PART I.--STYKKISHÓLM.

We are very anxious to leave this

“Tivoli del mal conforte,”

where,

“O piove, o tira vento, o suona a morte.”

The “Jón Sigurðsson,” Captain Müller, ran into Reykjavik on June 26, and next day we set out to prospect Hafnafjörð, the Haven Firth, distant two bays south of the capital. Threading the now familiar islets, we doubled the beaconed point of Suðrnes, and passed Bessastaðir, Besse or Bear-stead, a place not undistinguished in island story. It was built by the turbulent and traitorous “Herodotus of the North,” Snorrí Sturluson, grandson of Sæmund the Wise, born at Hvamm, in A.D. 1178, and author of the “prose Edda;” he died “in his shoes”--murdered as was the custom of the day. Long years afterwards the place of “Meister Petz”[56] became the Latin School, and now it belongs to a congenial soul, Hr Grímr Thomsen. Followed Garðar, also on the Alpta-nes (swan-ness) peninsula, where a fringe of farms

and houses, each with seven gables or more, ranged in line, not massed together, fronts the faint-green land, and prospects the glaucous northern seas. After a couple of hours, which covered two Danish miles, we steamed down a deep and sheltered sinus, facing the north-west, with double entrance: here a red buoy made us independent of pilot; the tides inflow by the south and race round and out to the north.

The scenery of Hafnafjörð, which Scotchmen compare with that of Scalloway, is peculiar and somewhat grotesque. Like all the south-western parts of Thule, the formation is a hopeless lava-field, bristling with shrublets and patched with green: the outline of frontage consists of points divided by bays of dark-grey sand, and the habitations are perched between the knobs and turrets of the several Hrauns, old and new. The land is comparatively level, backed by a veritable Sierra--the dorsal spine of this part of Iceland--jagged, notched, and vertebral, extending from north-east to south-west. Four brigantines and a lugger were anchored in the clear water, off the five pierlets, the usual planks and caissons, that denote the corresponding comptoirs, one patch of building to the north, another to the south, and a third at the bottom of the bay, whilst an extensive farm-house rose from a dorsum of green, the Hval-eyri or whale strand.

Whilst the steamer discharged her salt and iron pans, we hailed an old, blunt-snouted punt, and paid for the service two marks: the latter process evoked a stare of surprise and a vigorous shake of the hand. I note this proceeding because it is not unusual on the coast of Iceland; it certainly distinguishes the boatman from his hateful brotherhood in more genial lands; especially on the “Hesperian strand.” We landed at Flensburg, about the bottom of the bay, the establishment of Hr Johnsen, and walked round to the buildings on the north. All are timber, coloured grey or black, with white windows and slate roofs; each flies its flag, Danish or Norwegian. The latter belongs to the Bergen Company, which has lately taken the place of the Scotch house at Reykjavik, with branch agencies here and at Stykkishólm and Seyðisfjörð. At a little bridged stream women and boys were busy with the corpses of cods, cutting gills, tearing out gullets, splitting bellies to their ventral fins, extracting livers and sounds, and tossing the trimmed carcases into heaps--they were jolly as Italian peasants at the Vendemmia. Some of the lads were fishing with sinkers of stone, floats of driftwood, and bait of cod. Beyond the stream a new road to Reykjavik was being made, by blasting the lava--as will be seen, it is much wanted. On the north of the bay we inspected the remains of Hr Sivertsen’s dry dock, which looks like a line of groins to keep the shore _in situ_. A couple of eaglets were shown for sale; they had lately been taken from a crag in the lava-run to the south-east: the chickens, hardly six weeks old, were about the size of Cochin fowls; their skins showed bare through the growing plume of grey and dark-grey, contrasting with the bright yellow cere, and they opened threatening gapes at the stranger. The price had lately risen to £3, whilst ten shillings a head were asked for the fierce little graveolent foxes.

As usual we had time for a walk inland to the Varða, or landmark, bearing magnetic east of the ship, and distant about thirty minutes: I was anxious to see the behaviour of the lava. Travellers in Iceland everywhere speak of vast outpours which, instead of showing any decided point of origin, appear to have sweated from the soil. They especially quote the lands about Mý-vatn and Krafla, where the contrary is the case: the same has been observed in other volcanic countries, _e.g._, by Mr Porter in Syria; by Messrs Tyrwhitt-Drake and Palmer in Moab; and by those who have studied the Quito platform. Here, however, we distinctly traced three craters, and it became evident that the mouth which discharged the oldest torrents may have been obliterated by subsequent eruptions. The principal lava-bed[57]

showed in section a shallow dome between two lateral fissures, where contraction of the edges, and perhaps a less solid foundation, had caused the sides of the stone-river to fall away and form dwarf “Gjás,” or longitudinal rifts--we shall see the same action on a grander scale at Almannagjá. The dorsum was broken by sharp edges, the tall crests of split and splintered blisters, the bubbles of the earth where lava overflowed wet ground; coils like tobacco-rolls and ropy corrugations, ripple-marks and plications, showed where the hardening clinkers had been compacted together, and everywhere yawned tunnels and caverns. Yet the field was crossed by a horse-path.

The normal high shingle-bank of the shore formed an inland bog, and the result was a subtending lagoon, as usual without outlet. Farmlets were scattered about, all apparently on made ground. There was a tolerable turbary haunted by whimbrels and loud-voiced terns; the lava-fields belonged to the Snjotit-lingue, snow-flake or snow-tit (_Emberiza_ or _Plectophranes nivalis_); to the Stein-depill or wheat-ear (_Motacilla ænanthe_); and to the Máriátla or Mary-bird, the white wag-tail (_Motacilla alba_). The three latter were exceptionally tame, and like Joâo de Barros in the Brazil, amused themselves by flirting with the unfeathered biped.

I have described Hafnafjörð at a greater length than it perhaps deserves. Here not a few travellers have declared that the capital of Iceland should be, and undoubtedly it will become the sole place of export for the Krísuvík sulphur-fields. The harbour is exceptionally safe, sheltered from all winds: the climate is better than that of Reykjavik; and the sky is often clear when heavy clouds invest the northern heavens. But unless ground is made, there is little or no building room. On the other hand, for an exporting port, Hafnafjörð is perfect. In the early sixteenth century the British corsairs, numbering some 360 souls, had formed a regular colony at Haven Firth--let us hope that the complaints of Christian II. will not call for renewal, when the English miner shall spread himself over the land.

As the sun fell towards the horizon the air became cool; the thermometer on deck showed 58° (F.), and the day gradually assumed a worn and faded look, like a maiden when the sun breaks upon a ball. Before midnight we were once more at Reykjavik, to start north on the next morning.

The “Jón Sigurðsson” (det Islandske Handelssamlag’s Dampskib) belongs to a Norwegian company, who bought her at the high price of $60,000. An iron hull, her draught is 9 feet, her tonnage 460, and her horse-power 80, which can be raised to upwards of 100: she must burn 12 tons of coal during the twenty-four hours to average less than 8 knots, and this combined with cheap passages prevents her paying.[58] Her good point is the possession of two donkey-engines, the simple Cornish, with 6-inch stroke, which do all the work. Her accommodations are not complete; we occupy the seven sofas in the aft saloon, and of the four cabins three are taken by the officers, including the agent. Broad, tubby, and high out of the water, she catches the wind with her “gawky” telescope funnel, a survival from the days of Watt; she has little sailing power, and she is hardly safe off a lee-shore; in August she was beaten back when attempting to make the Færoes.

The want of punctuality again is a serious disadvantage to “Jón.” The departure will be fixed for any hour between six A.M. and two P.M.; you will be hastily summoned on board at nine A.M., and yet not start till noon. There are stated hours of feeding, but they are not regular enough for passenger ships; and provisions, as well as liquor, often run short, because the “restauration” is not obligatory. The delays are ever recurring; covered lighters being unknown, and rye, with other perishable goods, cannot be landed during rain. Again “Jón” is over-officered. Besides captain and two lieutenants, we carry double engineers who speak English; an agent and commissaire; steward, stewardess, and assistant steward. The commander, A. W. Müller, is a young lieutenant of the Norwegian navy, which wisely allows its unemployed officers to take charge of postal and passenger steamers. We find the advantage of this arrangement in every part of the establishment. The brasses are bright; the decks are washed; the “squeejee” is used; the offices are clean, and even the spittoons are garnished with fresh heather; whilst the natty little steward and the white-clad cook are pleasing contrasts with the state of affairs on board English craft of the same kind. And we were all charmed with Captain Müller, whose _bonhomie_ and obliging disposition made every passenger right sorry to part with him.

* * * * *

_June 28._

Steamed out at seven _A.M._ under Italian skies, and over seas smooth as mirrors, which promised ample enjoyment of this day’s “lion,” Snæfellsjökull, capping the northern land-arm of broad Faxa Fjörð. As we crossed the Hvalfjörð-mouth, the lay of the land suggested a mighty leaf; the water-line being the midrib, with Esja and Akranes representing the up-turned sides. On the south-western slopes of Skarðsheiði, we were shown the streamlet and farm of Leirá, “Rivière de la Vase,” which once owned the printing-press; and beyond the broad Borgarfjörð (burg firth)[59] lay the low alluvial flat Mýra Sýsla. The unromantic name, “mire county,” becomes ridiculous when Mýra-maður (mud-man) is applied to the dweller: the comical wrath which it excites reminded me of Varnhagen’s indignation about the Corcovado or Hunch-back mountain of Rio de Janeiro. Far over the fen-tract, streaked by its three main streams, appeared a suggestive prospect: the long perspective of Jökulls; Ok (the yoke), Geitland’s and the northern Skjaldbreið, not to be confounded with the “Broad Shield” on the road to Hekla: this chaos of ice-deserts and volcanoes was ranged in long dorsa, dish-covers, or antediluvian Twelfth-cakes, flattened at the summit, backed by pearly mists of their own growing, with crests rose-tinged by the sun, and feet streaked with transparent blue shadows. In vain we strained our eyes to catch a sight of Baula, the cow, pronounced somewhat like (the land of) “Beulah;” its pale-grey trachytic columns, though 3000 to 3500 feet high, were hidden by intervening buttresses: even Eld-borg, the “Tower of Fire,” though quite near the coast, refused to show its grand circular crater and flanks too steep for snow. Here begins the northern Skarðsheiði, which, passing through the Hnappadals (button-dale) Sýsla, anastomoses with the broken cones called Katlar (the caldrons), and with the great Snæfellsjökull, the Snebels Hokell of Pontanus, and the “Western Jökull” of our maps. The long thin tongue of land, mostly trachytic, has been mightily exercised by the fire below. Here, upon a naked Tenerife, rises a tall grey cone, fronted by a little extinct volcano, flushing angry red; there a wall of brown lava is built upon a base of ruddy cinders and scoriæ, which have assumed the natural angle. It is a land of chimneys and spiracles rising from cinders and other _rejectamenta_; of Öl-keldr or “ale” (mineral) “waters;” of cascades, silver fibres dashing into kieves of snow; of jagged sugar-loaves and saddle-backs; of craters either whole or half torn away; and of Klettar or precipices stripped of the snows which encompass them.

Our attention was directed to the Búða-klettar, or cliffs of Buðir, the celebrated centre of eruption which sent forth the Búðarhraun; and at their base, ending the Jökullháls, the long ochraceous slope that falls from the eastern ridge-flank of Snæfell to the settlement of Búðir (the booths), far-famed for chalybeate springs. Huts for invalids have been run up at this well-known “Kur-ort,” but the accommodation is described as rough in the extreme. A little westward again, showing its basaltic pillars, lies “Stapi,” the steeple-formed rock, a local Staffa, suggesting memories of Fin M’Coul.

All eyes now fix themselves upon Snæfellsjökull: as the break of the sea upon the shore told us, it rises within three miles, and the accidents of weather, though apparently determined to conceal the calotte of snow, combine to form an admir-

able setting for the imposing scene. The clearness of the heavens had gradually changed to light mists, which hung mid-way upon the hill-sides: whilst “mackerel’s-back” flecks the upper air, woolpack, growing from the snow wreaths, forms dark-grey columns, perfectly simulating a burning coast, and puffy white cumuli cast a shadow distinct as if drawn by a painter’s hand. About one P.M. the northern breeze becomes a south-easter, bringing with it a decided freshness and a few drops of rain. The brown and dun coloured cirri, before floating high above the wool-pack, now girth its middle, and there is a grand contrast between the here and the there. Around us a few cats’-paws fan the waters, which, under the lee of the land, stretch smooth as oil, and the air is mild and kindly. In the upper regions rages and roars “Satan’s weather;” the cloud chariots rush forward in solid line against the wind, dashing and clashing as they course and career over the battlefield of virgin snow; they are torn to pieces by the artillery of the Storm-Fiend; the troops whirl away in headlong flight, veiling now one cusp of the crater, then another. The westerly peak is connected by a deeply-gashed synclinal slope, a kind of broken saddle-back, with the eastern horn, or rather horns, which appear in the shape of a “Thríhyrningr,” while below them, on the oriental outline, a star of jetty basalt shines radiant in the dazzling white. Below the western peak also the binoculars show a broken quoin, a long, black dyke, and a multitude of dark dots protruding from the _névé_, as if men were ascending. The apex has never been reached, and we at once see the reason why: it is--

“Like a jagged shell’s lips, harsh, untunable; Blown in upon by devils’ wrangling breath.”

M. Gaimard declares the eastern pinnacle to be “_frisée comme des têtes de choux-fleurs:_” it appeared to me umbrella-shaped, with under ribbings of frozen snow. M. Jules Verne was not so happy as usual in making “Sneffles” an entrance for Arne “Saknussemm;” nor could we learn anything about “Scortaris.”

The southern front below the _névé_ is a steep incline of contorted lava; and a multitude of “hornitos” and parasitic craters, apparently fallen in or choked up, run down almost to the water’s edge, where they form a wall of contorted and caverned layers. Above the cliff a gentler slope has a faint tinge of rainbow-green; and the steeper acclivities are bare, red and yellow, brown and black. As we hugged the shore, I carefully looked for the snow-drainage, and saw none: had there been any, the sea-scaur must have shown it. Henderson rightly reports the general belief that the water set free by the sun passes by underground tunnels to the sea; and, all along this peninsula, the people hold to subterranean connections. But the explanation somewhat savours of the Congo Yellala (rapids), where the mighty mass of the upper stream, “above the ghauts,” is supposed to pass through an invisible channel. Herðubreið afterwards taught me that Palagonite allows no surface drainage in the dry season; and this I hold to be the true explanation of a remarkable phenomenon often seen in Iceland.

So striking a feature as Snæfell, whose shadow may be traced in the air, could not fail to engender a variety of tales and legends. Some declare, with the old Sagas, that it is within sight of Hvítserk in Eastern Greenland. Certes its height (4577 Danish feet) is very far from affording a vision ranging over 200 direct geographical miles; but here we are little more than a degree from the Arctic circle, and it is hard to limit the magic powers of refraction.[60] When the bishop declared that it was unassailable by reason of “Dominus Bardus Snæfellsás, cujus sine auspiciis mons Snæfell vix, ac ne vix quidem, superari potest,” he alluded to a superstition still preserved. In Hitárdalr,[61] farther east, is shown a huge feminine face carved in stone, and said to represent Hít, the Ás or guardian goddess of the dale: a “Plutonic affection” exists between her and Bárð or Snæfell’s Ás, whom Mackenzie calls a tutelar saint, and whom Charles Forbes uncivilly converts from Dominus to demon. He represents right well the Spirit of the Glacier. Curious to say, the same tale concerning the “Loves of the Mountains” is told in far New Zealand, where Messrs Tongariro and Taranaki (Mount Egmont) are jealous as they are amorous of Mrs or Miss Taupo.

The earliest climbers seem to have attempted the ascent from the east and south-east, where the snow-line extends much lower. Such were Eggert Ólafsson (1755); Mr, afterwards Sir, John Stanley (1789); and the three Britishers who “wrote their mistresses’ names in the snow--the emblem of their purity.” Sir George Mackenzie (1810) remained below, and Drs Bright and Holland went stoutly up: the latter tells us (p. 55, Recollections of a Fast Life) that a snow bridge gave way during the descent, and one leg sank through the arch: he was saved by the poles of the two Iceland guides, but ever after he sought to shun the remembrance. They were followed by Henderson (1814), by Gaimard (1835), and by Forbes (1859).

Of course, none reached the very summit. The Frenchman sensibly attempted it from the north, and found the slope easy: we shall presently see his line of march. Remains only to try the west where the snow lies much higher up, and where the angle does not apparently exceed 25°: here also the distance to the cusps or peaks is notably shorter. The Beruvík farm appears to be a good starting-place. But Alpines who love “climbing for climb” must remember that without ropes and ladders, perhaps kites also, and very likely with them, it will be impossible to do more than has been done by their predecessors.

The accidents of the shore-line preserve their interest: the lone rock Göltr (the deer)[62] and the twin Lón-drángar (sea-inlet drongs), donjons of lava 240 feet tall, the north-western appearing as if standing inland, where a red rock acts castle. Beyond it, amongst the conical and degraded craters, we remark the Tröllakyrkja, Kirk of the Trolls, or Giants, who here have a diocesan as well as a governor. They have been busy on and off this coast, as shown by the Trölla-botn, Giant Bay, the Polar Sea between Norway and Greenland; the Trölla-börn (chimneys), or volcanic “hornitos;” the Trölla-hlað, the Giant’s Causeway, or colonnade of basalt; and the Trölla-dyngjur, or Giantesses’ bowers, the mamelons near Reykjanes, which erupted in A.D. 1000. And that the dwarfs have not been idle we see by the Dverga Kamarr, their hollowed chambers in the basalt. We run by Dritvík (guano bay), along the caverned cliff, built in various layers, here frosted like silver, there dotted with white points, which prove to be birds. At Öndverðarnes (fronting naze), after an hour of thorough enjoyment, thanks to Dominus Barðr, we turn the corner, the north-westernmost projection of Snæfellsjökull, which the pilot calls Svarta-lot, from the steps protruded by the swart sea-wall; we open the Breiði Fjörð, and again we find waters smooth as a silver plate.

Not that Broad Firth is always so well behaved: at times he rages with frantic violence, mixing sea and sky till the general view is like a well-shaken basin of soup, and confusing all the elements in a chaotic matter, which justifies the much-maligned Pytheas. Many have been drowned when crossing the dangerous sea, amongst them Ólafsson, the Icelandic traveller, in 1767; shortly after he had “addicted himself to the study of revealed religion.” During the winter of 1873-74, it was completely invested by the Greenland ice; congelation extended as far as the eye could reach from the highest hill-tops; and drifted bears were slaughtered by the peasantry. There are traditions of skating across the broad bay, of seals being killed, and of ships’ anchors being blown away by the furious wind. At least, so says Mr Clausen, who has now taken us in charge. The grandson of a Danish merchant mentioned by Henderson, he has married a wife from Bonnie Dundee, and he has spent some four years at Melbourne, which have opened his eyes to auriferous quartz-reefs, to large deposits of iron, and to other minerals in his native island.

We delay for a while at the mouth of the big bay to swing the ship and prove her compasses, a precaution never to be neglected. The “Jón” then runs at a respectful distance along the northern shore of the Snæfellsjökull tongue, which is not less interesting than its southern coast. Our cicerone points out Enni or Ennisfjall, “forehead mountain,” _la montagne de front_,[63] where those who would avoid a long detour inland must pass over an Úfæra or “don’t travel” path--sands liable to frequent bombardments from the red bluff 2500 feet high. Henderson tells the exaggerated tale of its horrors, quaintly wondering how they were not felt by the young girls who rode with him. Mr Clausen then introduces to us Ólafsvík, his ancestral home, two slate-roofed houses, with surrounding huts, nestling in a sheltered bay; and, by way of urging his hospitality, he nobly makes us “free of the cellar.”

The eastern point of the “Vík” is Búlandshöfði (farm-land head), of whose road Forbes has given a sketch, which verily makes the reader “squirm.” From the sea, it appears a cone some 2000 feet high, shelving towards the water, composed of many couches, said to belong to old basaltic formations, rich in zeolites: between them are ledges and _débris_ of the columnar type. All own the road to be dangerous for the side-saddle; but also Mr Clausen had travelled over it in winter, cutting steps for his nags in the icy snow, and holding on to his pony’s tail.

An adjoining headland to the east showed us the quaint features called the Coffin (Líkkista, the lich or corpse kist) and Sukkertoppr (the sugar-loaf), both rising from a transparent sea, and backed by slate-coloured walls and snow-dotted peaks. The former is an elongated dorsum, with a shallow dome above, steps around its neck, and lower slopes of a brownish-red. The Pão de Assucar, thinly greened, and laterally barred with grey rock, seen from the north-east, is a regular cone, like the Sugar-loaf of Sutherland; and over all hangs, like a halo, the glorious presence of Bárðr’s home, whose snow roof stretches far lower than on the southern side. As the sun slants towards the west about 10.30 P.M., his last fires light it like a noble opal in a shining bezel of sleety blue, the glow waxing brighter and brighter till the snow, all aflame, dims every other object of earth, sea, and sky. At last the fire burns slowly out, a tall white spectre, the ghost of the morning’s scene, towers in the upper air, and the world becomes once more cold, dull, and pale--by contrast colder, duller, and paler than ever. It had been a “thing of beauty,” even though the incomparable scenery of Magellan’s Straits, rendering me not a little fastidious, was still fresh within my brain.

As we steam eastward we are shown the red Hraun of the Berserkir,[64] two light-coloured knobs thrown out by the red and broken forms of the Drápuhlíðarfjall. It has been asserted that Dr Backmann dug into the Bersekja-dis, and found two skeletons, but men on the spot know nothing about these _fouilles_. The story of their acting Macadam is too well known to repeat, since it appeared in the Eyrbyggia Saga; we may observe, however, that it has every characteristic of the normal Icelandic legend. There is the unavoidable woman in the case, Asdisa, “a young, haughty, fiery, and robust damsel.” The chief actors in the tragedy, Halli, Leiknir, and their destroyer Arngrim, surnamed Víga Styr (the stirrer or restless one), are all poets; and the latter characteristically boasts of a foul and cowardly assassination, as if it were a deed worthy of a Bayard. The highly honourable nature of murder pure and simple, unaccompanied by aught of risk or gallantry, belongs to a certain stage of society, and the Eastern reader finds many instances in the career of Arab, Persian, and Hindu heroes.

And now, in the cold, fierce wind, we run past a scatter of islets, especially noting Elliðaey (Ellwich Isle), the private property of the bishop, whose fair daughter is on board. The light-green surface, effect of summer growth, supports a few wrack-eating sheep; and the dark masses of subcolumnar basalt, bluff to the north, and pierced with black caves, are silvered over by troops of birds. About eleven P.M. we turn sharp to starboard, and sight our destination, Stykkishólm, not Stockholm, not _arène de morceaux_, but “holm of sticks,” that is, bits of pillared stone: the settlement’s name is taken from one of the three rock-islets to the north, Stykkisey. Leaving tall Súgandisey (wind-gush isle) to the east, and the larger Landey to the west, we presently find ourselves in a well-defended, dock-like inlet, with a landing-place above high tide. The comptoir was of more importance than usual, Stykkishólm being then the capital of the Western Quadrant: a schooner, two brigantines, and a smack lay at anchor; seven flags were flying; of the eight houses two were double-storied, and the parsonage boasted of a white belvedere. Crosses on the rock-dyke, one looking from afar like the ancient Irish, suggested a non-existing Calvary. The oldest tenement was that occupied by the Amtmaðr, or high sheriff.

My first care at Stykkishólm was to see the Hr Administrator A. O. Thorlacius, agent of the steamer: he came on board with his son, but, unfortunately, we were “barbarians to one another.” The father has taken meteorological observations once per diem, at noon, since November 1845: in 1866 he was provided with instruments by the Board of Trade, and his labours have appeared in the journal of the Scottish Meteorological Society.[65]

Early next morning we set out, mounted on rat-ponies, and guided by Mr Sýslumaðr Skúli Magnússon, to see the curiosities of Thórsnes, the little peninsula which was once a hot-bed of heathenism. Some cantonniers were working at the path, which combined the Brazilian pleasures of slippery plank-bridges, foul causeways, and corduroys of slush; we were compelled to round the long inlet Vésvágr or Vé-vágr (holy bay), because it cannot afford a ferry: here broken bottles showed a habit of picnicing. Turning to the south-east we sighted Helgafell (holy hill), a common name, as we have seen about Reykjavik. This lump of subcolumnar basalt, perpendicular to the north and east, and falling with an easy grassy slope to the south-west, after being honoured as hillock never yet was, was chosen for one of the earliest Christian churches; and people still pray at the dwarf chapel on the “Mount of Immortality,” because the habit is 800 years old. It still preserves intact the memory of Snorri Goði (the priest of Thor), “who was good to his friends and grim to his foes:” the Eyrbyggia Saga tells the tale of his intrigues, cruelties, and murders, Arnkell, whose tumulus is hereabouts, being the “Charles” or good boy of the story. We were shown the Munkrskarðr, where the holy men bade farewell to their beloved monastery, a kind of Arctic “Last Sigh of the Moor”--an illiberal English sacerdos adds, “their heart, doubtless, was with their treasure, buried in a hill-side.” Monks, you see, are not like other men; they must always be either almost superhuman, or, that failing, subhuman.

Thence we turned to the east, where Thórsnes lies, and whence the old Thunderer looked out upon Hofsvágr or Temple Bay.[66] Here, in A.D. 883, Thórolfr Mostrarskegg (of the big beard), following the pillars of his high seat round the head of Snæfellsjökull, took possession of the ground with burning firebrand, as was the significant custom of the day. The good guide, being utterly guiltless of all local knowledge, led us up to a substantial farm-house, at whose door stood a blear-eyed old franklin. Our nags, which attempted to crop a few blades of grass, were incontinently seized and tethered to a long cord--after the open-handed hospitality of the Syrian peasant, who, however poor, supplies your animal with barley and bruised straw, I was struck by the change for the worse. Usually the people are to be pitied; they would, perhaps, be hospitable, but they cannot afford it where every ounce of fodder is wanted. Even in the wealthier age of paganism the guest who outstayed his three days was said to “sit,” and was held to be a cosherer or vagrant. This “bonder,” who had 200 head of sheep in his “rétt,”[67] and 300 elsewhere, evidently had better use for his grass than the pauper. Moreover, there is far more ceremony in hyperborean than in sub-tropical lands. If the farmer be absent, an Icelander will not enter the house; the women know nothing, and prefer running away from strangers. When the master is at home, the guest is too shy to ask for what he wants. After a sufficient experience, I ended by dismounting, walking up to the door, offering a pinch of snuff and a drain from my brandy-flask, and roundly explaining my general requirements, to be paid for, _bien entendu_. A stranger may do this, but the natives have a punctilious regard for one another’s feelings, an admirable but uncomfortable quality, which prevents their taking or tolerating any such liberties.

The steamer was to start at ten A.M., and the garrulous old man was determined to extract every item of European news from the guide, whilst Mister Sýslumaður could not disappoint a constituent--the average dawdling is worse in Iceland than in Peru. At length he sent with us his son, and this nice-looking lad led us to a shore fanged with hideous stumps of basalt, grey rocks wetted by the perpetual wave, and long muds foul with wrack, which resembled cods’ sounds. It had a certain weirdness of aspect, especially its background, the torn and tormented flanks of Drápuhlíð,[68] an extinct volcano to the south, famed for minerals and alternate strata of trap and ropy lava. The only remains of the Virki (“work”), where the local Thing met, were vallum-like lines of green sod; and the Dóm-hringr, doom’s ring or judgment circle, was a triangular shape, with the base facing the shore. Not a sign of the Hof was to be seen; the Blótsteinn, or sacrificial stone, was asked for, but beyond legends of buried treasure, nothing was known to the incurious peasants.

On our return to Stykkishólm, we called upon the Amtmaðr (high sheriff), Hr Bergr Thorberg, who, fortunately for us, spoke good French. He assured me that Hr Skuli Magnússon had found the Blótsteinn, and we again accompanied him to sketch it. After thirty minutes, a boat placed us on the eastern side of the little peninsula, and we landed upon the broken basalt, weedy and slippery as ice. This shore is still known as Thórsnes, and the place as Thingvellir. After vainly seeking information at a cottage, inscribed T. (Teitur) G. S. Guðmundsson, 1869, we found a shepherd lad, who steered us through the swamps to a rise on the west, a site marked by a Varða of rock. The “Stone of Fear” was a bit of basalt, six feet long by six feet two inches broad, and half buried in the ground: at least, such was the article shown to us. South of it lay the Doom-ring, a circle of rough rocks, twenty-five feet in diameter. Between the two were buried the criminals whose backs had been broken upon the stone.[69]

In these forensic and sacrificial circles the judge, still called “Deemster” in the Isle of Man, faced eastwards, with his back to Holy Hill, at which man might not look without ablution. On his right, the direction of Múspellheim, the place of honour, from the profound popular reverence for the sun, stood the accuser. The accused was on his left, in the line of Niflheim, the nebulous north, a scene of horror and guilt, which the old Germans called midnight. The twelve doomsmen occupied the space within the Dóm-Steinar, where benches, here probably of turf, were provided for them. The sentences delivered from the “Circle of Brumo” were almost poetical in their ferocity. The old pagan Scandinavian was the incarnation of destructiveness. His was not the fickle pugnacity of the Kelt, who would fight and shake hands within the hour; nor the feeble pride of the classic, who only battled to “debellare superbos:” he was a Shiva, satisfied with nothing less than absolute annihilation. The blood-men were warned lest “weak pity step in between crime and its fitting punishment.” The following was the form of outlawry sentence: “For this we judge and doom thee, and take thee out of all rights, and place thee in all wrongs; and we pronounce thy lawful wife a lawful widow, and thy children lawful orphans; and we award thy fiefs to the lord from whom they came, thy patrimony and acquired property to thy children, and thy body and flesh to the beasts of the forest, the birds of the air, the fish in the water. We give thee over to all men upon all ways; and where every man has peace and safe-conduct, thou shalt have none; and we turn thee forth upon the four ways of the world, and no man shall sin against thee.”

And this doom was to extend “wherever Christian men go to church and heathen men sacrifice in their temples; wherever fire burns and earth greens; wherever mother bears child, and child cries for mother; ship floats, shield glitters, sun melts snow, fir grows, hawk flies the long spring day and the wind stands under his wings; wherever the heavens vault themselves, the earth is cultivated, the gale storms, water seeks sea, and men sow corn. Here shall the offender be refused the Church and God’s house, and good men shall deny him any home but hell.”[70]

And the old Scandinavian punishments were sanguinary and atrocious as those of the Thulitæ, of whom Procopius spoke. Criminals were cast to wild beasts, burned and boiled alive, flayed and impaled, to say nothing of mutilation and such a trifle as tarring and feathering.[71] Cowards were drowned or smothered in mud. Forest burners were exposed to the fire till their soles were roasted. Barkers of trees had their internals nailed to the injured bole, and were driven round it till their bowels took the place of the despoiled coat. Removers of boundary-stones were buried to the neck and ploughed to death with a new plough, drawn by four unbroken horses, and driven by a carle who had never before turned a furrow. And so forth.

The aspect of the Dóm-hringr vividly reminded me of the old theory held by Sir Walter Scott, to mention no others, that Stonehenge and similar buildings were Scandinavian courts of judicature, in which criminals were doomed and put to death. One of these fora was fitly described by Olaus Wormius as “Undique cautibus septum”--hemmed in on all sides with stones equal to rocks, and usually disposed at a bowshot from the centre. So Camden says of Stonehenge it is a “huge and monstrous piece of work such as Cicero termeth ‘insanam substructionem:’” his sketches make it like a dance of giants (choir gaur or chorus magnus), justifying Walter Charleton’s “Chorea Gigantum, vulgarly called Stone-heng” (London, 1663), which he also restored to the Danes. Mr Fergusson’s anti-Druidical protest was anticipated as far back as 1805 in the “History of the Orkney Islands” (Longmans, London), by the Rev. George Barry, D.D., who justly observes, “These extraordinary monuments have, like almost all others of the same nature, been supposed Druidical; but with very little reason, since there is not the least shadow of evidence that that order of men was ever within these islands;” while Coxe justly calls the Druids a “favourite order of men, under whom we are apt to shelter our ignorance.” Stonehenge and its chiselled, tenoned, and morticed trilithons and cronets, though finished with more art, are evidently the same class of building as the Standing Stones of Stennis; and both would appear to represent in comparatively genial climes and populous regions the rude Doom-ring of Iceland. I need hardly notice the opinion of the Rev. Isaac Taylor, who, in a wild and ignorant book (p. 43, Etruscan Researches; London, Macmillan, 1874), converts to Turanian sepulchres the monuments which covered the Wiltshire downs, and who considers the stone circle a survival of the weights which kept down the skin tents. Though bones have been found within such buildings, and without the rings, the sepulchral use may have been of later date.[72]