Studia Islandica - 01.06.1994, Blaðsíða 166
164
Veblen’s translation, although practically contemporary
to Press’s, hails from the other side of the Atlantic. It takes
the greatest liberties in its renderings, and through both its
language and footnotes attempts consistently to link the
events of the past to modern realities which would be
recognisable to the reading audience without appreciable
difficulty, as is illustrated by his footnote explaining the
word höfðingi:
Such a “chieftain” was a local ruler, by custom, prestige, patronage,
and the strong arm, not by law. At this time (second quarter of the
tenth century), as well as under the later-organized Republic, there
was, in point of law, no executive or police in Iceland. The nearest
modern analogue of the Icelandic höfðingi and his powers, dignities
and duties, would be the political “Boss” as he functions in
American politics and in American municipal affairs. (V 14fn)
Arent and Magnússon and Pálsson especially are con-
cerned with smoothing out the obstacles for their readers’
understanding of the story, and thus alter the syntax, regis-
ter, and lexis extensively. In both cases the translators pro-
vide extensive aids to understanding and expect their read-
ing audience to avail itself of them. They can thus allow
themselves to use relatively unexplained terms in the text,
or terms which are not clearly defined by their new context,
accompanied by footnotes to explain the usage in more
detail for those who are not satisfied with the rendering.
B. Explanation or interpretation
This last method seems to prove a good solution in the case
of words such as brautgangs höfuðsmátt (94), which other-
wise requires a lengthy interpolation in the text to be com-
prehensible. Magnússon and Pálsson solve the problem
dexterously in offering the following translation of the pre-
viously quoted sentence where the phrase occurs:
J