> thanks for putting the poem online, Haukur. This is very cool! I
> like the idea that all the snakes in the snake-pit have their own
> names. Okay, it's a poetic device, but I just picture Atli doting
> on his slithery pets. I wonder if [*insert modern tyrant of
> choice*] takes as much care of their snake-pit.
Well, Atli sure is cooler than Lord Voldemort ;)
> Orthographical query. In st. 1 ftr (foetr), 6 rkir (roekir), 9
> brðrum (broedrum). But st. 3 sætara (saetara), 2 hrærði (hraerdi),
> 18 glæpum (glaepum). In 12, 13 and 14, is `hlær mik' an alternative
> way of saying `hlgir mik' (hloegir)?
You're right, these should all be 's. Good catch! Do you want me to
credit you as Llama Nom or do you have a more formal name for such
occasions?
> "margt er þar úrelt" - it was the use of the French word `reins'
> for kidneys that surprised me. Even the Oxford English Dictionary
> doesn't have that, as far as I can see.
Yeah, I had to look that one up. It was in Webster's. Usually Thorpe isn't
that difficult :)
> "ýmislegt misskilið"-any instructive examples? Or is that our homework?
Hmm... I don't really think there's anything like that in his Gunnarsslagr
translation. But I studied English translations of the Rúnatal once:
http://www.hi.is/~haukurth/norse/reader/runatal.html
And I wondered if Thorpe might have misunderstood "leitaði" to be first
person singular rather than third person singular. Larrington has some
more interesting mistranslations. See this mean old message for examples:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/norse_course/message/2649
(I love how I misspelled 'first' as 'fyrst'.)
> In st. 7, `oss um véla' is translated "deceive us both". Is the
> plural often used in place of the dual in Old Norse, or would the
> plural normally be a sure sign that more than two people are
> referred to?
Hmm. The plural is sometimes used instead of the singular when the poets
are speaking. I'm not sure how best to interpret this case.
> Thinks: `þau...eigi' is translated "neither of which" here. But
> since `brögð' is itself neuter plural, I wonder if it could be just
> the latter tune that they hadn't heard before?
Exactly! That's the point I was going to make. I think that's a much more
natural way to understand the sentence.
> And finally, Gunnar Pálsson wasn't the only maker of lost Eddic
> lays, it seems. Tom Shippey writes: "All his life, Tolkien enjoyed
> filling gaps in what survives. There is, for instance, a well-known
> gap in the Codex Regius manuscript of the Poetic Edda, where some
> eight pages of the Sigurðr cycle are missing. But Tolkien wrote two
> poems to fill this gap, in Old Norse, in the appropriate meter,
> which are called, we believe, Sigurðarkviða hin nýja and
> Guðrúnarkviða hin nýja. Unfortunately these remain unprinted."
> Tolkien and Iceland, the Philology of Envy [
> http://www.nordals.hi.is/shippey.html ].
Ooh! Me wants it.
Regards,
Haukur