"Saxony" might be confusing, as it refers to more recent political
entities:
http://www.rootsweb.com/~wggerman/state.htm
Could give the impression that specifically the area around Dresden
was meant. Maybe "Germany" or "North Germany" is better after all?
Or even Saxland + footnote.
er á leið várit -- You can see the impersonal nature from other
examples. Zoega quotes 'er á leið daginn' "when the day was far
spent", and with dative 'þá var liðit degi' "the day was far spent".
Another time expression with verb and adverb: 'líða at' +dat. "[it] to
draw near to [a point in time]". Zoega has: er at leið jólinum "when
it drew near to Yule".
Finally, the two dative absolute expressions that I find hard not to
get confused. The 'at' here is not like the adverb in the previous
example, but a preposition, summing up the whole situation:
(1) at liðnum vetri "when winter had passed"
(2) at áliðnum vetri "towards the end of winter"
Maybe it would help to remember it to think of it literally: (1) with
winter [being] GONE. (2) "with winter [being] GONE ON, or been going
on, but not quite over".
Llama Nom