# Swedish: genom förtvivlade



## LugubriusMachinator

More Lord of the Rings questions. Still in the intro, the sentence is: 

"Den omtalade vidare Frodos och hans vänners flykt från sitt hem i det stilla Fylke, förföljda av Mordors Svarta ryttare och deras terror -- tills de till sist med hjälp av Aragorn, utbygdsjägarn från Eridaor, *genom förtvivlade faror nådde *fram till Elronds hus i Vattnadal."

My attempt at translation is:

"It [the book mentioned in the previous sentence] further mentions Frodo's and his friends' flight from his home in the quiet Shire, persecuted by Mordor's wicked horses and their terror, until at last, with help from Aragorn, the utbygdsjägarn* from Eriador, despairing of danger, they arrived at Elrond's house in Vattnadal." 

My confusion is with the "genom"phrase. Why is "förtvivlade" in the past tense if it's part of this phrase? Where exactly does the phrase end?

*I can't even begin to translate this word.


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## MattiasNYC

*"tills de till sist" "genom förtvivlade faror nådde*fram till Elronds hus i Vattnadal.""until they finally" "through despairing dangers reached Elronds house in Vattnadal."

I'm a bit on the fence about "despairing", but the gist of it is that they traveled to a destination, and on the way experienced dangers (or dangerous situations) that led to despair. So that's why "despairing of danger" feels close but not quite right. But perhaps my English is limiting me here. I don't think there's much significance in me using "finally" or "reach" as opposed to "at last" and "arrived at".

"utbygdsjägarn", yeah, uh.... hmmm.....  All searching I did on the first part, "utbygd", yields something that doesn't really make sense. It seems to relate to the word "bygga" (build). Intuitively it feels like it should really be about a part of geography, _but I don't know that for sure_. I almost want to suggest "rural hunter" as a term. But again, honestly, it's new to me. Either way it seems to define Aragorn, so whatever his profession was should be a hint (I'm not a fan of the story so I have no clue. I know there swords and dragons and pointy-eared fairies or whatever, old dudes in beards and a ring, and that's about it).


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## LugubriusMachinator

So "*förtvivlade"*modifies "dangers", or acts as a verb-ish thing and is taken by "genom"? I get the gist of the sentence, I'm just trying to understand its mechanics.

Also, yeah, I'm not a huge fan of the books either, but it's currently the only book I have in Swedish that I also have in English. You work with what you have. That said, he is, by profession, a "Ranger of the North," so maybe it's a liberal translation of that?


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## AutumnOwl

MattiasNYC said:


> "utbygdsjägarn", yeah, uh.... hmmm.....  All searching I did on the first part, "utbygd", yields something that doesn't really make sense. It seems to relate to the word "bygga" (build). Intuitively it feels like it should really be about a part of geography, _but I don't know that for sure_. I almost want to suggest "rural hunter" as a term.


To me "utbygden" means the distant surrounding area around a village/town, where few, if any, people live. "Utbygdsjägare" would be someone like a forest ranger, not a hunter, as I think Aragorn's duties are to guard the valley from outsiders. 

And shouldn't it be "Mordor's Black/Dark riders"?


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## LugubriusMachinator

AutumnOwl said:


> And shouldn't it be "Mordor's Black/Dark riders"?


As it happens, yes. I misremembered the meaning of "Svarta" and someone I know told me "ryttare" meant "horses," which, given how similar "rytarre" is to "rider" phonetically, should have raised my suspicions. Oh well.


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## AutumnOwl

LugubriusMachinator said:


> someone I know told me "ryttare" meant "horses,"


_Ryttare_ can also be translated as horsemen, so the person was half-right. _Apokalypsens fyra ryttare_ - Four horsemen of the Apocalypse.


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## cocuyo

Do not regard "förtvivlade" as a verb, and you might understand that its use here is an adjective that modifies dangers.   "Utbygd" I guess is used more or less as "outback" - it is that part of the land that is not built.   I guess this passage was originally written in English, so the best help for understanding the thought-tracks of the translator into Swedish might be consulting the English text?


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## MattiasNYC

AutumnOwl said:


> To me "utbygden" means the distant surrounding area around a village/town, where few, if any, people live. "Utbygdsjägare" would be someone like a forest* ranger, not a hunter, as I think Aragorn's duties are to guard the valley from outsiders. *
> 
> And shouldn't it be "Mordor's Black/Dark riders"?



Ah, that makes more sense.


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## Ben Jamin

I am very surprised by the expression "*förtvivlade faror"* which to me sounds like "despaired dangers = dangers that are desperate". Is this correct Swedish? This kind of expression would never be used in Norwegian (at least by any person that is not linguistically confused).


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## MattiasNYC

Ben, you're right, good catch! It looks odd and wrong. I think there's a chance we all just assumed it read "förtvivla*n*de". That would make sense, yes?

In at least my case my confusion isn't limited to linguistics but is just general confusion, which is probably why it sort of cancelled itself out or something and thus made sense.....


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