Just a contribution - LN - I can verify what you say I went for a quick burgle through my "best Books" bookcase  and found the book you mention - Penguins Classics - and translated by Robert Cook and it is exactly as you say.
I have more books than I know of, this one had been placed behind some of the others to be hidden  - this of course is doubtless - to me anyway - the work of one of the Vættir - one of the House-Wights who with evil intent frequently sneak off with my keys/pen/book.hairbrush/whatever - every house should have them
It now seems to be as you suppose LN the Complete Sagas of the Icelanders were "coordinated" and anything too "naughty" was taken out - sad in a way - because every country and every age through out history must have had it's "wikkid side",
Queen Elizabeth I was to have said "what means this naughty intrusion" - Deary Me !! the lash of Royal anger
Kveðja
Patricia
 
 
----- Original Message -----
From: llama_nom
To: norse_course@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Sunday, July 16, 2006 1:57 PM
Subject: [norse_course] Re: Translating taboos



Your versions certainly matches the quote in that article I mentioned,
"Troublesome Children". But there's also a translation by Robert Cook
published separately in the Penguin Classics series. Maybe he revised
it? Given that the translations in The Complete Sagas of the
Icelanders have been "co-ordinated" , I wonder if there was a policy
decision about how to deal with taboo words.

--- In norse_course@ yahoogroups. com, "Patricia" <originalpatricia@ ...>
wrote:
>
> In that case LN, there is something wrong with this set of books,
for I have Robert Cook's translation - alleged in this set, and I
have just checked it out, if Robert translated it so - as you have
said - then when his translation was published in Iceland it was
altered - small wonder now that there is confusion for when I have
been in doubt over a translation I have gone to "The Complete Sagas of
the Icelanders" and checked stuff there - I guess I shall stick to my
dictionaries more often.
> In this edition it clearly gives - "for not having sex with her" and
I am beginning to be in favor of accuracy now before anything else
> It seems I have been stuck in the 1950's a trifle too long - customs
alter and one should be up to date even in translations, and stick to
the original in style
> Kveðja
> Patricia
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: llama_nom
> To: norse_course@ yahoogroups. com
> Sent: Sunday, July 16, 2006 12:47 PM
> Subject: [norse_course] Re: Translating taboos
>
>
>
>
> og finna það til foráttu að þú hafir eigi sorðið hana
>
> I've been told that Robert Cook rendered this: "for not screwing her".
> The advantage of something like this is that it matches the register
> of the original, as well as the meaning.
>