Thank you for your help, Brian.
Grace

> Síðan mælti hún: "Ef þú vilt nafn mitt vita þá heiti eg
> Melkorka."

> Afterwards she spoke, "If you want to know my name then I
> am named Melkorka."

Just as a matter of possible interest, <Melkorka> is an ON
rendering of Early Irish <Máel Curcaig>.

> Höskuldur bað hana þá segja lengra ætt sína.
> Hoskuld bade her then speak of her extended lineage.

<Lengra> is an adverb, 'at greater length, further': he
asked her to say more ('speak further') about her lineage.

> Hún svarar: "Mýrkjartan heitir faðir minn. Hann er
> konungur á Írlandi.

> She answers, "My father is named Myrkjartan. He is a king
> in Ireland.

<Myrkjartan> is an attempt to render Early Irish
<Muirchertach> into ON.

> Eg var þaðan hertekin fimmtán vetra gömul."
> I was taken here from there at fifteen years old."

Note that the first <e> in <hertekin> is short, while that
in <hér> 'here' is long. <Hertekin> is the nom. sing. fem.
past participle of <hertaka> 'to take captive'; the <her->
is related to <herr> 'army, troops; host, crowd', so the
participial adjective is literally 'troop-taken'. 'I was
captured from there at fifteen years old.'

> Höskuldur kvað hana helsti lengi hafa þagað yfir svo góðri
> ætt.

> Hoskuld said of her to have been most? quiet for a long
> time over such a good lineage.

<Helsti> is Zoëga's <helzti> 'far too'; <helzti lengi> is
'far too long'. 'Höskuld said that she had been silent far
too long over such a good lineage.'

> Síðan gekk Höskuldur inn og sagði Jórunni hvað til nýlundu
> hafði gerst í ferð hans.

> Afterwards Hoskuld went inside and told Jorunn what a
> strange thing had happened on his journey.

The basic sense of <nýlunda> is 'something new'; any
strangeness is secondary, a consequence of the newness.
Basically, he told her what had happened that was new and
unexpected.

> Jórunn ... kvað sér ekki um kynjamenn alla
> Jorunn ... said not to see to all strange people

CV s.v. <kyn> 'wonder' has <kynjamenn>; the usual sense is
apparently 'fairies, goblins' (literally 'wonder-people'),
but it offers this exact passage as an example of another
sense, 'uncouth people'. But the biggest problem here is
that the verb in the dependent clause has been omitted: this
is an elliptical instance of <e-m er ekki um e-t> 'one does
not like', which can be found at Zoëga s.v. <um> (9). <Sér>
is the dative reflexive pronoun; it fills the <e-m> slot in
the idiom. If we follow CV, it's 'Jórunn ... said that she
disliked all uncouth people'. I'm inclined to think,
though, that she's objecting to the lack of verifiable
information about Melkorka's background, not to any actual
uncouthness: Melkorka isn't so much an uncouth person as a
mystery person.

> Var Jórunn hvergi betur við hana en áður en Höskuldur
> nokkuru fleiri.

> Jorunn was neither better with her than before but Hoskuld
> somewhat more.

This <hvergi> is the adverb, in Zoëga's sense (2) 'not at
all'.

Brian
Fred and Grace Hatton
Hawley Pa