codification of the law was made nearly two centuries after Úlfljót (about A. D. 1117), when a small commission was appointed which examined the customs, rejected some, approved or amended others, and created what is described as a sort of systematic collection. This is usually known as the Hafliðaskrá, from a prominent Goði and lawyer Hafliði Mársson, who was a member of the commission. This law is stated to have been accepted by the Alping, and was no doubt preserved in writing, as the name Skrá (scroll) conveys.

The later book which used to be described as a Code survives in two MSS., differing a good deal from one another, and is commonly known as Grágás ('GreyGoose')'. It is, however, really not a Code at all, and not even a single law-book, but a mass of matter of different dates and origins never reduced to any sort of unity. There are ordinances of the Alping, decisions and declarations delivered by Law-Speakers, ecclesiastical regulations, formulas of legal procedure or legal transactions, memoranda of customs which seemed to those who recorded them to have obtained recognition and validity. It is full of instruction as a picture of primitive Teutonic institutions and life; and it throws a good deal of light both on the law of early England-English and Anglo-Norman-and upon some of the most curious features of early Roman law. Sometimes the references to the deliverances of a LawSpeaker as originating a rule make us think of the

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1 The name Grágás (probably drawn from the binding in which a copy of it was preserved) seems to have originally belonged to a MS. of the Frostaþingslög, the law which prevailed round Throndhjem in Norway, and to have been applied by mistake in the seventeenth century to this Icelandic collection of customs, first published by the Arnamagnaean foundation in 1829.

Roman Praetor, sometimes the concisely phrased records of what was settled by the Lögrétta remind us of our English reports of the judgements of the King's Courts in their early forms; while in one point the collection as a whole has a character which belongs to the earlier law-books as well of Rome as of England. Though the statutes of the Alping are the most distinctly authoritative rules it contains, much whose authority would seem doubtful to a modern is set down in a way which clearly implies that it did possess authority. The line between absolutely binding law and all other law is not sharply drawn; indeed no such line exists. That which is recorded may be only a single instance of the observance of an alleged custom. It may be only the expression of the individual opinion of some learned lögmaðr (Lawman jurist). Nevertheless it is a record which has come down from the past, and by which therefore the men of the present may seek to be guided.

In the law of Iceland, as it is presented in this ancient collection, we have, as in the Constitution of the island and the system of the Courts, a striking contrast between the rudeness of an extremely archaic society, in which private war is constantly going on, piracy is an honourable occupation, slavery exists, and there is no State administration and very little use of writing, and the refined intricacy of a system of law which makes elaborate provision for the definition of legal rights and their investigation and determination by legal process. The time of day is fixed by guessing at the height of the sun above the horizon. The wife is purchased. A father may deliver his child into slavery, no doubt (as in early Rome), a qualified slavery, for the

payment of his debts, and the insolvent debtor may be made a slave. But, on the other hand, there are rules, not unlike those of our modern Courts of Equity, regulating the guardianship of the property of a minor, and permitting a portion of it to be applied to the support of his indigent father, brother or sister1. There are careful distinctions as to who may sue for the penalty for homicide. If the slain man is an Icelander, the action goes first to the son, then to the nearest blood relation, then to the local Goði, then to any member of the same Quarter, then to any citizen (a sort of actio popularis). If the slain man was not an Icelander, but one who used the 'Danish (or northern) tongue,' i. e. if he was either a Norseman or a Dane or a Swede, then any relative may sue; if a stranger of any other nationality, only a father son or brother may sue. But for the protection of persons coming in a ship, the comrade or partner 2 of the deceased, whom failing, the skipper who has the largest share in the ship, is a proper plaintiff.

It is curious to note that, although homicide and murder were common, the punishment of death is never prescribed, even as in two or three of the Southern States of America the death penalty is seldom inflicted, while 'shootings at sight' and lynchings abound. And an interesting resemblance to early Roman law may be found in the extreme severity of the law of slander and libel. The truth of a defamatory statement is no defence.

This rule is ascribed to Guðmund Thorgeirsson, who was Law-Speaker from 1123 to 1135 A.D.

2 Partner is félagi (English fellow'). Many further rules on this point are contained in the passage, Grágás, chap. xxxvii (vol. ii. pp. 71-73 of the Arnamagnaean edition).

To affix a nickname to a man is punishable by banishment. No verses are to be made on a man, even in his praise, without his leave first obtained; and one who teaches or repeats the verses made by another incurs an equal penalty, the remedy extending even to verses made against the memory of the dead. A love poem addressed to a woman is actionable, the action being brought by her guardian if she is under twenty years of age1.

Of the ramifications of the system of procedure into all sorts of Courts, besides the regular pings, I have no space to speak; but one singular illustration of the faith which the Icelanders had in the efficacy of legal remedies deserves to be given, because in it these remedies reach beyond the present life. It comes from the Eyrbyggja Saga, one of the most striking of the old tales.

A chief named Thorodd, living at Fróðá in Breiðifjörð, on the west side of Iceland, had just before Yule-tide been wrecked and drowned with his boat-companions in the fjord. The boat was washed ashore, but the bodies were not recovered. Thereupon his wife Thurid and his eldest son Kjartan bade the neighbours to the funeral feast; but on the first night of the feast, as soon as the fire was lighted in the hall, Thorodd and his companions entered, dripping wet, and took their seats round it. The guests welcomed them: it was held that those would fare well with Rán (the goddess of the deep sea) who attended their own funeral banquet. The ghosts, however, refused to acknowledge any greetings, and remained seated in silence till the fire had burnt out, when they rose and left. Next night

1 See Grágás, chaps. civ-cviii, pp. 143-156 of vol. ii. in the Arnamagnaean edition.

they returned at the same time and behaved in the same way, and did so, not only every night while the feast lasted, but even afterwards. The servants at last refused to enter the fire-hall, and no cooking could be done, for when a fire was lit in another room, Thorodd and his companions went there instead. At last Kjartan had a second fire lit in the hall, leaving the big one to the ghosts, so the cooking could now be done. But men died in the house, and Thurið herself fell ill, so Kjartan sought counsel of his uncle Snorri, an eminent lawyer and the leading Goði of Western Iceland. By Snorri's advice Kjartan and seven others with him went to the hall door and formally summoned Thorodd and his companions for trespassing within the house and causing men's deaths. Then they named a Door-Court (Dyradómr) and set forth the suits, following all the regular procedure as at a ping-Court. Verdicts were delivered, the cases summed up and judgement given; and when the judgement word was given on each ghost, each rose and quitted the hall, and was never seen thereafter.

Ghosts have given much trouble in many countries, but it is only the Icelanders who have dealt with them by an action of ejectment.

Although it is a remarkable evidence of the political genius of the Norsemen that they should have been able to work at all a legal system such as has been described, it need hardly be said that it did not work smoothly. The Icelanders were a people of warriors, little accustomed to restrain their passions, and holding revenge for a sacred duty. The maintenance of order at the Alping was entrusted to the