he was a tall man,' when the Saxon king met and defeated him at Stamford Bridge in Yorkshire, about a month before he fell himself at Hastings. Before he became king of Norway, Harald had been Captain of the Varangian Guard at Constantinople; and after the fall of the Piræus had, no doubt, employed the hand of one of his countrymen to trace, in the mystic characters of the North, the story of his conquest on the old Greek lion.

The fiercest Viking spirit had become somewhat tamed before the days of Harald Hardrada; but this singular monument, with the strange mixture of races and countries which belongs to its history, is, perhaps, one of the most suggestive memorials of the Northern sea-rovers remaining in Europe. Full of interest as are all the details of their story, there is nothing about it which takes a firmer hold on the imagination than the wide stretch of their wanderings and conquests, the consequent jostling of the old world and, the new, and the sharply-contrasted pictures thence arising, which the Sagas indicate even more frequently than they supply at full length. Far wanderings and strange adveutures are at once suggested when we read of a robe of Byzantine silk, embroidered with golden palm-leaves, worn by some Kiartan or Thorolf, and glancing in the red firelight of an Icelandic drinking-hall; or when we find the same Greek word as Homer would have used, employed to designate the support of the mighty vessel of mead or of beer which cheered the hearts of Norse sea-kings on the shoses of Caithness, or under the shadow of Heckla.* To meet Goliath of Gath in an Icelandic version of his story, rejoicing in the title of that accursed Viking,' is scarcely more startling or unexpected.t

Hoards of Byzantine and Oriental coins, with Greek and Cufic inscriptions, are still brought to light from time to time in Iceland and Norway;-tangible relics of the old sea-kings, and proofs of their distant wanderings. Traces of their ancient presence may be found, too, on shores far from their own countries, in the shape of some monumental stone with its dragons and carved runes, or of such an inscription as * Trapeza' is the word used for the beer-table in more than one Saga. Possibly a support for the great mead-vat was itself a refinement brought from Byzantium.

t The word 'viking,' as Mr. Dasent points out, is in no way akin to king. It is derived from "vik," a bay or creek, because these sea rovers lay moored in bays or creeks on the look-out for merchant ships. The "ing" is a well-known ending, meaning, in this case, occupation or calling. In later times the word is used for any robber,' as in the Biblical paraphrase referred to above.-Dasent, vol. ii. p. 353.

that on the Venetian lion. But what remains of their influence on the cognate races with whom they mixed, first as conquerors and then as colonists? And how far is it possible to recognize the lingering presence of the spirit of the North, not only in the kirks' and 'bys' which dot the eastern and northern counties of England, and in the Scandinavian words and phrases which occur in the local dialects, but also in the dispositions and character of the people themselves? Without by any means asserting with Mr. Laing that we derive little or nothing from our Saxon ancestors, and that we are indebted to the infusion of Scandinavian blood for every free institution and good gift we possess, we may at least admit that the Northman has had his full share, both through the settlements of the Danelagh and the great conquest at Hastings, in the gradual formation of 'This happy breed of men-this earth-this England.'

Hence, besides the picturesque character of the narratives which show us the Northman in his own land-besides their stronglycontrasted colours, and their wild lights and shades-they have for us an especial interest as presenting us with full-length portraits of our own ancestors-on one side at all events-drawn with the minutest accuracy of detail, and as full of life and character as the most speaking canvases of Titian or Giorgione. It is not a little interesting to compare the features of such remote kinsmen with those of their later descendants, and to trace the Icelander of the tenth century in the hospitable English Franklin of Chaucer's time, and, still more clearly, in the Condottieri captains-such as Hawkwood and Sir John Fastolfe-of the fifteenth century, or in the adventurous sea-rovers-such as Drake and Cavendish-of the sixteenth and seventeenth.

For the best aid toward such a comparison the English reader is under the deepest obligation to Mr. Dasent. The Northman is nowhere more completely shown to us than in the Sagas of ancient Iceland; and of these none is more important or more valuable, from the variety and minuteness of its details, than the Njal's Saga-the 'Story of Burnt Njal'-of which we are now presented with a most admirable translation. Only those who are acquainted, however imperfectly, with this grand old story in its original language, can fully appreciate the beauty and fidelity of Mr. Dasent's version. Not only is the clear and simple English such as modern writers-to their own infinite loss-seldom care to employ, but, without any affectation of antiquity, the words most nearly related

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Of all the Icelandic Sagas, the Njala, according to Mr. Dasent, whose judgment will be confirmed by every competent scholar, bears away the palm for truthfulness and beauty. To use the words of one well qualified to judge, it is, as compared with all similar compositions, "as gold to brass." Like all its brethren, or at least like all those which relate to the same period, the Njal's Saga was not committed to writing until about one hundred years after the events which it records. It was handed down orally, told at the Althings, at all great gatherings of the people, and over many a fireside; on seastrand and river-bank, or up among the dales and hills;' until at last, certainly before the year 1200, it was moulded into its present form. Of its general truth there can be no doubt. It was,' says Mr. Dasent, considered a grave offence to public morality to tell a story untruthfully; and besides internal evidence, the genuineness of Njala is confirmed by other Sagas, and by songs and annals, the latter of which are the earliest written records which belong to the history of Iceland.' 'Much,' says the translator, 'passes for history in other lands on far slighter grounds; and many a story in Thucydides or Tacitus, or even in Clarendon or Hume, is believed on evidence not one-tenth part so trustworthy as that which supports the narratives of these Icelandic story-tellers of the eleventh century.' We may, therefore, safely trust to them for what no other country perhaps in the world-certainly no other in Europecan supply; minute pictures of life at one of the most important periods of national history-that of the introduction of Christianity. It is this which gives an especial interest to the Njala, the story of which extends from the middle of the tenth to the first years of the eleventh century; thus embracing a period of pure heathenism-the first attempts at conversion-and the final reception of the new faith in the Althing of the year 1000. We shall give our readers a

The Norwegian Jarls and freemen who fled from the novel rule of Harald Fairhair (A.D. 860-933) established themselves for the most part on the coasts of England, Ireland, and Scotland, and on the neighbouring islands-especially Orkney and Shetland. Some few-the first of whom was Ingolf, in the year 874-found their way across the Northern Sea to Iceland; but that country did not receive its most important colonists for some years after. Harald, who succeeded in consolidating the royal power in Norway after the fashion of Charlemagne on the Rhine and in the Gauls, and of Athelstane in England, had rendered himself especially hateful to the freemen of Norway by his attacks on their ancient rights; and after they had withdrawn from the struggle, besides ravaging the chief shores of Western Europe, they revenged themselves on their former king by incessant pillages on those of Norway itself. Harald determined to attack them in their new settlements:

to follow him, levied a mighty force, and, sailing "He called,' says Mr. Dasent, on his chiefs suddenly with a mighty fleet which must have seemed an armada in those days, he fell upon the Vikings in Orkney and Shetland, in the Hebrides and Western Isles, in Man and Anglesey, in the Lewes and Faroe-wherever he could sword. Not once, but twice he crossed the sea find them he followed them up with fire and after them, and tore them out so thoroughly, root and branch, that we hear no more of these lands as a lair of Vikings, but as the abode of Norse Jarls and their Udallers, who look upon the new state of things at home as right and just, his successors by an allegiance more or less dutiand acknowledge the authority of Harald and

ful at different times, but which was never afterwards entirely thrown off.'-(vol. i. pp. xi., xii.)

Great numbers of the Vikings thus driven from the British Isles took refuge in Iceland. More than half the names recorded in the Landnáma-bók-the 'Land-taking' or Doomsday-book of Iceland, which contains the names and genealogies of the first settlersare those of freemen who had before been settled on the coasts of Great Britain.

For ample descriptions of the manners, the institutions, and the religion brought from Norway to Iceland by the first colonists, we refer our readers to Mr. Dasent's Introduction. We are here more immediately concerned with them in so far as they influenced the character of the Icelanders before conver

sion, and thereby affected the change of faith itself, and the nature of the Christianity which was then introduced. Two great points are especially to be noticed: the reverence for law and for legal forms which the Icelanders possessed in common with all the Scandinavian and Teutonic races; and the duty of revenge for bloodshedding-also a common heritage, but one which nowhere receives such ample illustration as in the pages of the Njal's Saga itself. The right or duty of revenge arose out of the right of property which every head of a family was supposed to have in all his kinsmen and descendants. A system of compensations for wounds or loss of life was gradually introduced; and the person who did the wrong might, in the words of the Saxon law, either 'buy off the spear or bear it,' but one or the other he must do; and the relatives of the injured man were bound to carry out the feud to the last extremities, if the injurer refused to pay the legal fine.or 'blood-wite.' An almost identical system yet prevails among the aboriginal races of India and the various Arab tribes; but, according to Captain Burton, the duty of revenge has with the latter, at any rate in Arabia itself, the effect of rendering infrequent such tribal or family meetings, at which, as at the Icelandic Althings or home festivals, fights, and loss of life would most probably occur. Such is the Arab dread of the bloodshed which a feud would draw out in its progress, or of the money fine which must otherwise close it. Very different was the feeling of the old Icelanders. Odin, with them, was especially regarded as 'Valfader,' the 'father of battle; an appeal to arms, in any shape, was an appeal to heaven :

Walhalla was ready for him. Hence the indifference to life among the Icelanders; who believed, moreover, that an inexorable fate hung over each man's life, against which it was in vain to strive. To avoid a feud was thus not only unmanly, but useless. In following up the duty of revenge,' all that was essential was to act openly, like a man, and to show no shame for what had been done. 'To kill a man, and say that you had killed him, was manslaughter; to kill him, and not to take it on your hand, was murder.'-(vol. i. p. xxxiii.)

In what manner this leading principle of the heathen Icelander was affected by Christianity we shall presently see. The reverence for law and for legal forms, thoroughly illustrated in the history and constitution of the althing, of which Mr. Dasent gives us an admirable account (vol. i. p. cxxiii.), supplied the direct method by which the change of faith was finally brought about.

Iceland continued heathen in its social life and in its courts of law for more than one hundred years before the first definite attempt at the conversion of the island. But it would probably be wrong to imagine that Christianity was entirely without influence, from the very first, on the national character. Among the earliest settlers, the first who took possession of the Western Dales at the head of Hvammsfirth was Aud the deeplywealthy,' mother of Thorstein the Red, who had been king over a portion of Caithness in Scotland, where he was slain. On his death in the year 892, Aud removed to Iceland, with all her wealth and her 'following.' She was a Christian-the first woman of that faith who set foot on the shore of the island, and the first to raise upon it the great Christian symbol. The lofty craig in the Dale country, on the top of which Aud set up the cross, is still known as Krossholar, the Cross-hills; and although the shadow which it flung over the valley was only the earnest, of a better time-for after Aud's death the cross was replaced by a heathen temple-it is difficult to believe that the faith introduced by so powerful a colonist, whose own character was marked by some of the highest qualities of her race, should have disappeared without leaving at least some recollection behind it. At any rate, her last resting-place is still pointed out. She would not lie in unconsecrated earth, and was buried, according to her own desire, on the sands below high water mark, underneath a great stone, covered with mussel-shells." More than one of the first settlers from Norway also were 'halfChristians,' and were not unfavourably disposed toward the new faith, without as yet abandoning the old. Those who plundered and traded with foreign lands-and every Icelandic Viking was at the same time a chapman'-were sometimes brought into closer relations with the Christian religion. A ceremony called primsignaz,' (prima signatio,') which seems in effect to have been a form of receiving a catechumen,t was frequently submitted to by chapmen and

* Oxonian in Iceland,' p. 281.

Perhaps resembling the 'Ordo ad faciendum Catechumenum' in the Sarum Manual. See Proctor's Hist. of the Prayer Book,' p. 361.

for,' says the Saga of Egil Skallagrimson, they who had received the primsignaz might enter into any commerce with either Christians or heathens; but in religion they held whatever seemed best to them.'* Thus Athelstane of England required that Thorolf and his brother, a pair of famous Northern champions whom he was about to receive among his followers, should first undergo the primsignaz.' The ceremony was no doubt insisted on from a dread of the magical influences and other mysterious evils which might result from the unrestrained communications of Christians with the heathen worshippers of Thor and Odin. It may have been as purely formal as the Saga intimates; but at any rate it brought the Northman into peaceful contact with the Christian Church and its ministers, although he may have gazed with some unhallowed longing upon the golden crucifix and embroidered vestments of the priests who received him at the door of the Minister. Thus the services of the bell-ringers,' as the Christian priests were called, were not altogether novelties when they came to be introduced in Iceland. In the character of the noblest Icelanders we may perhaps trace something of a general Christian influence which seems to have made itself felt over the whole North before the actual establishment of the Church. Take, for example, that of Thorwald Kodranson, called the far-farer,' who, while still a heathen, took service, toward the close of the tenth century, with Sweyn Forkbeard, King

of Denmark

'Thorwald,' says the Saga, 'had not been long with King Sweyn ere the king set more store by him than by all his other men and friends; for Thorwald was a great man for good counsel, manifesting to every man his worth and foresight, strong in body and bold of heart, keen in combat and quick in battle, mild in temper and bountiful of money, and proved for trustiness and gentleness; beloved and befriended by all the king's followers, and not unworthily: for even then, as a heathen, he showed his justice before that of other heathens, insomuch that all his share of plunder which he got on their cruises he bestowed on the needy and in ransoming captives; and thus he helped many who were in bad case. . .. . . Now, inasmuch as he was bolder in battle than others of the king's band, so they passed a law that he was to have the first choice of all their spoil; but he made this use of that honour, that he chose the sons of great men, or those things else which those who had lost them set most store by, but which his messmates cared least to give up, and sent them afterwards to those to whom they had belonged. By that means ... he set free King

Egil's Saga, p. 265.

The

time King Sweyn tarried in Wales . . . . and and Thorwald Kodranson along with him, and was there taken captive and cast into a dungeon, many other men of worth and rank. Next day caine a mighty leader to the dark dungeon with a great company to take Thorwald out of prison, for a little while before he had set free the sons of this very leader, who had been taken captive, and sent them home free to their father. leader bade Thorwald to come out and go away a free man; but Thorwald swore that he would loosed and set free with all his men. The leader never go thence alive unless King Sweyn were did this 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 stranger yeoman's son who alone has in himself, King Sweyn, with a smile, I will find that 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 ball; and all asked, with a laugh, where or what sort of man this might be of whom he tells such He answers, "This man of mighty fame? whom I speak is as wise as it befits a prudent most dauntless Baresark; and as good and genking to be; as strong and stout-hearted as the tle-hearted as the most virtuous sage." 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 praise-worthy deeds.**

After

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.'

Put 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 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:

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