At 8:37:40 PM on Saturday, February 6, 2010, rob13567 wrote:

[...]

Some of my comments below duplicate what you've already
probably gathered from Alan's translation, but I thought
that it might be helpful to have them in one place.

> kafli - Af Katli flatnef

> Kafli - Concerning Ketil Flat-Nose

To answer Alan's question, this (or 'Of Ketill Flat-nose')
is correct.

> Eftir þetta hafði Ketill boð ágætt.
> After that Ketil had an excellent wedding.

<Þetta> is the 'near' demonstrative, 'this'; 'after that'
would be <eptir þat>. <Boð> isn't the wedding itself, but
the associated banquet.

> Þá gifti hann Þórunni hyrnu dóttur sína Helga hinum magra,
> sem fyrr var ritað.

> At that time he married Thorunn Hyrna, daughter of Helgi
> the Lean, as previously was written.

I think that you're wise to leave <hyrna> untranslated,
since its interpretation is uncertain. On the face of it
it's 'point of an axe-head; beak', related to <horn>, and
one might guess that she didn't inherit Ketill's nose.
However, the modern idiom <hafa allt á hornum sér> 'grumble
about everything' suggests a very different possibility, the
'grumbler' that Alan's used.

> Eftir það býr Ketill ferð sína úr landi vestur um haf.

> After that Ketil [began?] his journey to western lands
> over the sea.

'Prepares for', from <búa>. <Ór landi> is 'from [the]
land', i.e., 'abroad', and <vestr um haf> is 'west across
the sea': 'After that K. prepares for his journey abroad
westwards across the sea'.

[...]

> Björn Ketilsson kom skipi sínu vestur í Breiðafjörð og
> sigldi inn eftir firðinum og nær hinu syðra landinu þar
> til er fjörður skarst inn í landið en fjall hátt stóð á
> nesinu fyrir innan fjörðinn en ey lá skammt frá landinu.

> Ketil's son Bjorn came in his ship to Breidafjord and
> sailed in beyond the fiord and near the southern coast
> until where a fiord cuts in the land and a mountain had
> stood at the headland before the fiord and an island lay
> near the land.

It's an interesting question whether <kom skipi sínu> is an
instance of an instrumental dative ('came by means of his
ship') or an instance of <koma> 'cause/make to come' with
the dative of the object ('sailed his ship'), though in
practical terms it makes no difference. You did overlook
the <vestr> 'west' qualifier. <Eptir> here is 'along'
(Zoëga s.v. <eptir> (3); in fact you'll find the whole
phrase <inn eptir firði> 'inwards along the fjord' at Z.
s.v. <inn>. 'Until where' is a little clumsy as English,
but it correctly captures the sense of <þar til er> 'to the
place where'. The <a> in <skarst> shows that this is a past
tense form. More important, although the basic sense of the
verb is 'to cut' -- it's cognate with English 'to shear' --
<skerask> is 'to stretch; to branch' (Z. s.v. <skera> (9)),
so it's 'where a fjord branched into the coastline'. <Hátt>
is the neuter nom. sing. of <hár> 'high': <fjall hátt> is 'a
high mountain'. The mountain is <á nesinu> '*on* the
headland'. For <fyrir innan> 'inside' see Z. s.v. <fyrir>
(14).

[...]

> Björn gekk á land upp með nokkura menn og reikaði fram með
> sjónum.

> Bjorn made landfall with some men and walked ahead with
> [his] sons.

Not 'sons': that would be <með sonum>. <Sjónum> is from
<sjór> 'sea'; specifically, it's the dative singular and
incorporates the postposed definite article. <Með> has here
the sense 'along' (Z. s.v. <með> (8)): he 'strolled forth
along the sea', presumably following the shoreline.

> Var þar kammt í milli fjalls og fjöru.

> It was there he came between [in the middle of] a mountain
> and a fiord.

<Kammt> isn't a possible form of <koma>, but the main
problem is that it's a typo for <skammt> 'a short distance'
(neuter sing. of <skammr>). <Fjöru> isn't from <fjörðr>;
it's the dat. sing. of <fjara> 'foreshore, beach'. (The
inflectional endings <-u> and <-um> typically mutate <a> of
a root to <ö>, so when you see <fjöru>, you should check for
<fjar->.) Context tells you that it's not *a* mountain, but
rather the one just mentioned: 'there was a short
distance between the mountain and beach'.

[...]

> Þar fann Björn reknar öndvegissúlur sínar í einni vík.

> Bjorn found there [reknar???] his high seat pillars in a
> bay.

<Reknar> is fem. acc. plur. of <rekinn>, the past participle
of <reka> used adjectivally; see
<http://www.northvegr.org/zoega/h538.php>, Participial
Adjectives in <-inn>. Here <reka> has its impersonal sense
'to be drifted, tossed' (Z. s.v. <reka> (7)).

> Þótti þeim þá á vísað um bústaðinn.

> They thought that pointed out the dwelling place [where to
> live]

<Þá> here is 'then', 'thereupon', or the like; it can't be a
demonstrative pronoun, because that would have to be in the
nominative case. Literally this is something like
'(It-)seemed to-them then pointed-out regarding
the-dwelling-place'. (Of course your translation is a
perfectly good way to express the idea in English, but I
wasn't sure whether you'd correctly identified all of the
pieces.)

[...]

> Hana átti Vestar á Eyri son Þórólfs blöðruskalla er nam
> Eyri.

> Vestar son of Thorolf Bladder-Bald (whose name is Eyri)
> married her .

<Eyri> is the dative of the place-name <Eyrr>, so that's
'Vestarr of Eyrr, son of Þórólfr'. (You got it right in the
next sentence.) The second element of Þórólfr's byname
<blöðruskalli> is <skalli> 'a bald head'; the byname is a
noun, 'bladder-bald-head', not an adjective.

[...]

> Helgi bjólan kom skipi sínu fyrir sunnan land og nam
> Kjalarnes allt á milli Kollafjarðar og Hvalfjarðar og bjó
> að Esjubergi til elli.

> HB came by her ship further south of the coast and took
> possession of [lit. named] everything between K and H and
> lived at E until her old age.

<Helgi> is a masculine name, so it's 'his ship' (and 'her
old age', though you don't really need the pronoun here).
This could also be the <koma> + dative construction, 'sailed
his ship'. <Fyrir sunnan> is the same construction as
<fyrir innan> above; it just means 'south of', probably
indicating that Helgi sailed around the southern coast of
Iceland to reach Kjalarnes. (On the maps at
<http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esja_%28S%C3%BCdwestisland%29>,
the ness on which Esja is situated is Kjalarnes; sailing
south around Iceland, then north at the end of Reykjanes and
back to the east would be the natural way to get there, I
think.)

<Nam> has nothing to do with naming: it's the 3rd person
sing. active past tense of <nama> 'to take'.

> Helgi hinn magri kom skipi sínu fyrir norðan land og nam
> Eyjafjörð allan á milli Sigluness og Reynisness og bjó í
> Kristnesi.

> Helgi the Lean came by her ship further north of the coast
> and took possession [named] everything between Sigluness
> and Reynisness and lived in Kristness.

Here again <Helgi> is masculine. The corresponding fem.
name is <Helga>; what may make this a little confusing is
that the oblique cases of <Helgi> are also <Helga>. The
oblique cases of <Helga>, on the other hand, are <Helgu>.

The nominatives of the place-names are <Siglunes>,
<Reynisnes>, and <Kristnes>, with single <s>, unless you
were translating the <nes> element into English.

> Frá þeim Helga og Þórunni er komið Eyfirðingakyn.
> From them Helgi the Lean and Thorunn Hyrna ?? come
> Eyfirding.

The subject is <Eyfirðingakyn> 'kin of the <Eyfirðingar>',
where <Eyfirðingar> is 'inhabitants of Eyjafjörðr'; <er
komit> is literally 'is come', in modern English 'has come'.
'From Helgi and Þórunn are descended the Eyjafjörðr
kindred.'

[...]

> Ketill flatnefur kom skipi sínu við Skotland og fékk góðar
> viðtökur af tignum mönnum, því að hann var frægur maður og
> stórættaður, og buðu honum þann ráðakost þar sem hann
> vildi hafa.

> Ketil Flat-Nose came in his ship to Scotland and got good
> receptions of honor from the people, so that he was ?? man
> and highborn, and [he lived the way of life that he wanted
> to have???]

He got good receptions 'from high-born men': <tignum mönnum>
is the dative of <tignar menn> 'high-born men, noble men',
and <tignar> is the masc. nom. plur. of <tiginn>. <Því at>
is 'for, because'. <Frægr> is 'famous'. Sadly, you won't
find <buðu> in Zoëga's list of irregular forms; it's from
<bjóða> 'to offer', whose complete conjugation can be found
at <http://www.northvegr.org/zoega/h542.php> (Class 3). As
a general principle, when a plural past tense of a strong
verb has <u> as its root vowel, you can expect the
infinitive to have either <jó> or <e>. That last clause is
'and offered him the way of life that he wanted to have'.

> Ketill staðfestist þar og annað frændlið hans nema
> Þorsteinn dótturson hans.

> Ketil made his home there and other of his kinsmen [???]

<Nema> is 'except, but': 'and his other family except
Þorsteinn, his daughter's son'.

> Hann lagðist þegar í hernað og herjaði víða um Skotland og
> fékk jafnan sigur.

> He set himself at once to harrying and harried extensively
> around Scotland and got constant victory [was consistently
> victorious].

<Jafnan> is an adverb, 'constantly, always', not an
adjective: 'and always got victory'.

> Síðan gerði hann sætt við Skota og eignaðist hálft
> Skotland og varð konungur yfir.

> Then he waylaid the Scots and became the owner of half of
> Scotland and was king over [it].

<Sætt> is 'reconciliation, agreement, settlement':
'Afterwards he made an agreement with [the] Scots'.

[...]

> Skotar héldu eigi lengi sættina því að þeir sviku hann í
> tryggð.

> Scots didn't hold the peace any longer so that [???]

'[The] Scots did not long keep the agreement, for they
betrayed (svíkja) him in time of truce.' (For <svíkja í
tryggð> see Cleasby & Vigfússon s.v. <tryggð>.)

> Svo segir Ari Þorgilsson hinn fróði um líflát Þorsteins að
> hann félli á Katanesi.

> So says Ari Thorgilsson the Learned about Thorstein's
> death when [?] he fell at Caithness.

Not 'when', but 'that': <segja at> is 'to say that'.

[...]

> Og er hún frá það að Þorsteinn var látinn en faðir hennar
> andaður þá þóttist hún þar enga uppreist fá mundu.

> And when [????}

Did <frá> cause trouble? Here it's not the preposition, but
rather the past tense of <fregna> 'to hear of'. Literally
it's 'And when she heard of that, that Þ. was dead and her
father dead, then she thought that she would receive no
reparation there'. More colloquially, 'And when she heard
that Þ. and her father were dead, she thought that she would
receive no reparation for that'.

> Eftir það lætur hún gera knörr í skógi á laun.
> After that [???] ship in forest in secret.

This is the <láta> + infinitive construction, 'to cause to
X'. It's also impersonal: 'After this [not 'that'] she has
a knorr built (<gera>, <gøra> in Zoëga) in the wood in
secret'. (A knorr was a relatively wide-beamed ship, often
a merchant ship.)

> Og er skipið var algert þá bjó hún skipið og hafði auð
> fjár.

> And when the ship was complete she lived [???] and had
> wealth [???]

Here again we have <bjó> from <búa> 'to prepare, to make
ready'. <Auð> is the accusative of <auðr> 'riches, wealth',
and <fjár> is the genitive of <fé> 'cattle, esp. sheep;
property, money'; <auðr fjár> is literally '(a) wealth of
money', but Zoëga s.v. <auðr> suggests simply 'great
wealth'. 'And when the ship was complete, she made the ship
ready and had great wealth.'

> Hún hafði í brott með sér allt frændlið sitt það er á lífi
> var og þykjast menn varla dæmi til vita að einn kvenmaður
> hafi komist í brott úr þvílíkum ófriði með jafnmiklu fé og
> föruneyti.

> [???]

'She had abroad with her her entire family, that which was
alive, and people thought themselves hardly to know of an
instance (Zoëga s.v. <dœmi> (7)) in which (literally 'that')
one woman had escaped abroad from such hostilities with so
much property and company (or 'retinue').'

> Má af því marka að hún var mikið afbragð annarra kvenna.

> [???] she was a very paragon among women.

<Má>, from <mega>, is in the list of irregular verbal forms
in Zoëga; <marka> here is 'to observe, to infer' (Z. s.v.
<marka> (7)). The construction is <mega> + infinitive 'to
be able to X', and in this case it's impersonal: 'From this
it can be inferred (or 'one can infer') that she was ...'.

Brian