is owing the singular depression of the reception that Christianity had already Thingfield itself. Spiral columns of steam well leavened the island. Probably more ascend from the cones and craters which than half the chief proprietors had either fringe the lake; and at a distance of about been baptised or had received the primsignaz. three miles across the plain Hjallti could see After the stormy scene at the Mount, therethe Law-Mount, the scene of his coming fore, when all had returned to the booths, struggle, the booths of the Thingmen stretch- the Christians entreated Hall of Side, one ing along the banks of the Oxarra river, and of the most powerful of their number, to the black walls of the Almannagya-the demand for them a body of laws 'such as All-men's Rift-closing in the Thingfield Christian men might follow.' The system of on the north. Between the birch wood and ancient law, upon which all Icelandic life along the shore of the lake the new comers and society depended, would no longer hold rode unt they reached the booth of Asgrim, good for both parties, especially since the sister's son of Gizur. The heathen party, direct prohibition of Christianity at the fully armed, gathered in knots, and looked Althing. Hall accordingly, with a halfthreateningly; but the night passed over hundred of silver' in his hand, sought Thorwithout a skirmish. geir, the priest of Lightwater, at this time On the following morning the priest the 'Speaker of the Law,' and still unbapThormod sang mass in the Westfirding's tized, though evidently not indisposed toward booth, above the Oxara river; and thence the new faith, and persuaded him for that the Christians proceeded, in solemn proces- sum (which was apparently his lawful fee) to sion, to the Hill of Laws. Seven ecclesias-devise a system of laws which should bear tics, duly vested, led the way, two of whom equally on Christians and heathens.* Thorcarried a pair of great crosses, the height of geir retired to his booth, where he lay one measuring that of King Olaf Tryggvason stretched on his bed, with his head covered, of the other, that of Hjallti himself. for two days and a night-a method of selfClouds of incense-smoke, the scent of which concentration which, up to a late period, acspread far in the clear sharp air, rose from cording to Martin, was usual in Skye and the their swinging thuribles. The whole Thing Western Islands. was collected about the Law-Mount; and no attempt was made to prevent the entrance of Hjallti and his companions by the narrow tongue of land which alone gives access to the Logberg, separated from the plain on all other sides by deep volcanic fissures. On the Mount Hjallti and Gizur both spoke well and boldly'so well and so boldly, that, according to the Saga, their enemies had not a word of reply, and were reduced to loud shouting and tumult, both Christians and heathens declaring that they would no longer submit to the same general laws. In the midst of the confusion came a man running in' with the news that 'earth-fire-a lavastream-had just broken out in the district of Ölfus, and was threatening to destroy the homestead of Thorodd the priest. What marvel,' shouted the heathens, if the gods are angry when such words as we have heard are spoken on the Law-Mount?' But Snorri, the priest the wisest and shrewdest of all those men in Iceland who had not the gift of foresight,' says the Njal's Saga-answered: 'With whom were the gods angry when this very rock on which we are standing was in flames?'-a question to which the others seem to have found no reply. 6 6 It is clear from the whole story of Hjallti's It is especially said that the perfume spread against the wind as well as with it (Kristni-Saga, ch. xi.) In the mean time the heathens, reduced almost to despair, determined to make a great sacrifice to the gods, and to offer two human victims from each of the four quarters of Iceland, in the hope that Odin and Thor would then interfere, and prevent Christianity from going over all the land.' Gizur and Hjallti immediately assembled the Christians, and declared that they too would make as solemn a sacrifice, and one with an equal number of victims. The heathens, they said, sacrificed the worst of men, and flung them from rocks and precipices; they would choose the very best and noblest, who should in truth be offerings to Christ-gifts of victory'-and bind themselves, not indeed to die, but to lead better and worthier lives. Gizur and Hjallti offered themselves for their own quarter; Hall of the Side and Thorleif of Krossavik for the eastern; and of the others, one was Orm, Kodran's son, brother of Thorwald the far-farer,' who, when the rest of his father's household was baptized by Bishop Frederick, *The Speaker of the Law was in effect the Presi dent of the Althing. To him all who were in need of a legal opinion, or of information as to what was and what was not law, had a right to turn during the meeting of the Althing.' He was expressly excluded from all share in the executive, but had the whole control of the law of the land during the annual fortnight to which the legal existence of the commonwealth was limited.'-Dasent, I. lvii. lviii. Hence his great influence on this, occasion. had refused to accept the new faith, and had | withdrawn from the district: he was now baptized at his own request, and was numbered among the Christian victims.' The offerings to Thor and Odin, however, were never made. Thorgeir, the Speaker of the Law, rose at last from his bed, and summoned all who were present at the Thing to assemble about, the Law-Mount. There he spoke to them at length, and told them what great troubles hung over the land if men would not bind themselves to obey the same laws. There would be ceaseless feuds and manslaughters, and the island would at last become desolate. The only way to avoid these troubles was to frame such new rules as should bear equally on all, and as both parties would agree to observe. The Divine Grace,' says the monk of the Olaf's Saga, 'gave so mighty an effect to the words of Thorgeir,' that both heathens and Christians consented to receive as law whatever he should decree; and Thorgeir accordingly pronounced from the summit of the Logberg the ordinances which-as far as outward forms are concerned-made Iceland a Christian country. All, without exception, throughout the island, were to be baptized, and to believe in one God.' Heathen temples were everywhere to be destroyed. Whoever was found publicly sacrificing to the ancient deities was to be exiled; but it was allowable for any one to do so in private. The old laws concerning the exposition of infants and the eating of horse-flesh were to remain in force; together with such other were not openly opposed to Christianity. Thorgeir,' says the Njal's Saga, then uttered the law as to keeping the Lord's-day and fast-days, Yule-tide and Easter, and all the greatest high days and holidays.' customs as * Such was the new faith to which the Icelanders bound themselves at the persuasion of Thorgeir, Speaker of the Law. It was confessedly a compromise: Thorgeir, it must be remembered, was himself a heathen; and the greater part of those who now received baptism regarded it, in all probability, much as the 'primsignaz' had hitherto been looked upon, only as a ceremony which prevented the breaking up of the commonwealth. But heathenism now received a fatal blow; although it was, no doubt, long before its traces ceased to be distinctly recognizable'Ere, from Bethabara northward, heavenly Truth, With even steps winning her difficult way, Transferred their rude faith perfected and pure.** Through the grace and mercy of the Lord,' says the Olaf's Saga, those heathen secret worship of the old gods, the exposition practices which were now permitted-the of infants, and the use of horse-flesh-disappeared within a few winters. But it was not creed of the Northmen. Most of the heathens so easy to displace the inner spirit of the old present at the Althing were baptized in the lake of Thingvalla; but the plunge into cold water was in general so greatly dreaded, that of Reykiadal and Laugardal as baptismal permission was given to use the hot springs fonts. It was on the 24th of June, the festival of St. John the Baptist-when, according to the belief of the heathen North, the hosts of the unseen world were especially powerful-in the year 1000, that Christianity was thus brought into the law;' and within inhabitants of the island had been baptized. a very short time afterwards nearly all the the conversion of Iceland just as he was King Olaf Tryggvason received the news of leaving Nidaros in his famous ship the Long Worm, on the expedition which ended in the great battle of Svoldr, during which, on the 9th of September in the same year, Olaf, like the Arthur of romance, disappeared mysteriously from the sight of men. During the five years for which he had been King of Norway, he had succeeded in introducing Christianity-rudely, but efficiently as a beginning throughout his own country, in the Orkneys, in the Faroe Islands, in Iceland, and among the Scandinavian colonists in Greenland. For the character of the Christianity now adopted in Iceland we have no better witness than the Njal's Saga. The first part of the story ends, as we have seen, with the death of Gunnar. The Change of Faith is then briefly recorded; and the Saga proceeds to detail the events which brought about the Thorgeir's ordinances are thus given in both the Kristni and the Olaf Sagas, which are followed by Finn Jonsson in his 'Historia Eccles. Islandiæ.' The Njal's Saga asserts that the exposition of chil-burning of Njal-the burning itself—and the Hence the dren and the eating of horseflesh were also for- ends of the several burners. bidden, unless done by stealth, when they should sharply-drawn characters in this second part be blameless' (ch. ci.). The exposition of children appear under the influence of the new faith, -which arose from the legal right of the father, the varying effect of which on their different and from the difficulty of supporting a numerous family-prevailed in full force down to the change natures is distinctly marked. of faith. The horseflesh forbidden to be eaten was that of sacred horses sacrificed before the heathen altars. Skarphedinn and the other sons of Njal * Coleridge. were led on, through the cunning slander of Mord, the Iago of the Njal's Saga, to the murder of Hauskuld, Njal's foster-son-the 'sweetest light of his eyes'-and one to whom, as to Njal himself, Christianity seems to have come as something more than a form. Hauskuld, the priest of Whiteness (the title and the influence still remained, although the temples had been destroyed), was attacked in the early morning, as with his corn-sieve in one hand, and his sword in the other, he was 'sowing the corn as he went': said "Don't try to turn on thy heel, Whiteness Priest," and hews at him; and the blow came on his head and he fell on his knees. Hauskuld said these words when he fell, "God help me, and forgive you!"”' * This murder sealed the fate of Njal and of all his family. Hauskuld had been killed in a cloak which had been given him by Flosi, the uncle of Hauskuld's wife Hildegunna. When Flosi came to her house after the murder, Hildegunna. took this cloak out of her chest, where she had kept it, and Flosi's Christianity was at least not behind that of certain Northern pirates of the sixteenth century, who captured a priest in order that they might have service duly said on board their vessel every Sunday. Throughout, however, he seems to have been acting half-unwillingly. The whole band of 'burners,' one hundred and twenty in number, assembled at the 'ridge of the Three-corner,' and thence came down upon Bergthorsknoll, where grave portents had appeared, ominous of coming trouble, and where Njal, the 'foresighted man,' had long before predicted the manner of his death. On the approach of the band, Njal, his nine sons, Kari his' son-in. law, and all the serving-men, who at first stood in array to meet them in the yard,' retired into the house and barricaded it. Many of Frosi's men were killed by spears flung from the window-slits; and at last he said, ... threw the cloak over Flosi, and the that counsel." gore rattled down all over him. 'Then she spoke and said, "This cloak, Flosi, thou gavest to Hauskuld, and now I will give it back to thee: he was slain in it, and I call God and all good men to witness that I adjure thee, by all the might of thy Christ, and by thy manhood and bravery, to take vengeance for all those wounds which he had on his dead body, or else to be called every man's dastard."'t Against his will, Flosi was thus drawn into the plot against Njal; the award for the murder was set aside at the Thing; and at a great meeting of friends and followers, summoned by Flosi in the Almannagya'-the Great Rift-it was determined to make an attack on the house of Bergthorsknoll, and to kill all who were in it. 'Now they took fire and made a great pile before the doors. Then Skarphedinn said, "What, lads! are ye lighting a fire, or are ye taking to cooking?" "So shall it be," answered Grani Gunnar's "and thou shalt not need to be better son, * * 'Then the women threw whey on the fire, and quenched it as fast as they lit it and then .. they took a vetch-stack that stood above the house, and set fire to it, and they who were inside were not aware of it till the whole hall was ablaze over their heads. Then Flosi and his men made a great pile before each of the doors, and then the womenfolk who were inside began to weep and to wail. 'Njal spoke to them and said, "Keep up your hearts, nor utter shrieks, for this is but a passing storm, and it will be long before ye have another such; and put your faith in God, and believe that he is so merciful that he will not let us burn both in this world and the next." 'Such words of comfort had he for them all, and others still more strong. 'Now the whole house began to blaze. Then Njal went to the door and said, "Is Flosi so near that he can hear my voice?" 'Flosi said that he could hear it. "Wilt thou," said Njal, "take an atonement from my sons, or allow any men to go out?" "I will not," answers Flosi, "take any atonement from thy sons, and now our dealings shall come to an end once for all, and I will not stir from this spot till they are all dead; but I will allow the women and children and house-carles to go out."* 6 his hair all a-blaze, sprang down from the roof, and so crept along with the smoke.' He ran till he came to a stream, into which he threw himself, and so quenched the fire on him.' Mr. Metcalfe tells us that the place, now a small pit in the swamp below Berghow-thorsknoll, is still pointed out as Karitiörn, The women accordingly-all except Bergthora, the aged wife of Njal-went out; and with them went Helgi, Njal's son, wrapped in a woman's cloak. He was recognised, ever, and killed by Flosi :— Then Flosi went to the door and called ont to Njal, and said he would speak with him and Bergthora. 'Now Njal does so, and Flosi said, "I will offer thee, Master Njal, leave to go out, for it is unworthy that thou shouldst burn indoors.. will not go out," said Njal, "for I am an old man, and little fitted to avenge my sons; but I will not live in shame."'+ The great duty of revenge was still a principle of life, even with to gentle-minded and thoughtful a convert as Njal. 'Then Flosi said to Berthofa, "Come thou out, housewife, for I will for no sake burn thee indoors." 666 given away to Njal young said Bergthora," and I have promised him this, that we would both share the same fate.", 'After that they both went back into the house. "What counsel shall we now take?" said Bergthora. 6 "We will go to our bed," says Njal, "and lay us down. I have long been eager for rest." Then she said to the Doy Thord, Kari's son, "Thee will I take out, and thou shalt not burn in here." "Thou hast promised me this, grandmother," says the boy, "that we should never part so long as I wished to be with thee; but methinks it is much better to die with thee and Njal than to live after you." 'Then she bore the boy to her bed, and Njal spoke to his steward and said, "Now shalt thou see where we lay us down, and how I lay us out; for I mean not to stir an inch hence, whether reek or burning smart me, and so thou wilt be able to guess where to look for our bones." 'He said he would do so. hide lay there. Njal told the steward to spread There had been an ox slaughtered, and the the hide over them, and he did so. 'So there they lay down both of them in their bed, and put the boy between them. Then they signed themselves and the boy with the cross, and gave over their souls into God's hand, and that was the last word that men heard them utter. Then the steward took the hide, and spread it over them, and went out afterwards.' Meanwhile the house burnt, and all perished who were still within it, with the exception of Kari, who, with his clothes and the tarn of Kari. Flosi and his band stayed by the fire until it was broad daylight. Then they rode off together. Flosi never spoke about the deed, but no fear was found in him, and he was at home the whole winter till Yule was over. Meanwhile Karn who had escaped, sought allti Ske 's son the same whom we already know as the successful champion of the new faith at the Althing. Kari bade frant to go and search for Njal's bone" for all will believe in what thou sayest and thinkest about them." Hjallti said he would be most willing to bear Njal's bones to church; so they rode thence fifteen men. . . At last they had one hundred men, reckoning Njal's neighbours. ་ They came to Bergthorsknoll at midday. Hjallti asked-Kari under what past of the house Njal might be lying, but Kari showed them to the spot, and there there was a great heap of ashes to dig away. There they found the hide underneath, and it was as though were shrivelled with the fire. They raised up the hide, and, lo! they were unburnt under it. All praised God for that, and thought it was a great token. 'Njal was borne out, and so was Bergthora; and then all men went to see their bodies. 'Then Hjallti said, “What like look to you these bodies?" "They answered, "We will wait for thy utterance." 'Then Hjallti said, "I shall speak what I say with all freedom of speech. The body of Bergthora looks as it was likely she would look, and still fair; but Njal's body and visage seem to me so bright that I have never seen any dead man's body so bright as this." They all said they thought so too.'* In all, the bones of nine souls were discovered; all of which were solemnly conbeen made in cairns, not far from the dwellveyed to the churchyard and interred. During the heathen period interments had ing. But, immediately after the reception of Christianity, churches, with the consecrated enclosure about them, were built in different parts of the island, and in spite of the difficulty of conveying the dead across flooded rivers, and over wild mountain ridges, they were now carefully laid to rest under the shadow of the holy walls. These, as they still are for the most part throughout Iceland, were of wood, either from the driftlogs brought to the coast by the Gulf-stream, * ii. p. 193. or of pine and oak sent for this express purpose from Norway and Great Britain. They were roofed with turf. The churches were nowhere large-although the great landowners, no doubt, did their best for them, since they believed that as many souls would be saved by their means as the church they built could contain. In form they were probably long parallelograms, resembling the stone church of which the ruins have been found on the coast of Greenland. For a certain time after consecration these first churches were said to be 'in albis,' like men after baptism. An early Icelandic name for the altar, Paxspialld'-the 'table of peace' is not apparently found elsewhere. It is eminently suggestive of what appeared to the first converts one of the greatest distinctions between the old faith and the new-the duty of abandoning revenge. Even Njal, as we have just seen, chose to die rather than to live without the power of avenging the loss of his sons. A truer Christian spirit appears in Hall of the Side, Thangbrand's earliest convert, who, when his son Ljot had been killed in a fight at the Althing, would demand no 'blood-wite' for him. I will put no price on my son,' he said, and yet will come forward and grant both pledges and peace to those who are my adversaries.' A great hum in his favour followed,' we are told, and all praised his gentleness and good will,' which few, however, were as yet found ready to imitate. But the peace of the Church' made a great step under Gizur, the second Bishop of Skalholt, who persuaded the Icelanders to appear without their weapons at the Althing. 'King Sigtrygg's stronghold was the fort at Dublin, near the bridge, and thither by Palm Sunday the whole heathen host had met; but Brian, warned in time by Ospak, was not only ready to meet them, should they fall upon him, but ready to march against and fall upon them. He, too, on Palm Sunday had gathered the Christian host in his leaguer at Clontarf, and so the two armies lay watching one another through Passion week. Brodir, skilled in sorcery, betook himself to his black arts, and from the first got little comfort either for himself or his brothers in arms. If the battle were fought before Good Friday, the heathen host would be utterly routed and lose its chiefs; but if the struggle were delayed till Good Friday, then King Brian would fall, but still win the day. On Good Friday, then, which fell in 1014 on the 18th of April, the heathen made up their minds to fight; and that nothing might be wanting to stamp the struggle with the seal of the ancient faith, Odin himself, as the legend darkly hints, rode up, as we are told in many like stories, on an applegrey horse, holding a halbert in his hand, and held a council of war with Kormlada, King Sigtrygg, and the other chiefs;-one of the last appearances of the god of battles struggling with the fate which now at last had overtaken him, and helping his own on the very eve of battle with comfort and advice. Nor were other tokens wanting. In Iceland itself, at Swinefell, where Flosi and the burners had so long stayed, blood burst out on the priest's vestments on Good Friday; and at Thvattwater, Hall's abode, on the same day, the priest saw an abyss open hard by the altar as he sang mass, in The which were strange and awful things. Northern mind plainly long looked on Brian's battle as a blow that went home to the heart of many a household. In Caithness, and in other parts of the west, the Valkyries, Odin's corsechoosing maidens, were seen, twelve of them riding together, dismounting, entering a bower, setting up their mystic loom, and there weaving out of the entrails of men, with swords for their shuttles, that grim Woof of War, which is at once one of the last, as it is one of the grandest flights of the Scandinavian Swan-maiden, ere she wing her way for ever from the world, together with the faith to which she and that wild strain of melody belonged.' * On the fate of the burners, all of whom were exiled at the next Althing, we cannot dwell. Flosi himself was banished for three years, and undertook a pilgrimage to Rome. Many of his followers sailed from Iceland with him. Their ship was wrecked on the Orkneys, where Flosi was made Earl Sigurd's henchman, and soon won his way to great love with the Earl.' At Yuletide, Sigtrygg of the silken beard,' King of the Northmen of the silken beard,' King of the Northmen settled in Ireland, came to seek Earl Sigurd's help in a struggle with the famous Overking of Ireland, Brian Boroimhe-' Brian of the Tribute.' Sigurd consented to assist him, and Flosi offered to join the expedition, but the Earl would not permit him, since he had his pilgrimage to fulfil.' Flosi then offered fifteen men of his band, whom the Earl accepted. In this manner the first race of Icelandic converts were represented in Brian's Battle,' where, in Mr. Dasent's words, the old and new faith met in the lists, face to face, for their last struggle.' * This is the famous Ode which was trans lated by Gray from Bartholin's Latin version. As given in the Njal's Saga, the 'Woof' has been admirably rendered by Mr. Dasent. The issue of the battle was as Brodir had foreseen. He himself killed King Brian, but was taken and tortured to death in revenge. One passage from the description of the fight in the Saga we must quote. The account was probably brought back to Iceland by Thorstein, Hall of the Side's son, who figures in it : 'Then Earl Sigurd called on Thorstein, the son of Hall of the Side, to bear his banner [the famous raven banner, wrought by his mother * Vol. i., Introd. cxciv-vi. |