50 zest to the entertainment. When a meal was over the tables were removed and drinking began in serious earnest. Three healths were drunk—to Odin, Thor and Bragi. A beaker or horn would be emptied at a pull, and friends would engage in a friendly contest to prove their capacity for imbibing. Needless to say, the conduct of the guests was not always of a refined character. As their arms had been taken from them they were reduced to fighting with their fists and with drinking horns, which, when bound with silver, were no despicable weapon. The bones of the animals that had furnished the feast were also used. We learn also that at the close it was a matter of honour for the house-father to see that his chief guests were put to bed in the quarters set apart for them, and that the others were com- fortable on the rushes which strewed the floor The sagas contain many illustrations of such scenes, and tell us how the early Icelanders not only drank hard, but fought hard, worked hard, lived hard and died hard, and that whether king or humble peasant. It would be impossible, with the space at our disposal, to tell of our further wild ride over bare rocks and lava, across deep rivers, or through volcanic sands and scoria:; or of the cordial welcome and great kindness received in quiet homesteads wherever we went. But ascending one of the heights above Haukadalr farm we would seek to describe the sights around us. Before reaching the hill side we had to pass through the “ tun,” as the bit of enclosed meadow round the farm is called. Grain is never grown in Iceland ; the hay harvest is a thing of greater importance than with us. Hay is seldom or never given to the horses even in the hardest seasons ; they have to pick up a precarious living from the withered hill- sides, and in severe weather are often found dead from starvation. The hay field is mown, and no beasts of any kind are ever allowed to graze in it, even when the crop is cut. No greater sacrilege can be committed in Iceland than to ride through the precious mowing grass and allow one’s horse to eat. Looking on the plain which lies between us and the distant mountains, it is evident that it has once been a fertile spot, but the snow is doing its work of destruction with marvellous rapidity. T?rVTTTTT»TTfTfT?TfT?¥W

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