At 1:50:11 PM on Thursday, July 8, 2010, Fred and Grace
Hatton wrote:

> Sonr brá sverði mót föður, ok faðir brá sverði mót syni.

> Son turned (his) sword against (his) father, and father
> turned (his) sword against (his) son.

<Brá sverði> is 'drew sword' (Zoëga s.v. <bregða> (1)).

> En Dúkú svaraði með brósu, áðr en hann hljóp ór skipi inn
> í bát fyrir neðan í vatninu, ok bátrinn hvarf.

> And Duku answered with a smile? (brosa) before he leaped
> out of the ship into a boat below in the water and the
> boat disappeared (or turned).

Since it's the end of the chapter, 'disappeared' seems
likely.

> Þat skip, er Dúkú hafði stolit frá Jóða föður sínum, var
> it skjótlegasta skip, ok Jóði átta ekki annat, er kunni ná
> tökum á því.

> That ship which Duku had stolen from Yoda, his father, was
> the fastest ship and Yoda had no other which ?? to
> overtake it ??

<Kunni> is third person singular past indicative of <kunna>,
and <kunna> + infinitive is 'to be able to' (Z. s.v. <kunna>
(10)). The infinitive here is <ná> 'get hold of, reach,
overtake; get, obtain', which takes the dative of the object
overtaken or got. <Tökum> is the dative plural of <tak> 'a
hold, a grasp' or of <taka> 'a taking, a capture'. These
are close enough in meaning that it really doesn't seem to
matter much which word is actually involved: either way,
it's something like 'Yoda had no other that could get
graspings/takings of it', i.e., 'Yoda had no other that
could overtake it'.

In the modern language, by the way, <tak> figures in the
expression <ná tökum á e-u> 'to master something',
apparently both figuratively ('to master Old Norse') and
more literally ('subdue, conquer'), so we're probably
dealing with <tak> rather than <taka> in the sentence above.

> Ok þat var margir menn, er stóðu í mót Jeðifjorðumönnum
> enn, ok bardagi helt áfram lengi.

> And it was many men who stood against (the) Jedi Firth men
> still and battles held forwards for a long time.

<Bardagi> is singular; <helt áfram>, while literally 'held
forward', can be translated 'continued'.

> En þá er menn Dúkús váru drepnir eða flýðir, ...
> And then when Duku's men were slain or fled, ...

Thinking of <þá er> as 'then when' probably helps in making
sense of the construction, but so far as I can tell, it
functions just like English 'when' and can be so translated.

> Hann reri út til þessa skips, ok vænti ekki þess, at hann
> skyli finna Anakinn á lífi, því at Jóði sagði honum frá
> inu stóra sári, er Dúkú veitti honum.

> He rowed out to this ship and gave no hope of this, that
> he should find Anakinn alive, because Yoda told him of the
> severe wound which Duku gave him.

<Vænta> can also be 'to hope for, expect', a sense that fits
a little better here: 'He rowed out to the ship and did not
expect that he would find A. alive'.

> Víga-Óbívan tók Anakin aptr til fjöru, ...
> Slayer Obiwan brought Anakinn back to life ...

<Fjöru> is from <fjara>, here in the sense 'shore, beach'.

> Meis spurði, hvárt Víga-Óbívan vildi, at sjá þrælsson
> lifi.

> Meis asked why Slayer Obiwan wanted to see (the) thrall's
> son alive.

<Hvárt> is 'whether'; <sjá> isn't the verb 'to see' here,
but rather an old form of <sá> 'that, the'. 'M. asked
whether V-Ó wanted that the thrall's son live' (or more
naturally in English, 'wanted the thrall's son to live').

> ... at maðr komi til Jeðifjarðinga, ...
> that a man would come to (the) Jedi Firths, ...

The <-ing-> of <Jeðfjarðinga> shows that we're talking about
the inhabitants of the Jedi Fjords, not the fjords
themselves. But I think that Jackson made a mistake here:
a man of the Jedi Fjords would be a <Jeðifirðingr>, and the
genitive plural would be <Jeðifirðinga>, not
<Jeðifjarðinga>.

> En ek trúi eigi á þenna þrælsson, ...
> But I do not believe in this thrall's-son, ...

From the context it just about has to be 'But I do not trust
(in) this thrall's son'.

Brian