# Icelandic: hæklari



## Silver_Biscuit

Hi,

I am trying to translate a part of Jón Kalman Stefánsson's _Skurðir í rigningu_ and I am having trouble with this word, which I can't find in any dictionary. The word is _hæklari_; the sentence reads as follows:



> Til að tryggja mér hlutdeild í hömlulausri kátínu þessa dags, hafði ég talað mig upp í stöðu brautaskiptis; vann síðusti dagana á upphækkuðum palli *hæklaranna* með útsýni yfir aðalbandið.



The context is that the narrator is working in a slaughterhouse, and it's the last day of the slaughtering season. My draft translation so far is:



> To ensure myself a share of the unrestrained merriment of this day, I had talked my way into the job of switching the conveyor belts [not really sure about this bit either, _brautaskiptir_]; worked the final days on a raised platform with a view over the main conveyer belt.



I found the verb _að hækla_ in the dictionary, which apparently means to raise (children or livestock) with difficulty, and I asked an Icelander who said that they didn't know, but that they guessed it had something to do with hanging up the carcasses of the slaughtered animals. Can anybody shed some light on this?

Thanks!


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## sindridah

Icelandic or English ?? ahh I don't know! I don't have an answer but I have pretty reasonable suggestion I believe. Since he is working on this elevated platform I think he can 
be meaning that it's dangerously elevated since we have the Icelandic adjective *hækilegur* which means dangerous and the author somehow decided to create a slang noun which ended up as hækill?

It's better to read to the whole question first Sindri , But yeah also these other Icelanders suggestion is very likely, something about this hæklara and emerging(?) sheeps or something like that. Pretty confusing word.


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## Alxmrphi

> Til að tryggja mér hlutdeild í hömlulausri kátínu þessa dags, hafði ég talað mig upp í stöðu brautaskiptis; vann síðusti dagana á upphækkuðum palli *hæklaranna* með útsýni yfir aðalbandið.


Every time I read that sentence alarm bells start going off when I see "*vann síðusti dagana*".
Is it right? Typo? Different sort of usage? I'd have put *síðustu*. Would I be wrong?

(I also tried searching everywhere for this word and only found about 4 uses, none of which had an explanation!)
((Nice to see you around again SB ))


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## Silver_Biscuit

Yep, it's a typo! Good spot, sorry.

*Hækill* _is_ a word. It means *hock*, (which is the ankle bone on an animal's back leg, Sindri). But I checked bin.arnastofnun.is, and the form _hæklaranna_ doesn't appear in the declension table for _hækill_, although the dictionary notes do actually suggest that it should, I just realised. The íslensk-íslensk dictionary that I have says:



> *hækill, -ils, -lar *K hækilbein; afturfótarskækill á fleginni húð



And for _skækill_, we have:



> *skækill, -ils, -lar  *K *1* sepi á skinni; lítið skinn; FT _skæklar_ þeir hlutar skinns sem lukt hafa um ganglimina



Soooo, this is something to do with the animals' skins / ankles / legs? I'm not sure what "lukt" means in this definition? Ugh, I hate it when you look up a word in a dictionary and then you have to look up like ten other words!


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## Alxmrphi

Well I found an example here in HI's Ritmálssafn, which you can see, obviously has something to do with slaughtering animals:


> Við stöndum í hnapp, vaskarar, garnameistarar, *hæklari* og vamba-bílstjóri og horfum með ólundarlegri óþreyju á markviss högg rotarans og hröð handtök fláningsmannanna.



With the _garnamestari _(I dread to think what a job that'd be like), that and a _fláningsmaður_ , and the like, it's easy to see it's related, though the exact meaning still eludes me.


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## Silver_Biscuit

Yeah, I saw that. I assume the _garnameistari_ is the one who takes the guts out (yeah, nice job title), the _fláningsmaður_ is the one who skins the carcass, the _vaskari_ cleans the carcass (?), the _vamba-bílstjóri_ is the one who takes out the stomach so... do people think that a _hæklari_ is someone who strings the carcasses up?


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## Alxmrphi

Silver_Biscuit said:


> Yeah, I saw that. I assume the _garnameistari_ is the one who takes the guts out (yeah, nice job title), the _fláningsmaður_ is the one who skins the carcass, the _vaskari_ cleans the carcass (?), the _vamba-bílstjóri_ is the one who takes out the stomach so... do people think that a _hæklari_ is someone who strings the carcasses up?


It looks like it.
You've just put me off my tea, by the way.
D)


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## sindridah

Got my weapon! Icelandic dictionary. 

Að hækla: koma upp börnum sínum (eða fé) með erfiðismunum.

Hækill, ils -lar : hækilbein; afturfótarskækill á fleginni húð; vertu ( bíddu ) hægur, h. minn bíddu nú hægur kunningi.


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## Silver_Biscuit

Jááá, ég veit það Sindri. Ég er búin að lesa þessi nákvæmu orð í orðabókinni minni. En heldurðu að orðið "hæklaranna" vísi til mannanna sem hengja upp skrokkana, eða til skrokkanna sjálfra? Eða þýðir það eitthvað annað? 

Og er það um að ræða skrokka, eða húðir?


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## sindridah

Ég er nokkuð sannfærður um það að höfundurinn eigi nefnilega við þá. Kemur eiginlega ekkert annað til greina en að þetta séu vinnufélagar hans sem hengja einmitt upp skrokkana og hann ákveður að kalla þá hæklara.


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## Silver_Biscuit

Takk! Nú á ég bara að finna einhverja leið til að segja þetta á ensku, sem ætti ekki að vera of erfitt.


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