--- In norse_course@yahoogroups.com, "AThompson" <athompso@...> wrote:

>
> Here's my translation. The phrase tóku þar njósnir puzzled me in two
> places.

[...]

> Helgi svarar: "Skotar munu hafa tekið sýslumann yðvarn af lífi og tekið
> Helgi answers: `(The) Scots will have taken your steward from life (ie
> killed him) and (under)taken
>
> njósnir allar að engar skyldu ganga mega yfir Pettlandsfjörð-."
> all spying (so) that none should be-able to go over Pettland's Firth.'

Cleasby-Vigfússon cites this very example: "3. to catch; Skotar munu
hafa tekit njósnir allar". So literally: "the Scots will have
captured all of your intelligence reports so that none (no news) can
cross the Pentland Firth." But it would sound more natural to
translate 'njósnir' as "spies". I found a couple of other examples
where the word seems to be used in this way for the spies themselves.
Fritzner cites:

þá kom til konungs njósn (dvs. njósnarmenn) hans
(dvs. = det vil sige = that is to say).

'njósnir' is translated "spies" by Hermann Pálsson and Paul Edwards in
Chapter 22 of Egils saga:

og hafði lið það ætlað til fundar við Þórólf, því að njósnir hans
höfðu verið allt suður í Naumudal og víða um eyjar.

It would be interesting to see the context of the following example
from Sturlunga saga that the database came up with:

Þeir fengu og tekið tvennar njósnir Gissurar

> það sendi Arnljótur menn suður yfir Pettlandsfjörð og tóku þar njósnir
> og
> Arnljót sent men south over Pettland's Firth and (under)took there
> spying and
>
> fréttu það að Hundi jarl og Melsnati jarl höfðu tekið af lífi Hávarð í
> discovered that, that Earl Hundi and Earl Melsnat had taken from life
> (ie killed) Hávarð

Here 'tóku njósnir' seems to be equivalent to 'fengu njósn', 'höfðu
njósn' "they got/received intelligence" (with singular and plural
interchangeable?).

1. og þegar fékk Þorsteinn njósn af
2. Eftir um daginn hafði jarl njósn allt af bóndaherinum.
3. höfum fyrst njósnir af, hvert ráð hann tekr
4. höfðu þeir njósn af, hvat títt var um hans mál

I don't know if this is the only possible interpretation, but there's
nothing in Magnus Magnusson and Hermann Pálsson's translation that
corresponds to anything about capturing spies here, only about sending
spies out to gather information, so perhaps 'tóku þar njósn' "they
received intelligence/news" is another (slightly more detailed) way of
saying 'fréttu' "they learnt/heard/discovered [the news that...]".

LN