> Svá sagði hlutr til, at Lúkr skyldi sitja hjá jarlsdóttur
> um kveldit.

> So said an additional thing, that Luke should sit near the
> Earl's daughter during the evening.

> So (the) lot said that Luke should sit near (the) earl’s
> daughter during the evening.

Rob: <til> goes with <sagði>. <Segja til> is 'to tell, to
inform'. If you really want to keep the word order and
still make it reasonable English, you might use 'Thus spoke
the lot[s], that ...'.

> Lúkr stóð upp ok gekk til rúms þess, es dóttir jarlsins
> hafði setit umb daginn.

> Luke stood up and went to that seat, which the earl's
> daughter had sat during the day.

> Luke stood up and went to this room, where the earl’s
> daughter had sat during the day.

I'm with Rob here: in this context <rúm> must be 'place,
seat': '... to the seat in which the jarl's daughter had sat
during the day'.

> Hvat skaltu, sveinn, í sess minn?

> What shall you, child, in my seat?

> What do you seek? ( Like German? -Was willst du?) in my
> seat

German <Was willst du?> 'What do you want?' seems to be
exactly right: a modern Icelandic school edition explains
<Hvat skaltu> as <Hvað vilt þú>. <Sveinn> should probably
be translated 'boy' to give it the right dismissive flavor.

> þvít þú sjaldan hefr gefnar
> Because you seldom have given
> ?? you have seldom given

Rob's got it: <þvít> is a contraction of <því at> 'because,
for'.

> vargi varmar bráðir,

> a wolf corpses of the newly slain, (Z. bráð - varmar
> bráðir, the corpses of the newly slain)

> to a wolf corpses of the newly slain

Literally it's 'warm raw flesh', but of course referring to
fresh corpses.

> vesa vilk ein of mína;
> be one (vilk?) of mine;
> I want to be alone by myself?

Rob: <vilk> is a contraction of <vill ek>. The modern
Icelandic school edition that I mentioned explains it as <Ég
vil vera ein um mína hitu>, and Icelandic Online s.v. <hita>
gives <vera einn um hituna> 'reap all the benefits for
oneself'. (Literally it's 'to be alone concerning the
heat'.) The basic sense is clearly 'I want to be alone'; my
guess is that <of mína> (= <um mína>) is elliptical for <of
mína hitu> and merely strengthens the assertion -- something
like 'I want to be in my enjoyment of the comforts of my
place' -- but I'm really not certain.

> sátt-a-þú hrafn í hausti
> sat on you a raven in the fall
> you haven’t seen a raven in fall

Rob: <Sátt> is the second person sing. past tense of <sjá>
'to see', and <-a-> is a negative suffix found almost
exclusively in poetry, so it's 'you did not see' (though I
suspect that Grace is right about the nearest English
equivalent to the intended sense).

> of hræsolli gjalla,
> often screams fear,
> of carrion-swill to shout

When <of> is found as a preposition, it's equivalent to
<um(b)>, here in sense (Z5) 'over'. <Hræsollr>
'corpse-swill' is a kenning for blood; it's in the Lexicon
Poeticum.

> vast-a-þú at, þars eggjar
> were you that, there which eggs on
> you are not that (one who?), eggs on there

<Egg> 'egg' is a neuter ja-stem: it's inflected like <nes>,
one of the examples in the table at the back of Zoëga. In
particular, its nom. and acc. sing. and plur. are all <egg>,
and it doesn't have a form <eggjar>. (The closest it comes
is <eggja> in the gen. plur.) This word is the plural of
<egg> 'edge', referring to the blade of a sword. <At> goes
with <vast>: <vera at> 'to be near, by, at (a place or
thing)': 'you were not there where edges [= swords]'.

Rob: Here again you have that negative suffix <-a->.

> á skelþunnar runnusk.
> At thin-shell began a fight.
> attack on thin shelled (skulls).

<Skelþunnar> is an adjective, here fem. nom. plur., matching
(and modifying) <eggjar>: 'shell-thin edges', meaning 'sharp
blades'. The preposition <á> goes with <runnusk>, making
<runnusk á>, here 'attacked one another' (or in this context
simply 'did battle' or the like). Putting the pieces
together:

What do you want, boy, in my seat?
Because you have seldom given
[the] wolf warm raw flesh [= fresh corpses],
I want to be alone.
you did not see a raven in [the] fall
shriek over corpse-swill [= blood];
you were not there where edges [= swords]
shell-thin [= sharp] did battle.

> Lúkr tók til hennar ok setti hana niðr hjá sér.
> Luke took to her and sat her down by him.
> Luke picked her up? and set her down near him.

A modern Icelandic school edition explains <tók til hennar>
as <greip í hana>, which is 'took hold of her'. (Jackson
makes it 'put his arm around her'.) I made it 'Lúk took
hold of her and sat her down beside him'.

> Farit hefk blóðgum brandi,
> I have gone made bloody a sword blade,
> I have gone with bloody sword-blade

Rob: <blóðgum brandi> is a kind of dative of respect;
Grace's 'with' captures the sense.

> svát mér benþiðurr fylgði,
> so that to me ben(?) wood-grouse followed,
> so that to me carrion bird-wounds followed,

<Ben> is 'a wound'; the Lex. Poet. has quite a few kennings
in <ben-> 'wound-', including this one: the
'wound-wood-grouse' is the raven.

> ok gjallanda geiri;
> and screaming gore;
> and with screaming spear,

Rob: <geiri> is the dative of <geirr> 'a spear'; the
construction is the same as that with <blóðgum brandi>.

> gangr vas harðr af víkingum;
> going was hard of the Vikings;
> going was hard for Vikings

<Af víkingum> is 'by vikings'; <gangr> here is 'a rapid or
furious going' (CV, II.2), the intended sense being 'an
attack'. (This is also mentioned in the Lex. Poet.) 'A
hard going [= attack] [there] was by vikings'.

> gørðum reiðir róstu,
> We make ride a riot,
> angry (we?) made a brawl

Yes, the ending <-um> indicates that the implied subject is
'we'; <reiðir>, masc. nom. plur. of <reiðr> 'wroth, angry',
modifies it. Here <rósta> 'tumult' is a kenning for
'battle': 'angry, we did battle'.

> rann eldr of sjot manna,
> a fire ran of man's (sjot?)
> fire ran from people’s homes,

Grace got it, but the word should be <sjǫt> 'abode, home';
you can see the original, from Egils saga, here:

<http://is.wikisource.org/wiki/Egill_Skalla-Gr%C3%ADmsson/Lausav%C3%ADsur_og_brot>

It's the ninth lausavísa, Egil's answer to the daughter of
Arnfinn, jarl of Halland.

> létum blóðga búka
> We let (búka) get bloody
> left bloody bodies

Rob: <búka> is the nom./acc. plur. of <búkr> 'body, torso'.

> í borghliði sǿfask.
> In a gate of a fort are killed.

<Létum> goes with the infinitive <sǿfask>, so this would
seem to be literally 'we made bloody bodies to be killed in
[the] city gate'. That's pretty awful English, of course;
if I were doing an even slightly literary translation I'd be
very strongly tempted to translate it as if the last word
were the past participle (masc. acc. plur.) <sǿfaða>
'killed', reading <létum> as '(we) left': 'we left bloody
bodies killed in [the] city gate'. Putting it all together:

I have fared with bloody brand [= blade],
so that wound-wood-grouse [= raven] followed me,
and [with] echoing spear;
a hard going [= attack] [there] was by vikings;
angry, we made tumult [= battle],
fire ran all over men's homes [= burnt them],
we left bloody bodies
killed in [the] city gate.

Brian