At 9:55:27 PM on Monday, July 29, 2013,
elliot.holland@... wrote:

> •Síðan ríða þeir báðir bræður vestur til Helgafells.

> --Then ride (pres. pl.) they (mas. nom) both (nom)
> brothers (pl. nom mas. like <faðir?>) to-the-west to
> Helgafell (gen from prep <til>)

Yes, <bróðir> inflects much like <faðir>: it has <bróður> in
the singular oblique cases, just as <faðir> has <föður>, and
the ON nom. plur. <brœðr>, like <feðr>, shows front
mutation.

> --They, both brothers, then ride westwardly to Helgafell.

This is certainly not wrong, but I’d go for a less
word-for-word translation: ‘Then both brothers ride west to
Helgafell’, or more likely ‘Then the two brothers ride west
to Helgafell’.

> •Þorkell tekur við þeim með allri blíðu.

> --Thorkell receives them with all friendliness (fem. a, d.
> or g.)

As you say, <blíðu> could be any of the sing. oblique cases,
but <allri> can only be fem. dat. sing., so it must be
dative. (Gen. is doubly excluded: <með> takes dat. or acc.)

> --Thorkell welcomes them with friendliness.

I would say ‘with great friendliness’ or the like, to
account for the <allri>.

> •þorleikur dvelst að Helgafelli um hríð.

> --Thorleikur stays (refl) on Helgafell (dat) around storm.

> --Thorleikur stays at Helgafell during a storm.

This is <hríð> 'a while', Z3; Zoëga even has the phrase <um
hríð> 'for a while'.

> •Þorleikur …ríður síðan til Hvitár...

> Þorleikur rides then to Hvitár.

The nominative is <Hvítá>, so it’s ‘to Hvítá’ (or ‘to the
White River’, if you choose to translate meaningful
place-names).

> •Var hann nú að Helgafelli um veturinn en Bolli í Tungu.

> --He was now at Helgafell (dat. no motion) in (the) winter
> and Bolla (was) in Tungu.

No need for the first set of parentheses: <veturinn>
includes the (postposed) definite article. This is another
case in which <var> is probably better translated 'stayed'
and <um> as 'during': ‘He stayed now at Helgafell during the
winter, and Bolli at Tunga’. (Note the nominatives <Bolli>
and <Tunga>.)

> •þa gekk Snorri á tal þeirra bræðra.

> --There goes Snorra to talk brothers (gen pl.).

> --Snorra goes there to talk to the brothers.

<Þá> here is 'then'. <Þeirra bræðra> is, as you say, gen.
plur.; it modifies <tal>, so we have 'the brothers’
conversation' or 'the conversation of the brothers'. Among
the sense shown by Zoëga for <ganga á> is <ganga á e-t> 'to
encroach upon', and the literal sense is something like 'to
go to something'. This is somewhere between ‘Then Snorri
butted in on the brothers’ conversation’ and ‘Then Snorri
went to join the brothers’ conversation’. You lack the
context to judge where on that scale it might fall, so the
second version is safer. (In context there does seem to be
some implication that he really wanted to know what they
were talking about; I’ve the impression that the actual
strength of the statement might be something like that of
English ‘Then Snorri inserted himself into the brothers’
conversation’.)

> •Hann tók vel kveðju þeirra.

> --He took/recieved well their welcomes.

<Kveðju> is singular: 'their greeting/welcome'.

Brian