raises a nice point of procedure. In no other literature is fiction or history, by whichever name we describe the Sagas, so permeated by legal lore.

Our knowledge of the substance of early Icelandic law is derived partly from references or allusions in the Sagas, partly from some ancient law-books, the oldest of which belongs to the period of the Republic, and was compiled, probably about the middle of the twelfth century, out of materials some of them much older, and reaching back into the eleventh and even the tenth. Statutes had been passed during the course of the tenth century, and the Úlfljótslög of A.D. 930 is spoken of as a body of law prepared by Úlfljót after his journey to Norway and accepted by the Alping, though it was probably a redaction of existing Norse customs, and does not seem to have been reduced to writing, as indeed it is improbable that any laws were written before the beginning of the twelfth century. The next effort at what has been called a 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')1. 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

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.

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 EnglandEnglish and Anglo-Norman-and upon some of the most curious features of early Roman law. Sometimes the references to the deliverances of a Law-Speaker as originating a rule make us think of the 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 sister 1. 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. To affix a nickname to a man is punishable by banish1 This rule is ascribed to Guðmund Thorgeirsson, who was Law-Speaker from

1123 to 1135 A. D.

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).

ment. 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 age 1.

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 Fró á 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 Thurið 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 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

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

done. But men died in the house, and Thurid 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 Goði of the spot, and it was strictly forbidden to wear arms while the meeting lasted. The closing of the Alping was called Vápnatak (weapontaking, wapentake), because the arms that had been laid aside were taken when men started to ride home from the ping. But the arms were after all only left in the booth, and more than once it happened that the party which found itself unsuccessful in a lawsuit seized sword and spear and fought out the issue in a bloody battle, from which sprang again new blood-feuds and new lawsuits. It is not very often that the Sagas give us a glimpse of the conduct of business at the Alping; but one such lawsuit, followed by a combat, which arose when the suit broke down on a technical point, is described with wonderful force and spirit in the famous