> og sagði um orð þau hin illu er Sigmundi dró til höfuðsbana

Compare Hávamál: 'Tunga er höfuðs bani' "The tongue is the bane/death
of the head." The same proverbial idea appear in the 'Heathen Law'
section of the West Gautish laws, explaining why a man who slanders
another and then falls in trial by combat should not be compensated
for. The only difference here is that the incident in Njáls saga
isn't presented as a formalised duel.

http://hem.passagen.se/peter9/lag/vghedn.html

> Þeir mæltu það báðir, Gunnar og Njáll, að engir hlutir (acc pl)

skyldu þeir til verða að eigi semdu þeir sjálfir.

> They both spoke that, Gunnar and Njál, that they should come-forth

to do no things that.

In older spelling with the old 3rd person subjunctive plural ending -i
(skyldi, semði):

Þeir mæltu þat báðir, Gunnarr ok Njáll, at engir hlutir skyldi þeir
til verða, at eigi semði þeir sjálfir.

http://dp.rastko.net/projects/projectID438a3f4017f9f/projectID438a3f4017f9f_TEI.txt

"...that no things (NOM. pl.) should arise which they did not settle
(come to an agreement about) themselves" (as opposed to contesting
them in court).

Accusative plural would be 'hluti'. I think this is another one of
these examples where the demonstrative pronoun ('þeir' = 'engir
hlutir') is used with an indefinite sense, as in these two we came
across earlier:

og eigi var sá leikur að nokkur þyrfti við hann að keppa
"and there wansn't a sport that anyone needed to compete with him at"
(since he was obviously the best).

>> Enda er sá engi minn frændi að gangi í þetta mál ef þú hefir eigi
>> þrek til.
>>
>> MM & HP: "There is no one else in my familiy to undertake this claim
>> if you haven't the courage for it."

Some handy references pasted in from last time:

> Faarlund: Old Norse Syntax 5.1.1, pp. 85-86:

"Demonstratives do not necessarily give a unique or specific
reference. [...] A noun modified by a relative clause may have an
indefinite reading even if it is combined with a demonstrative."

> er nökkurr sá maðr á þingi, er þat kunni at segja

is there any man at the assembly who can tell (us) that

> Old Norse Online: "The two particles 'er' and 'at' sometimes overlap

in sense, so that either is possible. For example, er sá engi minn
frændi, at gangi í þetta mál 'there is no kin of mine who would enter
into such a deal.'" [
http://www.utexas.edu/cola/centers/lrc/eieol/norol-7-X.html ].
Likewise Cleasby/Vigfússon, under 'sá' (1): "There is none of my
kinsmen that..."

> There are some similar examples here [

http://runeberg.org/anf/1885/0364.html ] illustrating the use of the
subjunctive with demonstrative + at, or svá (...) at.

*

> bunu

As a nickname, according to CV, 'buna' = "one with stocking hanging
down his leg, ungartered" [
http://lexicon.ff.cuni.cz/png/oi_cleasbyvigfusson/b0086.png The word
also means "stream". The modern Icelandic Online dictionary has "jet,
spurt, gush", also as a verb. You can see some previous discussion of
this word in the norse_course archives.

LN