> Excellent! But I don't think "vera at sönnu" can mean what you
> make it mean here. The words are usually taken in this order:
> Menn eru at sönnu sízt eftir á Rangárvöllum, which I take to mean
> literally: Men are truly least remaining on R., i.e. Truly there
> are no longer any (real) men left on R. - or something of the sort.

Ah, I see. Thanks. That makes more sense.

> > BTW, did you notice the example of the elusive preterite infinitive?

Afraid not, I was too busy looking at everything else! I seem to have
interpreted it in this way though without it registering conciously,
but I was probably just reading the meaning I expected rather than
showing any deep grammatical insight there... I did read about these
ages ago in CV [
http://lexicon.ff.cuni.cz/png/oi_cleasbyvigfusson/a0025.png ] -- right
column. But I can't remember ever meeting one in the flesh till now,
apart from the usual ones with preterite-present verbs.

> > Add: "með ráðum" - 'with schemes'.
> Add: "við þik" = (fight) you.

Ah yes, I saw them when I first read it, but got distracted by the
kennings and forgot to type them up.

> I'd say 1p subjunctive, thus: "Ek vænti (at) ek hafa heyrt ..."

'vænti' for earlier 'vænta', right? Stefán Karlsson in 'The Icelandic
Language' writes: "About 1300 3rd person singular forms were replacing
the 1st person forms. [...] Thus in the preterite indicative 'ek
sagða' for instance became 'eg sagði'". Is 'vænti' subjunctive too:
"I would expect..."?

> Note also that you could just as
> well read the two kennings the other way around, instead of "álmr
> hrings" and "Hristi undirgerðar þráðs jarðar" you could read "Hristi
> hrings" and "álmr undirgerðar þráðs jarðar".

> There are basically only three types of kennings for "man",
> i.e. kennings that mean "warrior", "seafarer", or "generous
> man (gold-giver)". The vast majority of man-kennings belong
> to one of these three groups.

Are ones like 'álmr hrings' or 'álmr undirgerðar þráðs jarðar'
referring just to the fact that a man would wear gold ornaments such
as gold arm-rings, or are these to do with generosity too? Or maybe
it's just not possible to say one way or the other: "Hann má ok kenna
til eignar sinnar þeirar er hann á ok svá ef hann gaf" ... "af þessum
heitum hafa skáldin kallat menn ask eða hlyn ... ok kent til víga eða
skipa eða *fjár*" (Skáldskaparmál).

> Those that don't usually carry
> an added layer of meaning, often derogatory.

Also derogatory, even if they do follow these patterns, if the
base-word is some less respectable supernatural being, such as a giant
or troll-woman: "kent er ok við jötna heiti, ok er þat flest háð eða
lastmæli."