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 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

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

Gooi of the spot, and it was strictly forbidden to wear arms while the meeting lasted. The closing of the Alping was called Vápnatak (weapon-taking, 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 Saga of Njál Thorgeirsson, a masterpiece of literature in the freshness and brilliance of its narrative.

We hear occasionally of the passing of particular laws at an Alping. In A.D. 994, for instance, it was enacted that the suit for compensation for homicide which was brought, according to the general practice of the northern nations, by and for the benefit of the nearest relatives of the slain, a right which has survived in the law of Scotland under the name of Assythment, and has been partially introduced into the law of England by the Act 9 & 10 Vict. c. 93 (commonly called Lord Campbell's Act), should in future not be brought by a woman or by a child under sixteen years of age, but by the nearest male relative. This provision was suggested by a case that had occurred just before, when inadequate compensation had been recovered for the slaughter of a chieftain named Arnkel, owing to the mismanagement

of the suit by

2

A.D.

his widow. Again, in A. D. 1006 we are told of the abolition of the judicial combat on the occasion of an indecisive duel between the poet and Viking Gunnlaug Ormstunga (Snake's tongue 1) and another poet named Hrafn, the details of which are recorded in one of the most beautiful and touching of the early Sagas. Gunnlaug had been betrothed to Helga the Fair, one of the most famous heroines of Icelandic story, but having been detained in England by King Ethelred II, whose guest he had previously been in London and whose praises he had been celebrating in verse, had failed to return at the appointed time, and found Helga, who had yielded to the importunities of her relatives, already married to Hrafn. According to the custom of the North, which then allowed any man to require another either to give up his wife and all his property or defend her and it by arms, Gunnlaug came to the Alping and formally challenged Hrafn, and they fought, each with his second, a solemn duel on the island in the Öxará which was set apart for that purpose. A dispute arose after the first encounter, and the combatants were separated. Gunnlaug wished to resume the combat, but the law already referred to, prohibiting formal duels in future, was passed next day by the Lögrétta; and he unwillingly obeyed, for a breach of it would have exposed him to the penalties of outlawry. Helga, however,

1 So called from his satirical powers.

2 The Saga says (Gunnlaugs Saga Ormstungu, chap. vii) that in the days of Ethelred son of Edgar (Aðalráðr Játgeirsson) the same tongue was spoken in England and Denmark as in Norway, and that this continued in England till William the Bastard won England, after whom Welsh (Valsk = French) was spoken.

refused to live any longer with her husband Hrafn, and next year the two rivals sailed by agreement to Norway, just as, fifty years ago, persons fearing to fight a duel in England used to cross to Calais for the purpose. Years passed before they met in the wild country east of Throndhjem. There they fought out their quarrel. Gunnlaug smote off his enemy's foot, and then proposed to stop the combat. Hrafn however, supporting himself against a tree, wished to fight on, but as he was tortured by thirst, he besought his opponent to fetch him a draught of water from a brook hard by, promising not to deceive him. The chivalric Gunnlaug brought the water in his helmet, whereupon Hrafn, taking the water with his left hand, suddenly raised his sword and, with all his remaining strength, smote Gunnlaug on his bared head. Thou hast done ill and deceived me,' said Gunnlaug, 'seeing that I trusted you.' 'So is that,' answered Hrafn, 'but I grudged thee the love of Helga the Fair.' Then they fought on. Hrafn was slain, and in a few hours Gunnlaug died of his wounds'. The news was brought to Iceland, and after a time Helga, thinking ever of Gunnlaug, and often spreading out upon her knees a garment which Gunnlaug had given to her, pined away and died likewise.

Another striking scene at the Alping has been preserved to us in the Saga which relates the introduction

1 The Saga adds that very shortly after the combat, and long before the news of it could have reached Iceland, the ghosts both of Gunnlaug and of Hrafn appeared in dreams to their respective fathers in Iceland, and recited poems describing their deaths. Illugi the Black, Gunnlaug's father, remembered the poem he heard and repeated it aloud next day. The Saga gives both poems. This is one of the earliest Teutonic instances of a deathapparition.