Árbók Landsbókasafns Íslands - Nýr flokkur - 01.01.1991, Síða 86

86
ANDREW WAWN
Guðmundsson has put a for b & b for a in his plan of the öndvegi;
in whether the house stood north & south; in whether eldhus was
equivalent to skáli as in Laxdæla, or as in Egil to what we should call
‘kitchen’,33 & though last not least in what ‘hundrað silfrs’, meant in
English money - than in modern Icelandic wrongs. I hope that
you have got your coat & that it fits your bureaucracy well & I hope
too that a fortnight from this time my Njála will come out with all
its errors & imperfections on its head. Don’t fail to let Guðbrandr
write an answer at once to my last letter because I really must have
the information.
Dec 2 [1860]. I hope by this time you have got your coat... Please
also to say in so many words what you suppose one hundred in
silver was worth in our present English money in Njal’s time. I have
made my calculation from the data which you & Vigfússon have
sent me & I want to see if yours agrees. Just say in so many words
but write them by return of post. Also ask Guðbrandur if anything
is known of Gauk Thrandil’s son34 Asgrim’s foster brother except
what the saga tells us. Landnáma only mentions the fact of his
existence & I do not remember him anywhere else. Of course
Sviða-Kari, Singed-Kari in Landnáma, is Kári Sölmundsson.35 His
grandfather came from the Southern Isles & Kári seems to have
gone thither. At least Njál’s sons do not seem to have known him
till they met in Scotland’s Firths.
Jan 2 1861. You will have wondered what has become of me. I
have been up with an inflammation of the eyes & not been able to
write for a fortnight. I am much better, but not fit for much in the
way of sight. Today I have sent you £75.0.0. by Messrs Hambro,
the balance in my favour was £5 odd as you say your coat cost £5
10.0. So that after Bárentzen’s bill is paid there will be something
due to me. With best wishes of the season... Njal has been thrown
back by my blindness. I want you to send me... Grundvig’s Danish
Ballads.36 A man named Prior37 has been translating the Danish
33. See Dasent, 1861, pp.xcix-c for a detailed discussion of this problem.
34. See ÍF XII, pp.72-3, note 11. Dasent would have been particularly interested to have
learnt ofGaukr’s Íink with the Maeshowe runes which (in 1861) were still to be discovered.
35. See ÍF XII, p. 204, note 2.
36. N.F.S. Grundtvig, Danske Kœmpeviser (Copenhagen, 1847).
37. Richard Charles Alexander Prior, Ancient Danish Ballads (London, 1860).