grim isn't casting any doubt on
what Hreidar has said, only that he won't surrender the whale to
him.)

> > Veit Þorsteinn eigi, hvat af honum verðr.
> > "Th. didn't know what had happened to him" (or "what could have
> > become of him")

Literally present tense: Th. doesn't know what "happens" -- i.e.
what's happened -- to him.

> Þorsteinn veit ekki hvað verður af honum.
> Þorsteinn vissi ekki hvað varð af honum.
> Þorsteinn vissi ekki hvað yrði af honum.

Are these the three meanings?

1. (As above.)
2. Th. didn't know what had happened to him.
3. Th. didn't know what could have happened to him.

Could 1. theoretically also mean things like "doesn't know what
HAPPENS to him", or "is happening", or even "will happen"? Or how
would these be expressed?

> I'm not sure what you're thinking of.
> I'm reminded of the 'formáli' (rite?
> blessing? spell?) from the folklore:
>
> Komi þeir sem koma vilja,
> veri þeir sem vera vilja,
> fari þeir sem fara vilja,

Thanks for the spell! I'll try and remember that next time the
elves are round, or invisible unicorns... "Charm" is a fairly
general word for anything like an object or rhyme supposed to be
protection against the supernatural. Maybe that's what it is. In
Gríms saga there's a subjunctive wish like this, but more malicious,
as it comes from a wicked stepmother. The 2nd person singular forms
are the same as indicative, of course:

Læt ek þat verða um mælt, at þú verðir at inni ljótustu tröllkonu ok
hverfir norðr til Gandvíkr ok byggir þar afhelli ok sitir þar í
stóðrenni við Hrímni, bróður minn, ok eigizt þit við bæði margt ok
illt, ok hafi þat verr, sem verr herðir sik.

This do I solemnly say, that you turn into the most ugly troll-woman
and go north to Gandvik (the White Sea) and live there in a side-
cave next door to my brother Hrimnir, and you will argue both much
and hard, and...

I'm a bit puzzled by the last line. herða sik "harden oneself,
steel oneself, take heart". She seems to be saying, "may it go
worst for whoever steels themselves the most." But this doesn't
make a great deal of sense to me yet.

Llama Nom







--- In norse_course@yahoogroups.com, "Haukur Thorgeirsson"
<haukurth@...> wrote:

> > Would subjunctive be either required or possible in Modern

Icelandic

> > with a sentence like:
> >
> > Veit Þorsteinn eigi, hvat af honum verðr.
> > "Th. didn't know what had happened to him" (or "what could have
> > become of him")
>
> The indicative is still normal here.
>
> These sentences would be perfectly normal
> (with different meanings):
>
> Þorsteinn veit ekki hvað verður af honum.
> Þorsteinn vissi ekki hvað varð af honum.
> Þorsteinn vissi ekki hvað yrði af honum.
>
> This one would, I think, be abnormal:
>
> *Þorsteinn veit ekki hvað verði af honum.
>
>
> > I remember reading somewhere in Old Norse a phrase that

meant "come

> > what may" or "whatever happens", but unfortunately I can't think
> > where at the moment, or what exactly it was--any ideas? I

*think*

> > it had SEM in it, and maybe HVAT, but definitely VERÐR, rather

than

> > VERÐI. Could it have been: hvat sem verðr? Google doesn't have
> > anything for that though, and I don't know how to do multiple

word

> > searches on the Orðabók Háskólans' text archive. Sorry to be so
> > vague (subjunctive even:)...
>
> I'm not sure what you're thinking of.
> I'm reminded of the 'formáli' (rite?
> blessing? spell?) from the folklore:
>
> Komi þeir sem koma vilja,
> veri þeir sem vera vilja,
> fari þeir sem fara vilja,
> mér og mínum að meinalausu.
>
> (Loosely:
>
> Come those who would come,
> Stay those who would stay,
> Go those who would go,
> With no harm to me or my own.
>
> The context is usually that of elvish
> incursions into a home.)
>
> In this case the subjunctive has a clear
> meaning. If we changed 'komi', 'veri' and
> 'fari' to 'koma', 'eru' and 'fara' it would
> turn an expression of a wish or command into
> a statement of fact.
>
> Kveðja,
> Haukur