# Old English: Þa sloh hine an heora mid anre æxe



## Elske_m

I don't know if anyone will be able to help me with this, because it is a question about Old English (ie. English as spoken between the 5th and 12th centuries).

I'm trying to translate this sentence into present day English:
*Þa sloh hine an heora mid anre æxe*
I've somehow come up with:
*Then one hit(/slew?) him with their ax. *


Any suggestions would be appreciated. I guess what I have kind of makes sense, it just sounds awkward. Although I guess that what sounds awkward now might not have over a thousand years ago!​


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## Forero

I'll guess it says:

_Then one of them struck him with an ax.
_ 
Though _slew_ is derived from _sloh_, I think _sloh_ just means struck.
_Anre_ is just "one" I think.  Wouldn't "their" be _hire_?


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## Elske_m

Probably yes  
It was the _heora_ that was causing me bother. The reason I stuck a 'their' in is because I thought that _heora_ had something to do with the genitive, and I couldn't think where it slotted in, but I can understand now how it could translate to 'of them'.
Thank you very much for your reply, it was very helpful!


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## berndf

_anre _is here not genitive. _an*re *æx*e*_ (case suffixes in bold) is instrumental/dative. The preposition _mid_ requires the dative, originally instrumental which merged into the dative already during the OE period (with a few exceptions).

(I don't know if it helps you but the OE declension system is very similar to the modern German one, except that the instrumental has completely disappeared in German.)


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## Elske_m

berndf said:


> _anre _is here not genitive. _an*re *æx*e*_ (case suffixes in bold) is instrumental/dative. The preposition _mid_ requires the dative, originally instrumental which merged into the dative already during the OE period (with a few exceptions).
> 
> (I don't know if it helps you but the OE declension system is very similar to the modern German one, except that the instrumental has completely disappeared in German.)


 
Thanks for trying to help, but I already knew that _anre _was not genitive.


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## berndf

Elske_m said:


> Thanks for trying to help, but I already knew that _anre _was not genitive.


Sorry, I misread your last comment. Yes, _heora _is genitive (i.e. _of them_) but not possessive (i.e. not _their_).


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## Elske_m

berndf said:


> Sorry, I misread your last comment. Yes, _heora _is genitive (i.e. _of them_) but not possessive (i.e. not _their_).


 
Cool, thanks for the confirmation  it makes sense to me now.


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