At 7:10:11 AM on Tuesday, April 7, 2009, AThompson wrote:

> Here´s my translation. A curse on the verse ? impossible.

Gleymdi þú vísa korti þínu? <g>

It's been *long* time since I tried one of these bloody
things, but this one seems to have fairly normal syntax,
at least compared with the verbal jigsaw puzzles in 'Gisla
saga', so I'll take a stab at it.

[...]

> Hjálmskassa fór hvessir,
> ? went ?

CV s.v. <hjálmr> includes <hjálmskass> in a list of <hjálm->
terms for weapons, but it took me a while to track down
<skass>: it's apparently a pronunciation spelling of <skars>
'a monster, ogress, giantess', under which CV has
<hjálmskars> 'helm-ogre', meaning 'an axe'. According to
CV, the gender is uncertain, which would suggest that
<hjálmskassa> is a genitive plural. <Hvessir> is a nomen
agentis from <hvessa> 'to whet': 'whetter, one who whets'.
Thus, <hjálmskassa hvessir> is 'axes' whetter, whetter of
axes' (= warrior).

> herðimeiðr, af reiði
> sword-tree (man), from anger

According to the Lexicon Poeticum, <herðimeiðr> is indeed
from a poetic <herðir> 'sword', so 'sword-pole, sword-tree'
(= warrior) is right.

> út úr elris sveita
> out out-of alder smoke,

out from alder's sweat (= smoke from the timbers)

> ófús Níals húsa
> unwillingly, from Njál's farm-buildings

<Húsa> is a genitive plural, and so far as I can see, the
only candidate to be its head noun is <sveita>: 'unwillingly
out from the smoke of the timbers of Njál's farm buildings'.

> þá er eld-Gunnar inni
> when fire-Gunnar inside

> óðrunnar þar brunnu.
> ? there burned

<Gunnr> (literally 'war, battle') is the name of a valkyrie.
According to Lex. Poet., the kenning is <eld-Gunnar
óðrunnar>, which it expands to <Gunnar elds óðrunnar>; here
<eldr> is apparently a kenning for 'sword', and <runnr>,
normally 'bush, grove', is 'tree' (= man, warrior). <Óðr>
is 'furious, raging', so the whole thing is '(the) sword's
raging trees' = 'warriors', and these two lines are 'when
(the) warriors burned inside there'.

Trying for a translation that is as literal as possible
while still making some sense in English, I get something
like this:

The whetter of axes went,
the sword-tree, for wrath
out from the alders' sweat
of Njál's farm buildings, unwillingly,
when inside Gunnr's fire's
raging trees burned there.

Going strictly for the sense:

In a rage the warrior (= Kári) unwillingly went out from
the smoke of the burning timbers of Njál's farm buildings
while warriors burned inside.

> Menn nemi mál sem eg inni (inna, Z3)
> Men as I relate

> mín, harmsakir tínum.
> mine, causes of grief ?

<Nemi> is a 3rd person present subjunctive, here expressing
a wish. <Mín> is a nominative or accusative neuter plural,
which makes sense only if it modifies <mál>, which is then
plural: 'May men hear/understand my words as I relate ...'.

I don't see how <tínum> can be anything but the 1st
person plural present indicative of <tína> 'to gather, to
pick; to present in series, to enumerate; to recount', and
<harmsakir> must be its object and hence an accusative
plural. (I think, by the way, that despite its literal
compositional sense, in this context it's simply 'griefs,
sorrows'.) I'd be much happier if it were <tíni>, 1st
person singular, making it 'I recount', but as it stands, my
best guess is 'May men hear/understand my words as I relate
(them): we recount (our) griefs', where 'we' is perhaps Kári
and his words.

Brian