At 11:33:12 AM on Thursday, July 22, 2010, Fred and Grace
Hatton wrote:

> En þessi duga þér eigi."
> But this will not suffice for you."

<Þessi> is plural: 'these'. I think that the intended sense
is 'do not suffice': right now in the fight they aren't
getting him what he wants. 'Will not suffice' would
probably be constructed with the verb <munu> as an auxiliary
-- <En þessi munu þér eigi duga> or the like.

> Dræpi ek frænda hans, væri þat stór skömm, ok fjölskylda
> hans hefndi mér hans."

> Were I to kill his kinsman, it would be a great shame and
> his duty to avenge him against me."

<Hefndi> is a 3rd person singular subjunctive, not an
infinitive, so it needs a subject; unfortunately, the only
possibility in sight is <fjölskylda hans>, which, based on
Zoëga, makes little sense. The entry in CV clears up the
matter: the word came to mean 'a large family, household',
apparently by way of the idea that lots of children are an
encumbrance. (The Icelandic Online dictionary goes even
further and gives the modern sense simply as 'family'.) CV
says that this sense is hardly found in the old writers, so
its use here by Jackson may be an error, but the intended
sense must be 'and his family would avenge him on me'.

> Hann hefir tekinn mik sem bróður sinn, ok vilda ek eigi
> blekkja minn bróður."

> He has taken me as his brother and I did not with to
> deceive my brother."

Although neither Z. nor CV says so, <blekkja> can also mean
'to cheat', which fits the context a bit better, at least if
it's interpreted as 'to break faith with'.

Brian