ut by means of a rich marriage, and by
inheritance, he soon became proprietor of large estates in Iceland. Some
writers say that his guard of 600 men, during his visit to the Allthing,
was intended not as a defence, as indicated in Madame Pfeiffer's note,
but for the purposes of display, and to impress the inhabitants with
forcible ideas of his influence and power. He was invited to the court
of the Norwegian king, and there he either promised or was bribed to
bring Iceland under the Norwegian power. For this he has been greatly
blamed, and stigmatised as a traitor; though it would appear from some
historians that he only undertook to do by peaceable means what otherwise
the Norwegian kings would have effected by force, and thus saved his
country from a foreign invasion. But be this as it may, it is quite
clear that he sunk in the estimation of his countrymen, and the feeling
against him became so strong, that he was obliged to fly to Norway. He
returned, however, in 1239, and in two years afterwards he was
assassinated by his own son-in-law. The work by which he is chiefly
known is the _Heimskringla_, or Chronicle of the Sea-Kings of Norway, one
of the most valuable pieces of northern history, which has been admirably
translated into English by Mr. Samuel Laing. This curious name of
Heimskringla was given to the work because it contains the words with
which begins, and means literally _the circle of the world_.--ED.]

{40} A translation of this poem will be found in the Appendix. [Not
included in this Gutenberg eText--DP]

{41} In Iceland, as in Denmark, it is the custom to keep the dead a week
above ground. It may be readily imagined that to a non-Icelandic sense
of smell, it is an irksome task to be present at a burial from beginning
to end, and especially in summer. But I will not deny that the continued
sensation may have partly proceeded from imagination.

{42} Every one in Iceland rides.

{43} I cannot forbear mentioning a curious circumstance here. When I
was at the foot of Mount Etna in 1842, the fiery element was calmed; some
months after my departure it flamed with renewed force. When, on my
return from Hecla, I came to Reikjavik, I said jocularly that it would be
most strange if this Etna of the north should also have an eruption now.
Scarcely had I left Iceland more than five weeks when an eruption, more
violent than the former one, really took place. This circumstance is the
more remark