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at once for his sake, as King Sweyn himself bore witness afterwards when he sat at a splendid feast with two other kings. And when the meat was set on the board, then one lord said that there would never again be a board so nobly filled as that, when three such mighty kings ate out of one dish. Then answers King Sweyn, with a smile, "I will find that stranger yeoman's son who alone has in himself, if right worth be set on it, not one whit less glory and true honour than all we three kings." Now there was much mirth at that in the hall; and all asked, with a laugh, where or what sort of man this might be of whom he tells such mighty fame? He answers, "This man of whom I speak is as wise as it befits a prudent king to be; as strong and stouthearted as the most dauntless Baresark; and as good and gentlehearted as the most virtuous sage." After that he told them of Thorwald that story which was written above, and how he set the king free for the sake of his friendship and for the sake of many other praiseworthy deeds.'

Such is the character claimed by Mr. Dasent as that of the better class of Vikings. Without, however, in any way depreciating the noble qualities inherent in the race, we cannot but think that another and a higher influence is to be traced here. Thorwald-whom we shall presently meet as the first preacher of Christianity in Iceland-reminds us, while yet a heathen, of Sir Lancelot in the Morte d'Arthur; the gentlest and most courteous of knights in hall—the sternest and bravest in 'press of battle.'

But the most complete picture of the better Icelander during the heathen period is found in the pages of the Njal's Saga itself; the first portion of which is mainly occupied with the fortunes of Gunnar of Lithend, whose story, with that of Njal of Bergthorsknoll, has rendered the district of the Landeyar, backed as it is with the grand 'Three-corner' Mountain, as completely romantic ground as the country about another triple height '—

'Where fair Tweed flows round holy Melrose,

And Eildon slopes to the plain.'

Gunnar is thus introduced :

'He was a tall man in growth, and a strong man-best skilled in arms of all men. He could cut, or thrust, or shoot, if he chose, as well with his left as with his right hand; and he smote so swiftly with his sword that three seemed to flash through the air at once. He was the best shot with the bow of all men, and never missed his mark. He could leap more than his own height with all his war-gear, and as far backwards as forwards. He could swim like a seal, and there was no game in which it was any good for any one to strive with him; and so it has been said that no man was his match. He was handsome of feature, and fair-skinned. His nose was straight, and a

* Dasent, ii., pp. 356-57, from the Biskupa Sögur.

little turned up at the end. He was blue-eyed, and bright-eyed, and ruddy cheeked. His hair thick, and of good hue, and hanging down in comely curls. The most courteous of men was he, of sturdy frame and strong will, bountiful and gentle, a fast friend, but hard to please when making them. He was wealthy in goods.'—(vol. i. p. 60.)

We must not dwell at any length on the events of Gunnar's life, in spite of the wonderful reality with which they are brought before us in the Saga. There our readers will learn how he 'fared abroad' as a sea-rover, and won his famous war-bill in a fight with pirates off the coast of Esthonia-the bill that was made by 'seething spells,' and that foretold a coming fight by a loud ringing sound as it hung on the wall, and by breaking forth into a 'rain of blood-drops-how, too, at the Althing, he wooed the fair Hallgerda in a brief and bold fashion well fitting the lady, who had already disposed of two husbands who did not suit her :

'She spoke up boldly to him, and bade him tell her of his voyages; but he said he would not gainsay her a talk. . . . . So they talked long out loud, and at last it came about that he asked whether she were unmarried. She said so it was; "and there were not many who would run the risk of that."

"Thinkest thou none good enough for thee?"

"Not that," she says; "but I am said to be hard to please in husbands."

"How wouldst thou answer were I to ask for thee?"

"That cannot be in thy mind," she says.

"It is though," says he.

"If thou hast any mind that way, go and see my father." 'After that they broke off their talk.'-(vol. i. p. 98.)

From this marriage sprang the feud which is carried through the whole Saga, and which at last brought about the burning of Njal, with his wife and sons. The evil nature of Hallgerda, and the mischief that would arise from her, had been forespaed' when she was still a child; and after her marriage with Gunnar, Njal, who was possessed of a mysterious foreknowledge, frequently noticed in the Sagas, and which seems greatly to have resembled the second sight of the Gael, declared that she 'would come very near' to spoil the friendship between himself and Gunnar, who, he added, 'would have always to make atonement for her.' Death after death, murder after murder, resulted from the quarrel which soon fell out between Hallgerda and Bergthora, the wife of Njal; but the friendship was not broken. 'I will hold to my

faithfulness to thee,' said Njal, when the feud had long been raging, 'till my death-day;' and both he and Gunnar, who might have refused to receive compensation for the frequent slaughter of kinsmen and house-thralls, generally settled the blood-fine between themselves,

themselves, until Gunnar, hard beset and injured, took to avenge his own wrongs, though unwillingly. I would like to know,' he asked, 'whether I am by so much the less brisk and bold than other men, because I think more of killing men than they?'(i. 177.)

At last a great fight took place on the Rangriver, at which Gunnar and his brothers killed many of their enemies. At the following Althing atonement for this loss of life was decreed; and Gunnar was ordered into exile for three years. But his heart yearned to his home, and he disobeyed the sentence.

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Njal, the 'far-seer,' had predicted that if Gunnar broke his atonement he would be slain 'here in the land; and that is illknowing for those who are thy friends.' Njal was a true prophet. During the next summer's 'Thing,' Gizur the White summoned all Gunnar's foes to meet in the Almannagya,' the great volcanic rift which bounds the plain of the Althing on its eastern side. At that meeting an onslaught was planned against Gunnar. Njal warned him of it in vain; and in the autumn Gizur the White and his company rode to Lithend and attacked the house by night. There, after Aunund of Witchwood had killed Sam, Gunnar's Irish hound, who gave 'such a great howl that they thought it passing strange'

'Gunnar woke up in his hall, and said

"Thou hast been sorely treated, Sam, my fosterling; and this warning is so meant that our deaths will not be far apart.

Gunnar slept in a loft above the hall, and so did Hallgerda and his mother.

"Thorgrim the Easterling went and began to climb up on the hall. Gunnar sees that a red kirtle passed before the window-slit, and thrusts out the bill, and smote him on the middle. Thorgrim's feet slipped from under him, and he dropped his shield, and down he toppled from the roof.

Then he goes to Gizur and his band, as they sat on the ground. 'Gizur looked at him, and said—

""Well, is Gunnar at home ?"

"Find out that for yourselves," said Thorgrim; "but this I am sure of, that his bill is at home."

And with that he fell down dead.'-(vol. i. p. 242.)

The foes attacked the house, and at last pulled off the roof of the hall with ropes. Gunnar wounded eight men and killed two, and got himself two wounds; and all men said that he never once winced either at wounds or death.' His life might yet have been saved but for the malice of the wicked Hallgerda. His bowstring had been cut in two by Thorbrand, who in return had been cleft asunder by the famous bill :—

• Then

Then Gunnar said to Hallgerda, "Give me two locks of thy hair, and ye two, my mother and thou, twist them together into a bowstring for me."

"Does aught lie on it ?" she says.

"My life lies on it," he said; "for they will never come to close quarters with me if I can help them off with my bow."

"Well," she says, "now I will call to mind that slap on the face which thou gavest me; and I care never a whit whether thou holdest out a long while or a short." —(vol. i. p. 245.)

In spite of Hallgerda's refusal, Gunnar kept his foes all off until he fell worn out with toil:

"Then they wounded him with many and great wounds, but still he got away out of their hands, and held his own against them a while longer, but at last it came about that they slew him.

Then Gizur spoke and said, "We have now laid low on earth a mighty chief, and hard work it has been, and the fame of this defence of his shall last as long as men live in this land."

'After that he went to see Rannveig (Gunnar's mother), and said, "Wilt thou grant us earth here for two of our men who are dead, that they may lie in a cairn here ?"

"All the more willingly for two," she says, "because I wish with all my heart I had to grant it all of you.'

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"It must be forgiven thee," he says, "to speak thus, for thou hast had a great loss."

'Then he gave orders that no man should spoil or rob anything there.

After that they went away.'-(vol. i. pp. 246, 247.)

Will not Mr. Maclise, who some time since showed us so admirably the deeds of Gunnar's brethren at Hastings, trace the line a little higher up, and show us the death of Gunnar himself at Lithend?

Gunnar fell in the year 990. There is no indication in the Saga of his having been brought more directly under Christian influence than appears in his noble character; yet, nearly ten years before his death, the first definite attempt at the conversion of the island had been made. We must return to Thorwald Kodranson, the 'far-farer,' whom we have already encountered as one of the best of heathen Vikings. In one of his many wanderings Thorwald visited the country of the Saxons, and was there converted and baptized by a priest named Frederick. Neither

*Mr. Metcalfe, who gives (Oxonian in Iceland,' p. 364) a very interesting account of the present state of Lithend, tells us that the cairn in which the hero was buried sitting upright, and in which he was heard singing after his burial (Saga, ch. 77), is still pointed out, near the traditional site of his skáli, or hall. To the right of the path which leads thither, a little mound marks the restingplace of the faithful Sam, his big Irish hound.'

country

country nor priest can be distinctly recognised from the brief notice of the Saga; but, although we should gladly believe that the country of the Saxons' was England, and that Frederick was an Englishman, it is more probable that the Saxon country is to be sought on the borders of the Elbe, and that the priest belonged to the Archiepiscopal Church of Hamburgh-the outpost which Charlemagne had founded, and which had long served as a great missionary station for the conversion of the North. A bull of Pope Gregory IV. appointed the first Archbishop, St. Anschar, and his successors, 'legates' and missionaries over the whole of Northern Europe; and it was possibly with the permission of Adeldag, then Archbishop of Hamburgh, that Frederick, after consecration as 'chorepiscopus,' set out with his new convert Thorwald for Iceland in the spring of the year 981.

Thorwald's home was at Gilia in Vatnsdal, in the northern division of the island; and although, from the bishop's ignorance of Norse, Thorwald was obliged to act as interpreter, a considerable effect was at once produced throughout the district. Three of the most wealthy landowners were baptized; another consented to receive the 'primsignaz;' and during the following winter, Kodran, the father of Thorwald, who had been a Viking of no small reputation, changed his faith and was baptized with all his household, one son, Örm, alone excepted. According to the Sagas, the conversion of the old Viking was the result of a struggle between the Christian bishop and a household spirit (fylgia?) especially honoured by Kodran. The home of the spirit, who protected the household and the flocks of Kodran, and who predicted future events for him, was a great block of stone in the Vatnsdal. Bishop Frederick, wearing his episcopal robes, went to it in solemn procession, and, after chanting over the stone, sprinkled it with holy water. On the following night the spirit, who seems to have been a true Northern elf, presented himself to Kodran, all sad and trembling, and reproached him with the wrong he had permitted. The men thou hast brought here,' he complained, have poured hot water on my house, and my children have been scalded by the drops which fell through the roof. It has not hurt me much; but it is hard to bear the crying of the bairns.' Twice again the bishop sprinkled the stone; and twice again the spirit appeared to Kodran, each time with sadder looks, and with dress more stained and tattered. "This Christian bishop,' he said, ' has spoilt my house and my clothes, and has scalded me and my children, so that we can never be cured. Now we must go far into the mountains.' The stone itself

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* Olaf Tryggvason's Saga, ch. 131.

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