that he might thereby, what lay in him, more deepely disgrace our innocent nation among the Germans, and Danes, and other neighbour countries, with shamefull, and everlasting ignomine. So great was the malice of this printer, and his desire so greedy to get lucre, by a thing unlawfull. And this he did without controlment, even in that citie, which these many yeares hath trafficked with Island to the great gaine, and commodity of the citizens. His name is Ioachimus Leo, a man worthy to become lion's foode."

As late as 1846 "Sylvanus" (p. 202) wrote, "Iceland, a dreary, storm-beaten isle, nearly deprived of all communication with its fatherland. It is the abode of all but ceaseless winter, in which the sun, rarely for more than a few months out of the twelve, is ever seen."

It is possible to suffer very much from heat in Iceland, but there seems to be good ground for believing that the climate has changed for the severer in the course of a thousand years. Forests are frequently mentioned in the earlier sagas—the Libellus Islandorum expressly says that in the first days of settlement the country "was grown with wood between fell and foreshore." But to-day there is nothing much bigger than a Japanese dwarf tree.

The first permanent settler was Ingwolf Arnerson (or Erneson) and he was told to go thither by an oracle while he sacrificed. And at that time Harald of the Fairhair had for twelve years been king in Norway, and since the Incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ 874 winters had passed away. He sailed to Iceland with Heor-leif, his sworn brother and the husband of his sister; a man who refused to sacrifice. They kept company till they saw Iceland and then they parted. And as soon as Ingwolf noticed the land he pitched his porch-pillars overboard to get an omen. For it was the pious custom of those days to let the site for a new settlement be fixed, not by the caprice of man, but by the decision of the gods, who made it known by causing the currents of ocean to cast up the porch-pillars on the shore where they would have the dwelling to be.

Before their emigration to Iceland Leif and Ingwolf had made a foray in Ireland. There they had gained riches and thralls, and Leif was called Heor, or Sword, from an encounter with an Irishman, from whom he gained such a weapon. Driven westward off the land, Leif and his men ran short of water, and the thralls, with the readiness that ever marks their race, took to the plan of kneading meal and butter together, and they declared that this was a thirst-slake. But as soon as it was ready there fell a great rain and water was caught in the awnings.

Eventually they reached land in safety, and there was only one ox, so the thralls had to drag the plow. And they plotted together to kill the ox, and to say that a bear had devoured it; then while Leif and his Norsemen were seeking to punish the non-existent bear, and were scattered through the shaw, the thralls should slay every one his man, and so should murder them all. And everything fell out just as the Irish had plotted.

The dead body of Heor-leif was found by Ingwolf's thralls, who had been sent to search for the porch-pillars, and when they told their master he was very angry. And when he saw his brother dead he said, "It was a pitiful death for a brave man that thralls should slay him, but I see how it goes with those who will never perform sacrifice."

"Then Ingwolf went up to the headland and saw islands lying in the sea to the south-west. It came into his mind that the thralls must have run away thither, for the boat had disappeared. So he and his men went to seek the thralls, and found them there at a place called Eith (the Tarbet) in the islands. They were sitting at their meat when Ingwolf fell upon them. They became fearful, and every man of them ran off his own way. Ingwolf slew them all. The place is called Duf-thac's Scaur, where he lost his life. Many of them leaped over the rock, which was afterwards called by their name. The islands were afterwards called the Westmen Isles whereon they were slain, for they were Westmen" (or Irish).

Heimaey (or Home Isle), the largest of these Westmen Isles, consists of two great jagged masses of igneous rock, presenting wild cliffs to the ocean and a wild fretted outline to the sky. Between the two mountains is a rolling stretch of grass-land, and upon it stands the scattered little town of Kaupstadr. The cliffs are covered with sea-birds' nests, most of them filthy fulmars. And some of the other islands of the group, among which modern cruising steamers thread their way, are sea-worn into caves and caverns by the much contorted rocks along the shore.

At last, in the third winter, Ingwolf's thralls, Weevil and Carle, found the porch-pillars, and at the spot where they came to land he made for himself a homestead. He dwelt in Reek-wick, and the Land-nama-bok, or Icelandic Domesday, from which nearly all the above facts are taken,[11] says that the pillars are still to be seen in his fire-house, or temple.

In the Eyrbyggja Saga we read of the building of another temple that stood on the north side of Faxefjoth. Somewhat similar, no doubt, was the shrine that incorporated the porch-pillars at Reykjavik. "There he let build a temple, and a mighty house it was. There was a door in the side-wall, and nearer to one end thereof. Within the door stood the porch-pillars and nails were therein; they were called the Gods' nails. There within was a great frith-place. But of the inmost house was there another house, of the fashion whereof now is the quire of a church, and there stood a stall in the midst of the floor in the fashion of an altar, and thereon lay a ring without a join that weighed twenty ounces, and on that must men swear all oaths; and that ring must the chief have on his arm at all man-motes."

A gold ring that Olaf Tryggvison took from the Temple of Lade (p. 69), and presented to a lady whom he admired, turned out to be only plated copper, and much trouble resulted from that gift. The gods had in all probability never discovered the fraud, for, like the Chinese to-day, the pagan Norse had a most mean opinion of the intelligence of the objects of their worship (p. 106). Some of the temples of Iceland were of considerable dimensions: in the Vatzdaela Saga we read of one at Thordisholt a hundred feet in length.

Ingwolf, the founder of Reykjavik, was the most famous of all the fathers of Iceland, for he came to a desolate country, and was the first to build a house and to cultivate the ground. His son "was Thorstan, who let set the Thing at Keel-ness, before the Allthing was established. His son was Thor-kell Moon, the Law-speaker, who was one of the best conversation of any heathen men in Iceland, of those whom men have records of. He had himself carried out into the rays of the sun in his death-sickness, and commended himself to that God which had made the sun. Moreover, he had lived as cleanly as those Christian men who were of the best conversation or way of life." (Landnama-bok.)

A fair broad bay, an arm of the Faxefjoth, rocky islands rising from the water and low hills all around, the heights of Esja straight in front of the ship that sails in, was the site chosen by the pagan gods. The city of Reykjavik stands on low hills at whose foot the porch-pillars were found. At the head of the little reeking bay is the white steam of the hot springs; away to the north, just visible across the choppy waves of Faxefjoth, towers, four thousand seven hundred feet above the sea, the huge volcanic mass of Snaefells Jökull.

Thus Reykjavik, the present capital of Iceland, bordered landward by a little lake, is more than a thousand years old, yet it does not look fifteen! No new settlement in the American West has a rawer or more recent appearance. The building materials are wood, brick, cement, felt and galvanized iron. There are a few fair gardens with very stunted trees, and in the rough grass square is a metal statue to Thorwaldsen (p. 138). For ugly commonplaceness the broad and dusty streets are hardly rivalled even on the North American continent, and that is saying a good deal. Yet the glorious views of wild mountain and ever-changing sea, with air as fresh and pure as in mid-ocean, make it attractive in spite of all.

The Norse settlement of the island, having prosperously begun on the grassy plains at the edge of which the city stands, soon spread all round the shore. At wide intervals were built, or dug, the half underground turf-covered dwellings where men sat under their smoky rafters by the fire, drinking wine or mead, telling or hearing the saga tales. Old buildings that still remain, including a few in the vicinity of Reykjavik, give a fair idea of what these primitive dwellings were like; sometimes they were partly excavated in the side of a hill. Their interiors are much more cosy and homelike than would be suspected from their desolate-looking outsides. Hangings round the walls must have greatly improved the appearance as a rule, though the Laxdaela Saga says that the hall which Thurid Olaf built in Herd-holt, whose sides and roof were lined with noble histories carved on wainscotting, looked better when the hangings were down. Each large householder was chief and priest, lord of all within sight of his dwelling.

The same (Laxdaela) saga describes one of them, in fact the husband of this same Olaf's daughter. "Garmund was generally a reserved man, and surly to most folks, and he was always dressed the same; he used to wear a red-scarlet kirtle and a grey cloak over it, and a bear-skin hood on his head, a sword in his hand that was a great and good weapon with hilt of walrus-tooth, and there was no silver inlaid on it, but the blade was sharp and no rust to be found on it. This sword he called Leg-biter, and he never let it pass out of his hand." This man contrived to win Thurid, the daughter of Olaf, only by "giving no small sum of money" to her mamma. As not infrequently happens in such cases, husband and wife "did not get on very well, and this was felt by both of them." So Garmund sailed away from Iceland, and, to the great displeasure of his wife and mother-in-law, he left no chattels behind him. However Olaf's daughter pursued and, finding her husband asleep in his vessel, she took away the sword Leg-biter and left the baby in its place! As soon as the disgusted father awoke from its crying and discovered the unwelcome exchange, he sent a boat in pursuit of wife and sword. Thurid had, however, foreseen that manœuvre and the boat, being riddled with holes, had in haste to put back to the ship. "Then Garmund called to Thurid and bade her turn back and give him the sword Leg-biter, and take the girl back, 'and as much money or chattels with her as thou wilt.' Thurid says, 'Dost think it better to get back the sword or not?' Garmund answered her, 'I would sooner lose great monies than lose the sword.' She spake, 'Then thou shalt never get it; thou hast in many ways treated me unjustly, and we will now part.'"

Even less careful of his personal appearance than Garmund must have been Anlaf of Black-fen, whose deeds are recorded in the Havardz Saga (II., 1). Men say that he had bear's warmth, for "there never was frost or cold so great that Anlaf would not go about in no more clothes than his breeches and a shirt tucked into the breeches. And he never went abroad off the farm with more clothes on him than these." He was, however, a good man, and somewhat before midwinter he walked over the hill pasture and all over the fell seeking men's sheep, and he found many and drove them home, and brought every man his own, so that every one wished him well.

Iceland is perhaps the least mixed nation to be found on the surface of the globe. Among the fathers of her settlement there were indeed a few of other than Norse blood, particularly ubiquitous Irish, some of whom were men very well thought of, but all except a few individuals here and there were of pure Scandinavian stock. The Landnama-bok expressly tells us: "Men of knowledge say that the country was wholly settled and taken up in sixty winters, so that it hath never after been settled any more."

As the community grew older it became apparent that something more than local chiefs and Things were imperatively needed if any sort of peace was to be preserved and some kind of order to be established. And thus there was called into being in a.d. 930 the most famous parliament of the North—the Allthing, that assembled every year under the clear sky, by the banks of a little stream where the horizon was formed by the wild rocky hills of Thingvellir. From all over the island men came for practically every purpose for which human beings can gainfully meet. Laws were made and declared, law cases were decided; tales were recited and much was bought and sold. But the only official of the Republic was the Speaker of the Law, the jurisdiction was purely moral. Administrative machinery, civil service, navy or army there were none. He who refused to obey could but be outlawed.[12]

No doubt this essentially Teutonic reform brought vast improvement on the lawless violence of earlier days, but the respect entertained for law still left very much to be desired. The famous Saga of the Burnt Njal gives a truly Homeric account of proceedings at the Allthing itself.

Flosi and certain others who were on trial for arson and manslaughter were on the point of getting off by the kind of legal quibble in which Dickens was interested so much. Gizur, one of the plaintiffs, said, "What counsel shall we now take, kinsman Asgrim?" Then Asgrim said, "Now will we send a man to my son Thorhall, and know what counsel he will give us."

"Now the messenger comes to Thorhall, Asgrim's son, and tells him how things stood, and how Mord Volgard's son and his friends would all be made outlaws, and the suits for manslaughter be brought to nought.

"But when he heard that, he was so shocked at it that he could not utter a word. He jumped up then from his bed, and clutched with both hands his spear, Skarphedinn's gift, and drove it through his foot.... Now he went out of the booth unhalting and walked so hard that the messenger could not keep up with him, and so he goes until he came to the Fifth Court. There he met Grim the Red, Flosi's kinsman, and as soon as they were met, Thorhall thrust at him with the spear, and smote him on the shield and clove it in twain, but the spear passed right