66 GUIDE TO ICELAND. of the main facts and incidents ■will he given, as, besides making Route 2 intelligible, it may beguile an hour of unavoidable idleness, or prove of interest to those contemplating a tour in Iceland who have never even heard of ‘The Story of Burnt Njal,’ and possibly lead them to read it before leaving England. Its perusal, the author feels confident, will induce some of those who at first merely purposed making a tour to the sights de rigeur to extend it into the Njal country. NjAl poKGEiBssosr, the hero of the Saga, was born about the middle of the tenth century. He was a ‘ Logsoguma’Sr ’ (see ante), and was a man wonderfully well acquainted with the laws and customs of the land, and was held in high repute by his con- temporaries. Njal’s home was Berg\orshvoll (Bergthora’s-knoll), a farm situated on the southernmost point of the largest of the TJtlandeyjar (Outermost-isles, see map). "When the story com- mences, he dwelt there with his wife Berg)>6ra, three sons and three daughters. Njal himself was a very peaceable man ; not so his sons, Skarphedinn, Helgi, and Grfmr, and a friend of theirs, Kari, who plays a most conspicuous part in the concluding tragedies. Njal had a ‘true fast’ friend, by name Gunnar, a noble-hearted man, whose only fault was his over-readiness to give a blow when angered. He has been termed ‘ the Bayard of Iceland, for whom in goodness of heart, strength of body and skill in arms, no man was ever a match in Iceland.’ He resided at Hl'r&arendi (Lithe- end), a farm about twenty miles N.E. of Berg\6rshvoll. Unfor- tunately he had a wife ‘ with the form and beauty of an angel and the mind of a fiend,’ by name Hallger’Sa. As she was the exciting cause of most of the bloodshed that follows, she claims to be introduced at some length. She was the daughter of a man named Hoskuld, living at Hoskuldstaftir (ste’Si/^stead), on the hanks of the Laxa falling into the Ilvammsfjor&r (Coombe-fjord) in the west. He had a brother, Hrutr, iiving close by. HallgerSa, when but a girl, was tall and very fair to look upon, with hair as soft as silk reaching to her waist. She had a ‘wicked eye’ and evil heart, however, and this Hrutr, who seems to have been gifted with great powers of perception, discovered when she was quite a child. Her father one day asked Hrutr :— ‘ “ What dost thou think of this maiden ? Is she not fair ?” ‘ Hrutr held his peace. Hoskuld said the same thing to him a second time, and then Hrutr answered:—

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