Ef ég hefði haft þurrari gönguskó, hefði ég setið lengur við fossinn.

If I had had drier hiking boots, I would have sat longer by the waterfall.

Breakdown of Ef ég hefði haft þurrari gönguskó, hefði ég setið lengur við fossinn.

• ég: I
• hafa: to have
• sitja: to sit
• ef: if

Questions & Answers about Ef ég hefði haft þurrari gönguskó, hefði ég setið lengur við fossinn.

What kind of conditional is this sentence?

It is a past counterfactual conditional: it talks about something that did not actually happen.

English uses the same idea in If I had had..., I would have...

So Icelandic Ef ég hefði haft..., hefði ég setið... is the pattern for:

• an unreal past condition
• and its unreal past result

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Why is hefði used in both clauses?

Because Icelandic commonly uses hefði + supine in both parts of a past unreal conditional.

Here:

• hefði haft = had had
• hefði setið = would have sat

So the structure is:

• Ef
  • subject + hefði
    • verb form
• main clause with hefði
  • verb form

This is very normal in Icelandic for sentences about imagined past situations.

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What exactly are haft and setið?