I’m just going to translate the two vísur. I’m giving them
in an older orthography.
Halli and Læknir are flattering Ásdís with the kind of
difficult verse usually used to praise a ruler or the like.
Hvert hefr, Gerðr, of gǫrva,
gangfǫgr liðar hanga
(ljúg vætr at mér) leygjar,
línbunden, fǫr þína?
þvít í vetr, hin vitra
{vangs}, sákak þik ganga,
{hirðidís}, frá húsi,
{húns}, skrautligar búna.
Whither have you made, Gerð
fair-gaited of joint’s hanging
(lie not to me) fire,
linen-wrapped, your journey?
for this winter, {the wise}
{field’s}, I did not see you go,
{guardian maid}, from (the) house,
{of the game piece}, more richly attired.
The particle <of> before the verb contributes little or
nothing to the sense and can be ignored in translation.
<Gǫrva> is the past participle of <gǫra> ~ <gera>. <Liðar>
is the gen. sing. of <liðr> 'a joint', and <leygjar> is the
gen. sing. of <leygr> 'a fire, a flame' (CV). <Hanga> is
hanging there in limbo; various sources agree that we’re
dealing with a compound, <hangaleygr> 'a hanging fire or
flame', that’s been artificially split here by the
admonition <ljúg vætr at mér>. <Gerðr> is the name of a
goddess, Frey’s wife, and should be understood simply as
'goddess'. The whole expression <Gerðr liðar hangaleygjar>
'goddess of joint’s hanging fire' is a kenning for 'woman':
the joint in question is the arm, its hanging fire is gold
rings, and the goddess of gold rings is a woman. Halli is
using the kenning, further modified by <gangfǫgr>
'fair-gaited', to address Ásdís. He also calls her
'linen-wrapped'; in view of Læknir’s description in the next
vísa, I suspect that this refers to her headdress.
<Vætr> is 'nothing, nought', but <lie> isn’t transitive, so
English pretty much requires 'not'.
The second four lines are harder, because the bits in curly
braces belong together as another description of Ásdís: she
is ‘the wise guardian-maid of the field of the game piece =
the wise guardian-maid of the gaming board = woman’.
<Hirðidís> 'guardian maid' is a compound, <hirði-dís>; both
elements are in CV. <Húns> is the gen. sing. of <húnn> 'a
knob, a game piece' (CV).
<Sákat> is <sá-ek-at> 'I did not see'. <Skrautligar> is the
comparative of the adverb <skrautliga>, not a form of the
adjective <skrautligr>. Although <í vetr> can be 'in
winter', it’s also 'this winter', which is the intended
sense here.
Whither have you made, Gerð
fair-gaited of joint’s hanging
(lie nought to me) fire,
linen-wrapped, your journey?
for this winter, {the wise}
{field’s}, I did not see you go,
{guardian maid}, from (the) house,
{of the game piece}, more richly attired.
Whither have you made your journey, fair-gaited,
linen-wrapped Gerð of the joint’s hanging fire? Don’t lie
to me. For this winter I have not seen you go more richly
attired from the house, wise guardian maid of the field of
the game piece.
Where are you going, fair-gaited, linen-wrapped woman?
Don’t lie to me. For this winter, woman, I have not seen
you go more richly dressed from home.
Sólgrund Siggjar linda
sjaldan hefr of faldet
jafnhǭtt; øglis stéttar
elds nú ’s skart á þellu;
hoddgrund, hvat býr undir,
Hlín, oflæti þínu,
hýrmælt, hóti fleira
hvítings, en vér lítum?
Sun-field of Sigg’s belts,
seldom have you hooded
so high; on hawk’s support’s
fire’s young pine is now finery;
treasure-field, what lies hidden under
{Hlín} your pride,
{sweet-spoken} more
{of [the] (white) drinking-horn} than we see?
Sigg is a small island off the west coast of Norway; it has
an entry in CV, though only identifying it as an island.
‘Sigg’s belts’ is to be understood as ‘island’s belts’, a
kenning for the sea. The sea’s sun is gold, and its field
is a wearer of gold, i.e., a woman: <sólgrund Siggjar linda>
is one complex kenning for 'woman'. ‘Hooded so high’
follows the Old Norse pretty literally; ‘worn so tall a
headdress’ is the intended sense. Here again the particle
<of> before the verb contributes little or nothing to the
sense.
Rob, you’ll find <öglir> in CV as a poetic term for a kind
of hawk. The hawk’s support is the hand, and its fire is of
course gold. <Þellu> is the oblique case of <þella> 'a
young pine' (CV), common in kennings for 'woman'; here we
have ‘hawk’s support’s fire’s young pine = hand’s fire’s
young pine = gold’s young pine = woman’. The ‘on’ in the
third line of my translation represents the <á> in the
fourth line of the Old Norse: I couldn’t find any way to
keep it in its proper place and make the syntax work in
English. The actual subject of this clause is <skart>
'finery': <nú er skart á øglis stéttar elds þellu> 'now is
finery on ...'.
Grace, <hoddgrund> is in CV s.v. <hodd> as a kenning for
'woman'; Læknir is using it as a term of address to Ásdís.
The bits that I enclosed in curly braces are also addressing
her. Hlín is a goddess, and <Hlín> is to be interpreted
simply as 'goddess'; ‘goddess of the drinking-horn’ is
another kenning for 'woman', and the whole is ‘sweet-spoken
woman’. Zoëga doesn’t actually have <búa undir e-u> 'to be
hidden under something', though some of his glosses at <búa
undir> at least suggest this sort of sense; in any case it’s
a natural extension of the rather literal 'dwell under'.
<Hóti meiri> is 'a bit more' or perhaps 'rather more', but
<hóti> serves no real purpose in English, so I translated
the phrase simply as 'more'. CV mentions that <hvítingr> is
a name for a drinking-horn, and in this context that’s the
only meaning that makes sense; the word is literally just
'(the) white' and was applied to several white things.
Sun-field of Sigg’s belts,
seldom have you hooded
so high; on hawk’s support’s
fire’s young pine is now finery;
treasure-field, what lies hidden under
{Hlín} your pride,
{sweet-spoken} more
{of [the] (white) drinking-horn} than we see?
Sun-field of Sigg’s belts, seldom have you worn so tall a
headdress; now finery is on the young pine of the hawk’s
support’s fire; treasure-field, what more than we see lies
hidden under your pride, sweet-spoken Hlín of the (white)
drinking-horn?
Woman, seldom have you worn so tall a headdress; now the
woman wears finery; woman, what more than we see lies
hidden under your pride, sweet-spoken woman?
Oof! I still find it amazing that people could compose
those things, never mind actually understand them when they
were recited! I suspect that this bit of the saga is
intended to be humorous: savage berserks flattering farm
girl as if they were court poets and she a queen.