Hi Alan,

Yes, I did take it for the neuter 'oeði', meaning in this case
"nature". I just assumed that the implication of the sentence was
that his normal nature was shown by him coming, thus demonstrating
that he was in no way impotent, even though he couldn't have
penetrative intercourse with his wife. Interesting that we reached
different conclusions though, even though I think we interpreted the
literal meaning and grammar the same. What does everyone else think?
I suppose part of the reason I was thinking along these lines was
that the story, having built up this expectation that Gunnhild has
enchanted away his manhood, it then almost goes out of its way to
demonstrate that the situation isn't like that after all, and to cast
no slur on his manliness (or that of his descendents, if they were
among the sagas original audience?), so it goes through each of the
things that you might suspect were wrong with him, and establishes
that they aren't, just this one problem with this one woman. To
complete the picture, we later find out that he has no deficiency in
respect of fertility either.

Llama Nom

--- In norse_course@yahoogroups.com, "AThompson" <athompso@...> wrote:
>
> Am I missing something here? The discussion seems to be suggesting that
> `í æði sínu'is translated as in his frenzy = climax/orgasm, based on the
> feminine noun `æði' But surely the noun is the neuter noun `æði' (note
> the neut dat sg pronoun sínu) which Zoega gives the meaning nature,
> disposition, mind. Note also that `sem aðrir menn' can mean like other
> human beings, ie not necessarily males. Taken together, I took this mean
> that Hrút having briefly become some kind of supernatural monster with a
> gigantic (and therefore somewhat ineffective) phallus simply resumed
> normal human characteristics and form.
>
> Kveðja
> Alan
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: norse_course@yahoogroups.com [mailto:norse_course@yahoogroups.com]
> On Behalf Of llama_nom
> Sent: Tuesday, 11 July 2006 4:55 AM
> To: norse_course@yahoogroups.com
> Subject: [norse_course] Re: Nature
>
> --- In HYPERLINK
> "mailto:norse_course%40yahoogroups.com"norse_course@...,
> "Blanc Voden" <uoden@> wrote:
> >
> > "EftirLæti" same as saying he did not have organism
>
> Þegar hann kemur við mig þá er hörund hans svo mikið að hann má ekki
> eftirlæti hafa við mig en þó höfum við bæði breytni til þess á alla
> vega að við mættum njótast en það verður ekki. En þó áður við skiljum
> sýnir hann það af sér að hann er í æði sínu rétt sem aðrir menn.
>
> I took this to mean that he did ejaculate eventually (just not in
> her), and that is how he showed himself to be "exactly like other men".