IN NJAL'S TIME.

In the tenth century the homesteads of the Icelanders consisted of one
main building, in which the family lived by day and slept at night, and
of out-houses for offices and farm-buildings, all opening on a yard.
Sometimes these out-buildings touched the main building, and had doors
which opened into it, but in most cases they stood apart, and for
purposes of defence, no small consideration in those days, each might be
looked upon as a separate house.

The main building of the house was the stofa, or sitting and sleeping
room. In the abodes of chiefs and great men, this building had great
dimensions, and was then called a skali, or hall. It was also called
eldhus, or eldaskali, from the great fires which burned in it.... It had
two doors, the men's or main door, and the women's or lesser door. Each
of these doors opened into a porch of its own, andyri, which was often
wide enough, in the case of that into which the men's door opened, as we
see in Thrain's house at Grit water, to allow many men to stand in it
abreast. It was sometimes called forskali. Internally the hall consisted
of three divisions, a nave and two low side aisles. The walls of these
aisles were of stone, and low enough to allow of their being mounted
with ease, as we see happened both with Gunner's skali, and with Njal's.
The centre division or nave on the other hand, rose high above the
others on two rows of pillars. It was of timber, and had an open work
timber roof. The roofs of the side aisles were supported by posts as
well as by rafters and cross-beams leaning against the pillars of the
nave. It was on one of these cross-beams, after it had fallen down from
the burning roof, that Kari got on to the side wall and leapt out, while
Skarphedinn, when the burnt beam snapped asunder under his weight, was
unable to follow him. There were fittings of wainscot along the walls of
the side aisles, and all round between the pillars of the inner row,
supporting the roof of the nave, ran a wainscot panel. In places the
wainscot was pierced by doors opening into sleeping places shut off from
the rest of the hall on all sides for the heads of the family. In other
parts of the passages were sleeping places and beds not so shut off, for
the rest of the household. The women servants slept in the passage
behind the dais at one end of the hall. Over some halls there were upper
chambers or lofts, in one of which Gunnar of Lithend slept, and from
which