72 GUIDE TO ICELAND. A Pagan priest, Yalgard, jealous of the spread of Christianity, was greatly embittered against all converts, especially the influential old law-giver, Njal, and his family ; and he with great cunning matured a deep-laid scheme, which should not only bring about their destruction, hut also the death of Hoskuld, whom, being a Christian priest, he also hated. He was only too successful. He instructed his son, who was an acquaintance of Skarphedinn’s, to urge on the latter that it was necessary for his own safety to slay Hoskuld, as he was meditating Skarphedinn’s destruction for having killed his father, prain. The artful priest knew full well that if he could only bring about Hoskuld’s death at the hands of Njal’s sons, his wife’s powerful and warlike uncle, Flosi, would never rest until he had amply avenged him. After more than a year of intrigue, Skarphedinn was finally excited to protect himself from what was purely an imaginary danger, by killing Hoskuld: the unfortunate priest being attacked and killed in his own corn-field by a party of five, Skarphedinn, his two brothers, Helgi and Grimr, Kari and Yalgardsson. An attempt was made to settle the feud, thus brought about, by law and the payment of blood money, but fruitlessly, as Yalgard had foreseen would be the case with such a powerful and warlike man as Flosi: and terribly did the latter avenge the death of his niece’s husband. He assembled one hundred and twenty men, and one night surrounded Berg\6rshvoll, determined to take summary vengeance on NjaL’s three sons and Kari. Njal and his wife, and the females of the household, were informed they might leave the house unmolested, but Njal declined to do so, and his wife refused to quit him. He said :— ‘ I will not go out, for I am an old man, and little fitted to avenge my sons, but I will not live on in shame.’ In those days revenge was a duty and a right, and a man pre- ferred death at the hands of his enemies rather than swear an oath to forego revenge ; therefore to Njal death was preferable to living on without the power to avenge his sons. So dauntless were the besieged, that the assailants found it impossible to force an entrance into the house, and finally they piled the peat and haystacks up against its walls and set fire to them. Njal, perceiving that death was inevitable, lay down with his wife and a little child upon a bed, and dragged an oxhide over them ; and beneath this they were found dead, but unburnt, when a search was made among the ruins of the house. A brave defence was made by the sons of Hjal and the house-carles, but all three

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