At 1:32:17 PM on Monday, November 22, 2010, Sabin Densmore
wrote:

> I want to start working on translating the Havamal, and
> I'm hoping you guys might know of the best dictionary and
> grammar aid I can use to start with. I do plan on getting
> some books, but in the meantime I figured I'd save some
> scratch and start online.

> Any suggestions?

The two standard English-language Old Norse dictionaries are
Cleasby & Vigfússon, Icelandic-English Dictionary, and
Zoëga's Concise Dictionary of Old Icelandic, which is
basically an abridged and slightly rearranged version of CV.
Zoëga is easier to use, but it does lack some entries that
are found in CV. There is a nice on-line version of Zoëga
at <http://norse.ulver.com/dct/zoega/index.html>, and
another at
<http://www.alfaleith.org/reading/zoega/index002.php>; both
include the grammatical tables at the end of the book.
Alternatively, you can download the whole book as a 3.5 MB
PDF from the Files section of this group. CV can be
consulted at
<http://www.alfaleith.org/reading/vigfusson/index002.php> or
at
<http://lexicon.ff.cuni.cz/texts/oi_cleasbyvigfusson_about.html>.

If you can read Danish, Johann Fritzner's Ordbog over det
gamle norske Sprog can be consulted via the interface at
<http://www.edd.uio.no/perl/search/search.cgi?appid=86&tabid=1275>.
(Note that some spaces between words were lost when the
original was transferred to the web.) All three volumes are
also available for download at Google Books.

An initial grammar aid is the partial online course at
<http://notendur.hi.is/haukurth/norse/>. More technical,
but also more extensive, is the Old Norse Online course at
<http://www.utexas.edu/cola/centers/lrc/eieol/norol-TC-X.html>.

Oh, I almost forgot: sometimes the modern Icelandic
dictionary at
<http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/IcelOnline/Search.TEId.html>
is helpful, especially since it recognizes inflected forms.
You do have to be aware of certain consistent spelling
differences between Old and modern Icelandic, however.

I think that I've covered the most useful on-line sources.
For print source I strongly recommend Michael Barnes, A New
Introduction to Old Norse, already mentioned by Patti: you
can't beat it for a combination of readability and
reasonable price. Patti gave an Amazon.co.uk link; here's
an Amazon.com link.

<http://www.amazon.com/New-Introduction-Norse-Michael-Barnes/dp/0903521652/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1290491019&sr=1-1>

Brian