> > hann lét hana verða tekna "he seized her".

> This is a bit different. There is no dative involved.
> I'd translate it as "he had her seized", though.

Would this mean exactly the same as: hann lét hana taka? Is 'láta'
+ inf. more common in prose, or are these idioms interchangeable?
Is láta verða + pp. ever ambiguous as to whether the subject of the
sentence carries out the action personally---cf. hann lét verða
farit, which Zoega renders "he went"? Here are two different
causative idioms both apparently referring to the same action:


láta + inf.

Létu þeir nú rista örn á baki Ellu ok skera síðan rifin öll frá
hrygginum með sverði, svá at þar váru lungun út dregin.

"They had the eagle cut in Ella's back..."


láta + pp.

Ok Ellu bak,
at, lét, hinns sat,
Ívarr, ara,
Jórvík, skorit.

"And Ivar, he who sat/stayed (had his seat) at York, had the eagle
cut in Ella's back."



The relevant part of Zoega's entry for 'láta':

(5) with infin. to let, make, cause; látit mik vita, let me know; ek
lét drepa Þóri, I made Th. to be killed; l. sér fátt um finnast, to
disapprove; hann lét fallast (=sik falla), he let himself fall; (6)
with pp., in circumlocutory phrases; hann lét verða farit, he went;
hann lét hana verða tekna, he seized her; ellipt., omitting the
infin., l. um mælt, to let be said, to declare; hann lét harðan
Hunding veginn, he slew the stark H.;

> > Henni varð þat fyrir at hún bítr einn þeirra til bana


> Here we have the dative again. You could translate
> "It happened to her that she bit one of the brothers to death"
> but as you remark that may not make sense in the context :)
> Perhaps the phrase doesn't carry much meaning there.
> Maybe you can translate it with a meaningless English
> phrase, say: "And it came to pass that she bit one of the
> brothers to death".

I may be reading too much into it, but here's a guess: could it add
slightly to the sense that the wolf just strolls calmly and quietly
out of the woods and has all the time in the world to pick who to
eat, since they're all helpless. Or even that she acts on a whim
almost, like Ketil wandering off further than he intended in Yngvars
saga. Maybe she wasn't even especially hungry but since there are
free Volsungs, she just thinks, "I'm a wolf: hey, why not."

Llama Nom