Hello all,

I see I've been falling a bit behind this week, so I'll trying and
catch up with everything at once.

> fengsöm

Magnús Magnússon and Hermann Pálsson translate this as `demanding'.
But in Ch. 14 for `örlynd og fengsöm' they have "lavish and yet
resourceful", and in Ch. 34 `fengsöm og atkvæðamikil' becomes
"extravagant and overbearing". The online ordabok.is (which deals
with Modern Icelandic), has "grasping, demanding, resourceful", so
maybe there is no one English word that quite sums it up. Zoega:
"making large provision". An example here seems from the context to
have the more negative meaning "demanding, grasping, aggressive [in
acquiring money]" [
http://66.102.9.104/search?q=cache:l5m8VPQMAfgJ:www.skolavefurinn.is/_opid/daegradvol/timarit/sogur_smaelki_1_2005/sogur_smaelki_5_hefti.pdf+fengsamur&hl=en&gl=uk&ct=clnk&cd=1
]. But the collocations `fengsöm og forvitra' (Þorláks saga helga),
`framsýnn og fengsamur' seem closer to Zoega's sense, emphasising the
positive value to making sure you have plenty of what you need. Other
quotes lean more towards the demanding / acquisitive side, from the
looks of it: þótti hann feingsamur í búi; tók hann á stundum fé frá
mönnum. [
http://www.lexis.hi.is/cgi-bin/ritmal/leitord.cgi?adg=daemi&n=103576&s=125724&l=fengsamur
]. I don't know what 19th century national stereotypes can tell us
about this one: `Mundu nú fæstir hafa ætlað, að Frökkum mundi verða
fengsamt.'? Some of the examples at that last site refer to hunting
and seem to mean that someone is successful at acquiring resources, in
this case game. This impersonal one `Margir eru þeir staðir sem gott
og fengsamt hefir þótt að dvelja á á Jónsmessunótt' might be
paraphrased slightly "there are many places which were considered
amply stocked and good to stay at at midsummer.", if I've understood
that right. Of course, my impressions could be mistaken.

> Hallgerður var fengsöm og stórlynd enda kallaði hún til alls þess er
aðrir áttu í nánd og hafði allt í sukki.

MM & HP paraphrase: "H. turned out to be demanding and prodigal. She
claimed everything for her own whether it belonged to her or not, and
wasted it all extravagantly." More literally maybe: "H. was
demanding/grasping/acquisitive and profligate, in fact she laid claim
to everything that others in the neighbourhood owned and squandered it
all." For the meaning "lay claim to" for `kalla til', see the section
at the end of Zoega's entry for `kalla', where he lists idiomatic
meanings with adverbs and prepositions.

The conjunction `enda' is a tricky word that can have dozens of
possible English translations depending on the context. Often, as
here, it serves to introduce further information which should come as
no surprise given what's just been said, or which confirms an
impression given in the earlier part of the sentence: "indeed, in
fact, of course, and sure enough, and besides, and anyway." Sometimes
in this sense it feels more natural not to translate it with anything.
Some of its other meanings ("and if, even if, if only"), require the
verb after it to be subjunctive.

> Eigi munt þú þurfa að sitja til alls því bæði þarf í búið mjöl og
skreið.

MM & HP paraphrase: "You won't get anything done by sitting about; we
need more dried fish for the lader."

> ekki fer ég að því, þó að þú hafir svelt þig

Yes, "I don't care if you have starved yourself". See Zoega `fara'
(18) "with preps. and adv." f. at e-u "mind, pay heed to". He quotes
this very example. `því' (neuter dat. sg.) refers to the whole clause
that follows it, i.e. what she doesn't care about.

> fannst

Grace, this is the middle voice serving to make the verb passive. The
active meaning it corresponds to is "to find out, discover, perceive,
notice". Thus, "it was noticed, it was seen, it was apparent". (By
the way, the simple verb `finna' can be used impersonally with this
same sense: `fann þat á' "it could be perceived"). Some more examples
with this and other active senses of `finna' made passive by the
addition of the middle voice endings:

og fannst aldregi lík hans
"and his body was never found"
Agötu saga

Þá er Ísland fannst og byggðist af Noregi
"When Iceland was discovered and settled from Norway"
Landnámabók

Er konungr nokkut við aldr, ok fannst þat brátt á drottningu.
"The king is getting on a bit in years, and that was soon apparent
from the queen." (or "from the queen's behaviour.")
Hrólfs saga kraka

Það fannst á að Ófeigur vildi þar mest vera metinn
"It was apparent that O. wanted to be respected as the best man there"
Ljósvetninga saga


> Þorvaldur veldur því

Alan, if you want to keep the present tense, how about "Th. is to
blame for that"? To me, "causes" would connote a regular occurrence
or an ongoing state of affairs.

> og stóðst þú mér þá fjarri ef þér þætti nokkuð undir um mig

If I've understood this right, I think what's happening here is that
she's putting extra pressure on him by questioning his loyalty, and so
stirring him up to the anger necessary to kill for her: "if you care
about me at all / if I mean anything to you" = "given that you say you
care about me" = "for someone who supposedly cares about me, you
certainly were a long way off" = "I would have expected someone who
really cared about me to have been a bit near at hand than that." MM
& HP paraphrase, turning the sentence around: "And if you cared for me
at all you would have been here to help me."

> Hann var að hlaða skútuna en þeir báru á út, menn hans.

I'm not absolutely sure about this, but as far as I know `báru á út'
just means that they carried the goods "out onto [the boat]", whereas
I would take the English idiom "on out" as equivalent to "further out"
(implying that they "went on carrying" something from some point in
space or time, till they'd brought it further out than that). I also
suspect this might be another instance where "and" or "while" works
better as a translation of `en', since there isn't really a strong
enough contrast to warrant "but". I think a "but" here would suggest
to the reader that there was supposed to be something unexpected about
the fact that the men were carrying while he was loading, whereas `en'
probably just contrasts the different agents in each conjunct and
their differing actions.


> Þá fóru þeir ofan

"Then they came down (to the shore)". Re. Alan's translation,
"journeyed" suggests to me a more elaborate undertaking, longer
distance, provisions, etc. Often "went" is sufficient, but here it
could feel more natural to say "came", as MM & HP have it, since the
men are arriving from off-camera. Compare `gekk hingat' "came here".

> Höggur hann þá tveim höndum borð skútunnar og gekk sundur borðið um
tvö rúm

`rúm' are the rowers' seats. MM & HP: "He hacked two-handed at the
side of the skiff, smashing the planks the length of two thwarts..."

> en hitt vissu þeir að hann var dauður
> (Patricia) "it is the way the blood rushes into the sea from a
broken skull"

Always a bit of a give away (-;

> öxina...hún

I agree with your translation as "it", Patricia. This is just a
grammar thing, I think; no personification intended.

> En á skútunni féll inn sær kolblár og sökk hún niður

Again, we call ships "she" in English to personify them, but `hún' is
just used because `skúta' is grammatically feminine. If it had been
`skip', the pronoun would be neuter:

ok fara til skips ok draga þat fram
"and they go to the ship and launch it"
Örvar-Odds saga

> sær kolblár

Note the unusual bit of lyrical description! Must be a sombre moment.

Llama Nom