Seeing a poem in an Old Norse saga typically discourages me. Thus, I decided to tackle the poem first, and deal with the much easier prose later on.
So, I present the first (and only) poem that I have ever tried to translate. I know even less about translating poetry than I do about translating prose, so I do not expect for my translation to be too good; however, unless I've feedback (hence the reason I've been asking so many questions on here), I shan't ever learn of my mistakes.
Here is, as always, the original Old Norse text first:
Fell inn forsnjalli
fyrst inn víglysti
ýgr í Austrvegi
allr á helpalla,
dauðr um dalreyðar
dáðkunnr miskunnar,
beit at brandmóti
brynstingr víkingum.
And here is my translation into English. It doesn't make much sense, but I'm hoping that that will work in my favour:
Slain the very brave
First the most defenseless
Fierce in Eastway
All unto death's step
Dead was the valley-red
Deed-known of mercy
Sliced in sword-meeting
Mail-sting from vikings.
Now that I've gotten the actual translation out of the way, does anybody know of some resources for translating such poems? I can find next to nothing online.