> hraðfeigur
> to certain death (Z)
Or might it perhaps
mean something like: fated for extremely immanent
death? Well, that's
clumsy way of putting it, but if 'feigr' is
doomed to immanent death,
presumably 'hrað' is an intensifier: he must
have been doomed to die very
soon indeed; he was very "fey". Same
difference probably.
> og
mundu það margir ætla að vér bræður mundum þetta fyrri gert hafa
að því
skaplyndi sem vér höfum."
> Most would expect us brothers to be first to
have done it from our
spirit/temperament
Yes, that's the idea: "And
MANY would expect that we brothers would
have done this first (lit. before,
earlier), from the temperament that
we have (judging by our
temperament) ."
> "Skammt munt þú til þess eiga," segir Njáll,
"að þig mun slíkt henda
og mun þig þó nauður til reka."
> "soon may
you have this " (you'll get your chance) says Njall "that
then you will be
driven by need
"You won't have long before suchlike (i.e. having to
kill) will befall
you, but need will drive you to it."
> gunnar
játti því
> Gunnar accepted
That's right. 'ját(t)a' "to say yes
(já) to; to agree to"; takes
dative for the thing agreed to: G. agreed to
that.
> Gunnar sagði að það var lítill mannskaði
Gunnar said it
was but little manslaughter (not a great loss !!)
I think "no great
loss" is exactly what's meant. This is a typical
formulaic thing to say in
sagas when someone who was no good gets
their comeupance; the "scathe"
(harm, loss) referred to is that which
would be suffered by those people
left behind who respected him, or in
this case the lack of a sense of loss
among those who didn't!
> Hann var metnaðarmaður mikill og skáld
gott og að flestum íþróttum
vel búinn, hávaðamaður mikill, spottsamur og
ódæll.
> He was an ambitious man (Z) and a good poet, and was good at
most
sports, but (he was) boastful (Z) noisy and overbearing( Z) or is
it
sarcastic
'spottsamr' "given to mockery", 'spott(r)'
'ódæll'
"overbearing, quarrelsome; difficult" (Negative prefix ó + dæll).
>
Skjöldur hét félagi hans. Hann var sænskur maður og illur viðureignar.
>
Skjold was the name of his companion. He was Swedish and - ill
tempered (or
ill spoken) - (don't like the Swedes do they Ljot was
Swedish as in Egil's
Saga)
Hmm, you could be onto something there; there's a couple of
Swedish
berserks in Eybyggja saga too; berserks are always bad
news.
> og luku eigi ferð sinni fyrr en...
> and made no stop
until
Yes.
> illur viðureignar.
I think lit. "hard to
have dealings with."
> Gunnar tók við þeim vel. Var þar frændsemi
mikil með þeim Sigmundi.
> Gunnar greeted them well/warmly. There was a
close kinship with the
Sidmunds (there seems to be - plural - those
Sigmunds - does this mean
the two families are close-knit)
My guess
would be that it's just saying that they're closely related,
but that's
just a guess; I could be wrong. Ah, just checked MM / HP
-- they take it
that way too.
> Er hér og vönd vistin.
This is a difficult house
(MM&HP) (moderate - is he not?)
Yeah, to put it
mildly...