Hi there! I was wondering if anyone would be willing to help me translate this letter found in a video game (Assassin's Creed: Valhalla)? I have been able to make out bits and pieces, but I've had no luck in understanding what it means. Any help would be much appreciated! Go raibh maith agat!

A Bárid, a chóirmaic

Mo bennacht lasin scríbinn-se. Guidimm-se na légai-siu fristin tenid, 7 guidimm-siu not not-gora a thess amal bee-siu im brollach moíth fadéin. Is fota limm co gér tú, 7 is móa cech laithe in chuntabart in accar-sa Dublinn iarmothá
Is maith fom-chíallathar Sadb, cíasu éicen di coitsecht frim scéla scaíti. In-fédinn den laithe a ndom-rala fer fola forsin slige co Clúain Ferta 7 ran-íccas, co ndechud laiss-som co Lothlinn. Lánamnas íar sain, 7 don-rated mac, tussu, gáethgarg, la londbruth loga.
Tar cend na imchéine ó Érinn, ro-uccus i calad etir Gallaib, Gáedel mná, Sjae Korpmaka a ainm.
Íat so mo chuimnigi cáemthi. Fréna ár sceóil. Nos-cáemna-su.
Do máthair cháem,
Ségdae

It's Old irish, not Modern Irish.
it's like asking for a translation of Old English.
I can't translate it.

First sentence is easy:
Mo bennacht lasin scribinn-se = mo bheannacht leis an scríbhinn seo = my blessings with this written document.

The 7 should be a "Tironian et" (often a bit similar in appearence to the number 7).
It is an abbbreviation for "agus" = and (&).

Ah, I see now! Sorry! Thank you for the information

There's no need for an apology. You are welcome.
Other people here might be able to translate it.

I’m not an Old Irish expert but will give it a try.

But I probably got most of it wrong, so don’t trust me too much here. :P


Dear Bárid (Bárad?), (my) true son(?).


As Lábhras already wrote: My blessing/greetings with this letter.


I pray that (you don’t melt?) to the fire and I pray that its heat may warm you, like (you would be?) [warmed] in/by my own soft chest.


I miss you intensely and every day greater is the doubt whether I’ll see Dublin any more.


Sadb takes good care of me, though listening to my scattered/divided stories is difficult(?) for her.
(the name would be written Sadhbh today)


Did I use to bring(??) of/from the day that a man of blood put/cast me on the road to Clonfert and (it reached us?), until/so that I went with him to Lochlann (Norway, Scandinavia).


Marriage after (that?), and a son (was born to us?), you, wise and fierce, with fierce anger (of a calf?).


(On behalf of? For the sake of? Because of?) the great distance from Ireland, I brought safe (placed in safety) between foreigners (the Norse), Gaelic women, Sjae Korpmaka is her name.


These are my (dear memories/thoughts?). … of our story(?). (You?) remind me of her/them(?).

Your dear mother,
Ségdae

I can’t make sense of the two last paragraphs. And since I don’t relly know Old Irish that well, most of it was guess-work with grammar book and a dictionary in my hand.

Maith thú, a Shilmeth, a chara!
Good work. Much better than I could do.

My question is, who the heck wrote that and put it in the game?!?

By the way I’d love input of someone more competent on this Old Irish. I myself get mixed feelings about it, some things look right and some really weird – it might be that parts of the text are gibberish or might be that I just don’t really understand the structure or idiom (quite possibly the second one).

So for example not-gora a thess amal for ‘its heat may warm you like…[/i] with the infixed object pronoun -t after empty particle no- seems sensible to me. is móa cech laithe in chuntabart in accar-sa Dublinn iarmothá and Is maith fom-chíallathar Sadb also looked fine (assuming that fo·cíallathar takes direct object in the meaning ‘care for…’, I guess it does from the example fon·rochled… ‘we have been cared for…’, if not I possibly mistranslated it?).

But then we get the is fota limm co gér tú which seems basically like modern Irish is fada liom go géar tú and it puzzles me.

First, if it is a copula sentence with tú being its subject, then instead of is … tú I’d expect conjugated copula form, it/at … for ‘you are’. OIr. did conjugate copula by persons. As far as I know, standalone pronouns were used with copula but only for fronting, to state ‘it’s me/you/him that…’ – and then the pronouns are predicates, not subjects: is mé… is tú… it é (‘it is me…, it is you…, these are they…’).

So my feeling is it doesn’t really makes a grammatical sentence (but not sure, I might be wrong). So I wondered if co gér tú couldn’t be some verb instead, ‘until something you’, but then again tú doesn’t fit in any way (especially when other verbs take direct objects as infix pronouns), so I assume it’s the subject of the copula here.

But if that’s correct, then is fota limm co gér tú, like is fada liom go géar tú, afaik, doesn’t really make sense. Ie. it’d mean I (intensely?) find you to be long. I interpreted it as I miss you… only because of the is fada liom go… (‘I find (the time) until … to be long’ for ‘I long for/to’) structure. But in that structure you find the time long, not the person…

Similarly it uses íat so for ‘those’, but afaik the Old Irish pronoun for ‘they’ was é (just like ‘he’) and íat (modern (s)iad) is a later development.

But maybe it was already used in the viking age when the game takes place? In 9th century the language would be transitioning to Middle Irish (or maybe even completely transitioned, just showing archaisms in writing), so maybe those things (tú as independent (copula subject?) pronoun, íat as 3rd.pl. pronoun, besides the infixed pronouns in other places) are used consciously by the author, whoever it is?

I’d love to see someone more competent commenting on that stuff.