a blog by Peter Leonard
Icelandic homework helps distract you from electoral returns. Some sentences in Hákonar Saga Góða (The Saga of Haakon the Good) are eerily similar in Old Norse and English:
Eptir þat stóð Hákon sjálfr upp ok talaði.
After that stood Haakon [him]self up and talked.
About every other verb in this saga is herja, to harry:
Þá sigldi hann suðr till Englands ok herjaði um Skotland, hvar sem hann kom við land.
Then sailed he south to England and harried about Scotland, whereever he came with land [came ashore].
Hann herjaði ok allt norðr um England.
He harried also all north about England.
Herjuðu Danir ok Norðmenn optliga þangat.
Harried Danes and Northmen [Norwegians] often thither.
Also, I'd just like to point out the 13th-century word for Homeland Security crops up in this text: landvǫrn. We'll see if a terminological switch to "Landwarn" is on Tom Ridge's second-tern agenda.