At 4:25:19 AM on Friday, October 9, 2009, AThompson wrote:

> Here´s my translation. A few convoluted sentences which I
> couldn´t disentangle :-)

I've taken a crack at a few.

> Þykir mér það oft rjúfast er skemmra er að frétta en
> slíkt.

> That seems to me often to become broken (distorted) which
> shorter is to hear than such (?).

'That seems to me often to become distorted that is nearer
to hear than such.' In other words, rumors/reports from
nearer at hand than the ones about Kári often turn out to be
distorted.

> Ketill mælti: "Allt mun það sínu fram fara um aldur manna
> sem ætlað er fyrir áður

> Ketil spoke: 'All that* will go forward (turn out) of
> itself (it will take its own course, see under fara Z18)
> concerning (the) age (life-span) of men, (that*) which is
> intended for (it) already

'All that concerns men's ages will take its own course as is
already foreordained.'

> en gott gengur þér til vörunnar þinnar."

> but good goes to you for the warning (?) from you.' (your
> warning does you credit)

CV has <varan> (also <vörun>), a feminine noun meaning 'a
warning'. I'm not sure why he includes the <-n>, though: it
looks more to me like a weak feminine <vara>, with the def.
art. becoming <varan> in the nom. sing. and <vörunnar> in
the gen. sing.

> Hann bað þá vel fara og kvað þá eigi mundu sjást oftar
> suma er í braut riðu en þeir létu eigi letjast.

> He bade them fare well and declared they would not
> see-each-other again (lit. more often), some who rode
> away, but they let (it) not dissuade-themselves.

CV s.v. <opt> notes <eigi optarr> 'no more', and it looks to
me as if that's what we have here, albeit in discontinuous
form: 'and said that they would no more see (reciprocally)
some who rode away'.

> Meðalland (Middle-Earth)







> Grani Gunnarsson mælti: "Meir skyldi hann þó síðar óttast
> oss.

> Grani Gunnar's-son spoke: 'He should still fear us more
> later.

I think that the sense is 'will' (old-fashioned 'shall'),
not 'should'.

> Mun hann svo fremi vita að hann kæmi í kast við oss.

> He will so far be-conscious that he comes into a collision
> with us.

Despite Zoëga, I'm inclined to give <kast> a more
etymological sense here, 'when he comes within (spear-)cast
of us', though a reading with 'collision' in the sense of
'meeting with conflict' also makes perfectly good sense.

<Svo fremi að> is a bit of a puzzle here. In the modern
language it's 'so long as, as long as'. (E.g., <Tag staks í
fylki má vera annað en tag fylkisins svo fremi að tag
staksins svari til undirklasa af tagi fylkisins> 'The type
of the element can be different from the type of the array
as long as it corresponds to a subclass of the type of the
array', one of the choices from a bilingual multiple choice
test on Java.) In the earlier language we have <svá fremi>
'(only) so far, (only) in case' and <svá fremi er> 'not
until, not before, only when'. Since they're not actually
expecting to meet up with Kári, 'in case' might be the best
fit: 'He will see/find out in case he should come in range
of us' or something similar.

Another edition has the more straightforward <Mun hann þat
þá vita, er hann komr í kast við oss>.

> Ketill úr Mörk bað hann þegja og hafa engi stóryrði
> frammi.

> Ketil out-of Mörk bade him be-silent and to employ (see
> hafa e-t frammi, under frammi, Z2) no big-words forward.

You don't want that last 'forward': it's already covered by
'employ' for <hafa frammi>. Although neither Z nor CV
mentions it, context suggests that in this case the big
words are boastful rather than high-flown.

Brian