Thanks a tonne LN and also to your friend Eysteinn  for letting you ask him

This has clarified for me completely - I have to excuse myself here

..and mention that the sense of urgency was my own - I am to blame

.. For reading as a story - and reading the Saga subjectively I had seen

  - having "read on! That Thjostolf   was there and  I guess the sense of urgency

   - was my own thoughts I am un-apt to the use of a sword and would have taken

  - for preference my best fry-pan - cast iron and I am a "deadly aim" with it

 

Kveðja

Patricia

 

 

 

--- In norse_course@ yahoogroups. com, "Patricia" <originalpatricia@ ...>
wrote:

>
> Thank you LN but I see I have misread
> Kippti upphávum I could not get upphávum properly nevertheless I saw
> Kippti defined as jerked and saw that he was putting his boots on so
> I took it as meaning jerked to his feet and went for his boots to

put them

> on
> And his tunic - well it's cold out there upp seemed to go with

Jerked and I

> got
> Jerked (I.e. Suddenly) to his feet and got decently dressed to go to the
> door
> I have misunderstood - should I have rendered it as "he got up and

jerked

> on his boots"
> Would that have been better
> Please advise
> Patricia

`upphávum' is an adjective, masculine dative plural of `upphár' (upp
"up" + hár "high") "reaching high up the leg", agreeing with `skóm'.

Kippa. CV has various expressions with this verb such as pulling in
the gangway of a ship, weighing anchor, etc., including `kippa skóm á
fætr sér' [ http://lexicon. ff.cuni.cz/ png/oi_cleasbyvi gfusson/b0338. png ].

I asked Eysteinn if `kippa' implied that the shoes were put on in a hurry.

His reply: "I don't exactly think so. The modern Icelander would tend
to sense hurry here, but in these examples I sense a meaning closer to
"slide", "snap", or something like that. It is not easy to translate
one-on-one. Obviously the shoes are put on in one, quick movement, but
I don't think any hurry is necessarily implied. I would depend on the
context, I suppose. The translators of N. obviously feel there is a
need to add an implication of urgency to the translation, but
correctly decide that using a "speedier" verb would be overkill. So,
all in all, I would say, yes - a swift move is implied, but not
necessarily hurry. It is very probably a type of shoe that could be
pulled on with one swift movement. In modern usage, "kippa" usually
implies "tug", "jerk"."

I wondered if `to slip on one's shoes' might be a good match.

Eysteinn: "Not quite. "Kippa" is more forceful. I note that H's shoes
are "upphávir", so he would need some force. I suspect the meaning of
"kippa" here indicates that he almost "jerks" on his shoe in a single,
forceful movement, rather than in smaller, more numerous movements one
would usually perform in order to put on a shoe like that. "Slip"
sounds rather effortless, which "kippa" is not. Ultimately, this
somewhat implies hurry - but the context is all important. For
example, you could say "hann kippti á sig skónum, og sat svo lengi og
starði út um gluggann". No hurry whatsoever is implied, although the
shoes are put on rather abruptly."

Some other examples I found:

Nj. 44. Njáll kippti skóm á fætur sér og gekk út og öðrum megin
hússins. Magnús Magnússon and Hermann Pálsson translate: "Njal
*pulled* on his shoes and went out at once, round to the other side of
the house." Here too they use that technique of adding some extra
words to indicate speed, to make up for the neutral verb `pull'.

Fljótsdoela saga 18. Í þennan tíma vaknar Austmaðurinn í tjaldinu.
Hann þarf að ganga örna sinna. Hann rís upp í skyrtu og línbrækur.
Hann kippir skóm á fætur sér en hneppir ei. "Meanwhile, the Norwegian
awakes in the tent. He needs to go to relieve himself. He gets up in
his shirt and linen breeches. He pulls on his shoes but doesn't ties
the laces." (Or at the risk of overkill: yanks on?)

Heiðarvíga saga 9. kippir fljótlega skóm á fætur sér "quickly
pulls/yanks( ?) on his shoes"

LN

>
>
> -------Original Message----- --
>
> From: llama_nom
> Date: 01/09/2006 23:33:28
> To: norse_course@ yahoogroups. com
> Subject: [norse_course] Re: Njal Ch 17 part two from Patricia
>
> --- In norse_course@ yahoogroups. com, "Patricia" <originalpatricia@ >
> wrote:
> >
> > Those high shoes of yours Grace I have called boots in my
> translation, they would be maybe high up around the leg
> >
>
> > Hrútur hafði vakað og kippti upphávum skóm á fætur sér, fór í treyju
> og tók sverð í hönd sér.
>
> MM & HP: "H. had been lying awake. He jumped up at once and pulled on
> his tunic and boots. He took his sword..." But I think the "he
> jumped up at once" has been added by the translators, perhaps (and I'm
> just speculating here) to give the sense of sudden movement in 'kippa'
> which might have been lost by rendering it "pull on".
>