Fróðskaparrit - 01.01.1964, Blaðsíða 82

90
Færeyinga saga, chapter forty
perimeter, and was then used only in this specialised sence
to mean both the perimeter line and the space it encloses.1)
Possibly this development was by way of a general sense
of boundary indicated by a furrow or incised line. The
nine reitav drawn by f>rándr must thus have been concen*
tric squares scratched in the earth floor around the square
made by the grindr. There is no harm in translating reitar
as lines as long as this design is made clear, as it is by
Meissner, for example, who writes: »Das Gehege wird mit
neun Linien umzogen«. It is harder to see exactly how
other translators have visualised their loculi distincti, ind-
cirklede Pladser, squares, ruter and so forth,2) but one
form of translation seems positively misleading in its ambb
guity, and dangerously so because of the eminence of the
authors. This is Magnus Olsen’s version: »og 9 streker
rister Trond ut i alle retninger«; cf. Lid, »han riste 9 strik
ut i alle leider«, Stromback, »han ristar nio streck át alla
háll ut frán grindarna«,3) de Vries, »von da aus werden
neun Striche (in den Boden) geritzt«. These do not suggest
enclosed spaces at all, and may even give the impression
that the lines drawn were not parallel to the sides of the
grindr but at right*angles to them. This ambiguity arises
largely from the translation of alla uega vt as »out in all
directions«, when in fact it must simply mean »on all sides«,
>) One can compare kyklos, circulus, and other words for circle,
which mean both the circumference line and the whole figure; cf.
Eitrem, op. cit., 57. Cf. too the semantic spread of such a word as
bplkr (balkt).
2) Translators have of course not been very sure themselves. York
Powell, xxxviii, asks, »Are they [the squares] nine ‘houses’ surrounding
in a ring the lattices and fire, or are they nine concentric squares one
within the other?« Miss Ellis, 162, speaks of »the strange figure
drawn on the floor ... too obscure for us to know exactly what the
figure could have been like«.
3) The word nio is absent in Professor Strdmbáck’s printed text, but
the author has kindly inserted it in my copy.