Thanks, LN, I was thinking skila instead of skilja.
Grace

> Við vant er eg um kominn fyrir tengdar sekir við Njál

`sekir', a typo for `sakir' I presume. `um', I think, is a
superfluous verbal particle which doesn't really add anything to the
meaning here; in this usage, it's just a relic of the old unstressed
verbal prefixes that occur in other Germanic languages, but had
disappeared in the prehistory of Old Norse. It's often used in this
way in poetry and is interchangeable with `of'. Here are parallel
examples from Hávamál, one with `um', one without.

(3) er ek var enn um kominn `when I had come back'
(4) at ek væra enn kominn `that I would have come back'

Compare Modern German `gekommen', or in the older Germanic language:

(5) GOTHIC: þaiei wesun ga-qumanai us allamma haimo Galeilaias `those
who had come together from all of the towns of Galilee'
(6) OLD ENGLISH: oð full getæl þære hæðena sind ge-cumen on innan
`till all of the gentiles have come in'

The prefix serves different functions in this instance in German,
Gothic and Old English, but such functions (and those of the other
unstressed verbal prefixes) were blurred in Old Norse after they
became an optional poetic extra represented by `um' (originally `umb'
= OE ymb-.

> Flosi hafði af þeim sannar sögur og skilur þá hvergi á og Runólf í Dal.
> Flosi had (got) from them (the) true story and Runólf in Dale then

diverged not at all on (it) also.

See Zoega `skilja' (impersonal), `þá skilja á um e-t' "they disagree
about a thing"; `ef skrár skilr á' "if the scrolls disagree". Thus:
"They (acc.), and Runolf-in-Dale (acc.), didn't disagree at all."
That's to say, they were in complete agreement with Runolf.

Fred and Grace Hatton
Hawley Pa