PROVERBS AND PROVERBIAL SAYINGS THAT OCCUR IN THE STORY.
A friend should warn a friend of ill, [30]
Ale is another man, [55]
All must fare when they are fetched, [188]188
All things bide their day, [218]
All will come to an end, [233]
Bare is the back of the brotherless, [241]
Best to bairn is mother still, [41]
Bewail he, who brought the woe, [175]
Broad spears are about now, [133]
Deeds done will be told of, [224]
Even so shall bale be bettered by biding greater bale, [140]
For one thing alone will I not be known, [192]
From ill cometh ill, [105]
Good luck and goodliness are twain, [105]
Hand for wont doth yearn, [226]
Hottest is the fire that lies on oneself, [176]
Ill deed gains ill hap, [188]
Ill heed still to ill doth lead, [121]
Ill if a thrall is thine only friend, [240]
Ill it is ill to be, [165]
Ill it is to goad the foolhardy, [30]
Let one oak have what from the other it shaves, [67]
Little can cope with cunning of eld, [205]
Long it takes to try a man, [61]
Many a man lies hid within himself, [203]
Many a man stretches round the door to the lock, [86]
More one knows the more one tries, [30]
No man makes himself, [125]
[304] Now this, now that has strokes in his garth, [125]
Odd haps are worst haps, [37]
Oft a listening ear in the holt is anear, [173]
Oft fail in wisdom folk of better trust, [32]
Old friends are the last to sever, [240]
One may be apaid of a man's aid, [44]
Overpraised, and first to fail, [132]
Sooth is the sage's guess, [92]
Swear loud and say little, [266]
The lower must lowt, [267]
The nigher the call, the further the man, [211]
Things boded will happen, so will things unboded, [32]
Though the spoon has taken it up, yet the mouth has had no sup, [168]
Thralls wreak themselves at once, dastards never, [35]
Thrice of yore have all things happed, [262]
To the goat-house for wool, [226]
With hell's man are dealings ill, [176]
Woe is before one's own door when it is inside one's neighbour's, [105]
FOOTNOTES:
Such as 'Burnt Njal,' Edinburgh, 1861, 8vo, and 'Gisli the Outlaw,' Edinburgh, 1866, 4to, by Dasent; the 'Saga of Viga-Glum,' London, 1866, 8vo, by Sir E. Head; the 'Heimskringla,' London, 1844, 8vo, by S. Laing; the 'Eddas,' Prose by Dasent, Stockholm, 1842; Poetic by A.S. Cottle, Bristol, 1797, and Thorpe, London and Halle, 1866; the 'Three Northern Love Stories,' translated by Magnússon and Morris, London, 1875, and 'The Volsunga Saga,' translated by the same, London, 1870.
Such is the conversational title of this Saga; many of the other Sagas have their longer title abbreviated in a like manner: Egil's saga becomes Egla, Njal's saga Njála; Eyrbyggja saga, Laxdaela saga, Vatnsdaeela saga, Reykdaela saga, Svarfdaela saga, become Eyrbyggja, Laxdaela, Vatnsdaela, Reykdaela, Svarfdaela (gen. plur. masc. of daelir, dale-dwellers, is forced into a fem. sing. regularly declined, saga being understood); furthermore, Landnáma bók (landnáma, gen. pl. neut.) the book of land settlings, becomes Landnáma (fem. sing. regularly declined, bók being understood); lastly, Sturlunga saga, the Saga of the mighty family of the Sturlungs, becomes Sturlunga in the same manner.
Onund Treefoot brother to Gudbiorg
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Thorgrim Greypate Gudbrand
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Asmund the Greyhaired Asta (mother of)
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Grettir the Strong. Olaf the Saint.
"West over the Sea," means in the Sagas the British isles, and the islands about them—the Hebrides, Orkneys, &c.
South-isles are the Hebrides, and the other islands down to Man.
"Harald the Unshorn:" he was so called at first because he made a vow not to cut his hair till he was sole king of Norway. When he had attained to this, and Earl Rognvald had taken him to the bath and trimmed his hair, he was called "Fair-hair," from its length and beauty.
"Godi" is the name for the rulers of the thirty-nine districts into which the republic of Iceland was anciently divided. While the ancient religion lasted, their office combined in itself the highest civil and sacerdotal functions.
This is about as obscure as the original, which seems to allude to some event not mentioned in the Saga.
The old belief was that by this means only could a ghost be laid.
Biorn is Icelandic for bear.
The stone of steel-god's bane in Thorstein; Bylest's kin is Hel, death. The leopard is Bessi Skald-Torfason; byrni's flame, his sword. Thoughts-burg, a warrior's head.
Who was killed in Norway by the sons of Harek, and whose revenge is told of in the Saga of the Heath slayings (existing in fragment).
In the Landnáma he is called 'Hy-nef;' the meaning is doubtful, but it seems that the author of this history means to call him Hay-nose.
Ed. 1853 has the "Wide-landed, Viðlendings," which here is altered agreeably to the correction in ch. 14, p. 29.
The second month in the year, corresponding to our September.
Boose, a cow-stall.
Hall, a "stone": mund, is hand, and by periphrasis "land of fist"; so that Hallmund is meant by this couplet, and that was the real name of "Air," who is not a mere man, but a friendly spirit of the mountains.
This song is obviously incomplete, and the second and third stanzas speak of matters that do not come into this story.
'Pied-belly,' the name of the tame ram told of before.
Innan eptir, as here rendered, is the reading of the MS. from which Bergbua páttr is edited. Innar eptir, as the aforesaid edition of the tale has it, is wrong.
A man of twenty, thirty, forty, &c., is in the Icelandic expressed by the adjective tvítugr, prítugr, fertugr; a man twenty-five, thirty-five, &c., is hálf-prítugr, hálf-fertugr, &c.; the units beyond the tens are expressed by the particle um, a man of twenty-one, thirty-seven, or forty-nine, is said to have einn (i.e., vetr. winter) um = beyond, tvítugt, sjö um þrítugt, níu um fertugt, &c.
Hilda (Hildr) and Mist, goddesses of fight and manslaughter.