--- In norse_course@yahoogroups.com, "Blanc Voden" <uoden@...> wrote:

>
> "En fátt var um með þeim Hrúti um samfarar og fer svo fram allt til
> vors"
>
> En fátt samfarar [genitive samför] var um með þeim Hrúti um.
> "Við tölum um" We talk about samfarir in plural.

> We stumble/blunder over morphological errors.
> Commmon role before in the writing process.

Hi Uoden,

If the word order had been 'fátt samfarar', certainly I would read
that as genitive, but since the word order in this instance is
actually 'fátt var um með þeim Hrúti um samfarar', I'm still inclined
to see it as accusative plural, since the preposition 'um' takes an
accusative complement, never genitive. In the older language,
'samfarar' was nom./acc. plural, as well as genitive singular. As in
a number of other words, the old plural -ar has been replaced by -ir
in the modern language. One of many small changes.

Compare:

Samfarar þeirra Höllu og Brodd-Helga voru góðar (Vápnfirðinga saga).
They got on well together; they had a good relationship. Gwyn Jones:
"were very happy in their marriage". Nominative plural surely?

Þjóðhildur vildi ekki halda samfarar við Eirík síðan er hún tók trú,
en honum var það mjög í móti (Eiríks saga rauða) "Th. didn't want to
have sex with E. after her conversion (to Christianity), and he wasn't
at all pleased about that." Accusative plural, I would have thought,
cf. the second definition given by Zoega for 'halda' + acc. "to hold,
keep, observe", e.g. a feast, holiday, laws, a practice. I don't know
of any reason why a genitive would be used here.

> I see this as writing under rose: in clandestine.
> => They did not have sex at all.

Yes, definitely, that's how I understood it. In English we might call
such an expression "an understatement". We too sometimes say 'not
much' when we mean 'none at all'. 'skrifa/tala undir rós' "to hint at
something [without actually saying it outright, without stating it
plainly]" [
http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/cgi-bin/IcelOnline/IcelOnline.TEId-idx?type=simple&size=First+100&rgn=lemma&q1=r%F3sa&submit=Search
]. I guess Zoega's translation captures some of the
obliqueness/indirectness/ambiguity of the expression: "there was a
coolness between H. and his wife", but misses the sexual connotation.

Llama Nom