At 2:04:13 PM on Saturday, August 28, 2010, rob13567 wrote:

> That got me thinking: How would you convey the idea of
> walking somewhat forward?

> Ganga nökkut fram á mel (???)

Possibly <ganga skammt fram á mel>. Zoëga has <hann bjó
skammt frá Skallagrími> 'he lived a short distance from S.',
and in the modern language I've seen <þeir höfðu skammt
farið> 'they had gone a short distance', <koma skammt fram á
veg>, <sjá skammt fram á veginn>, and a definition of <lág
ljós> 'low lights' in a vehicular context as <ökuljós sem
beint er skammt fram á veginn> 'headlight that is aimed a
short distance forward along the road'.

> Second:

> Síðan lét Hrútur af höggva féið.

> Should be:

> Then Hrut had the cattle slaughtered.

> My mistranslation had him ceasing from slaughtering
> cattle, and this came in part from seeing that láta af e-u
> = to leave off, desist from.

> Am I correct now in seeing that one reason to reject "láta
> af" is because it requires a noun,

Not just a noun, but specifically a noun in the dative case.

> and "höggva" is a verb?

Yes. You could have <láta af höggum> 'desist from
beheadings', though!

Brian