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but in order to understand and explain this phenomenon, it is neces- 
sary fo take a brief survey of the origin and character of the Ice- 
landic people. 
Iceland was colonized by the strong Norwegian race, and many of 
the settlers were of high birth and independent spirit. They were men 
of a wide horizon, had seen much of other lands, and, occupying an 
uninhabited country, were hampered with no laws but those which the 
natural conditions of the land, their own intellect, will and energy 
prescribed. In 930 they founded an aristocratic republic with an or- 
ganization in many respects unique and their own. Seventy years later 
Christianity was established by law as the religion of the country. The 
government of the church was, however, in many ways different from 
that adopted in other catholic countries. In all their work there is a 
creative force, which stamps it as their own. They had inherited such 
culture as Norway had to offer and carried it with them to their new 
home, where it blossomed forth into a new and original growth. The 
old lore, preserved in tradition, saga, and poetry of times past, was 
to them more valuable than gold, for in their view fame was the only 
immortal thing: I know one thing alone that never dies: a dead 
man’s fame. 
And there were many things worthy of being remembered: The 
old country which they had left with all that it held dear to them: 
Their homesteads (68ul), their kinsmen and their friends. These re- 
collections ever gained in force and fullness from the continual go- 
ings abroad of the settlers, either fo see their friends and kindred, to 
take possession when they fell heirs to properties, or to procure some 
necessaries which were unobtainable in Iceland, or to seek wealth 
and renown at the courts of kings. The family feeling was strong, the 
family a kind of mutual insurance association, and kinsman avenged 
kinsman, or took weregild for him, etc. A man’s position in the com- 
munity depended in no small degree on the offensive and defensive 
power of the family to which he belonged, and as most of the Ice- 
landers were of high birth, it must naturally have been a source of 
pride to them to recall and recount the names of their forefathers and 
kinsmen both in Norway and Iceland. The spirit of rivalry among the 
families made them keen to detect the characteristics and individual 
qualities of persons, and by letting their thoughts roam between the 
old country and the new one and over the events taking place in both, 
their minds were kept awake and fertile. And, indeed, there was much, 
worth remembering: the departure of the settlers from Norway, their 
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