How to translate this Norwegian title?

[flabbergasted]

Hello, I have a bit of a problem finding a good translation for the title of Thure Erik Lund's book Grøftetildragelsesmysteriet. His publisher has translated it as The Ditch Incident Mystery, whereas in a german article it was translated as „Das Geheimnis der Anziehungskraft der Schlucht“ (The Mystery of the Attractin of the Chasm). How would you translate it?

[Ogrim]

Well, let's look at the different components of this noun:

Grøft is a ditch or a trench, tildragelse is a somewhat old-fashioned word of Danish origin meaning happening, incident etc, and mysteriet is the definite form of mystery. I'd say the publisher's translation is actually pretty accurate. The German translation seems to have confounded tildragelse with tiltrekkelse, which means attraction.

[kunsttyv]

Thanks for shedding light on this Ogrim. In fact I always believed that “tildragelse” meant attraction in Norwegian. Even after having read the novel in question! I don’t know, maybe it’s because “å dra” means to drag. Our command of our native languages will always have a lot of room for improvement and refinement, will it not? In a way it makes me feel better about my shortcomings in my foreign languages as well.

[Ogrim]

Thanks for shedding light on this Ogrim. In fact I always believed that “tildragelse” meant attraction in Norwegian. Even after having read the novel in question! I don’t know, maybe it’s because “å dra” means to drag. Our command of our native languages will always have a lot of room for improvement and refinement, will it not? In a way it makes me feel better about my shortcomings in my foreign languages as well.

I think the confusion between tildragelse and tiltrekkelse is quite common, as I think no one in Norway uses tildragelse any more. Bokmålsordboka indicates that it is foreldet i.e. "out of date". I guess I know it because back in time I used to read a lot of the Norwegian classics who mostly wrote riksmål.

[flabbergasted]

Well, let's look at the different components of this noun:

Grøft is a ditch or a trench, tildragelse is a somewhat old-fashioned word of Danish origin meaning happening, incident etc, and mysteriet is the definite form of mystery. I'd say the publisher's translation is actually pretty accurate. The German translation seems to have confounded tildragelse with tiltrekkelse, which means attraction.

Thanks a lot for the clarification!