These quotations prove really conclusively that in the author's time, and when he wrote down the saga, the old constitution of the commonwealth was still in full force: Thingmen owing the old allegiance to their gothi, or chief; Things being still under the jurisdiction of the gothar, and women being still excluded from being suitors in a bloodsuit, a restriction of woman's right unknown, as Maurer concisely puts it, to Norwegian law, and having no place in the two codes Jarnsitha and Jonsbok, the first codes introduced in Iceland after the subjection of the island to the Norwegian king. Hence it follows that our saga could not have been written down after the downfall of the constitution of the old commonwealth, 1262.

But we are of opinion that the limitation of the period within which our saga was written may be greatly narrowed yet.

Hitherto the critics have left untouched the question where our saga was written; but for the answer to that question it contains itself an important piece of evidence. First, it may be observed that the topography of our saga is so absolutely perfect, that the author in no single instance is ever at fault. Considering that the localities of the saga are to outsiders about the most intricate of all localities dealt with in Icelandic-sagas, on account of the many narrow and close-set arms of the sea that stretch into the littoral, it is obvious that an author who never fails in giving each its true bearing must have lived and moved in the locality itself.

In ch. VIII, p. 9, 20-22, of Vigfusson's edition, the latest and best, we read -- "Arnkell het son hans, en Gunnfrithr dottir, er atti thorbeinir a thorbeinisstothum INN a Vatnshalsi inn fra Drapuhlith": his son was called Arnkel, but his daughter Gunnfrid, whom Thorbein of Thorbeinstead up on Waterneck east from Drapalithe had to wife (ch. VIII, of our trans.). Here it is obvious that the first "inn" gives the direction to Thorbeinstead from the place where the author was at the time he penned these words, just as the second "inn" gives the direction in which Thorbeinstead lies from Drapalithe.

Observe, that in this passage no event or movement from one named place to another named place is in question; but the case is one of stationary condition at both termini of the direction line, of which the terminus "a quo" is not named, and this is just what makes all the difference here. The first "inn" is not wanted for any topographical purpose; without it the statement would be just as clear and intelligible as it is with it; it only serves to throw light upon the bearing of the writer's home to Thorbeinstead, and has dropped from his pen unawares from the force of daily habit, and being an unconscious utterance becomes thereby all the more important in evidence.

Used for topographical purposes "inn" in our saga means: 1, east, if the direction be from west to east; 2, south, or up, when the starting-point of the direction is near the sea, and the objectpoint lies in a landward spot "on" or "east of" the meridian of the starting-point. When, therefore, the author penned the words in question, he unconsciously designated his spot as being either west or north of Thorbeinstead. We can think of no place west of Thorbeinstead likely to have been an "alma mater" of a saga writer; but north of it such a place is found at once in the monastery of Holyfell. (2) That we maintain is the very place to which the author of the Ere-dwellers' story points by his unconscious but fortunate slip.

The author of our story then, being an inmate of the monastery of Holyfell, it is interesting to inquire who among the community of that place in the period from 1221-1260 may be singled out as the likeliest for such a literary enterprise as the composition of a saga.

Out of the monastery of Flatey, which had been founded by Abbot Ogmund Kalfson, A.D. 1172, arose, on the transference of it over to the continent, the monastery of Holyfell, in 1184. The fourth abbot of the foundation was Hall Gizurson, who ruled the house for five years, 1221-1225, when he left the place, to take over the abbacy of Thickby, Thykkvibaer, in eastern Iceland, where he died 1230. He was the son of Gizur Hallson, who by his contemporaries was regarded as the most accomplished man in Iceland. This is the character given him by his younger contemporary, Sturla Thordson, the historian (1214-1284): "He was both wise and eloquent; he was marshal to King Sigurd, the father of King Sverrir. Of all clerks who ever have been in Iceland, he was the best. Often he went abroad, and was more highly accounted of in Rome than any man of Iceland kin had ever been before him, by reason of his learning and doings. He knew much far and wide about the southern lands, and thereon he wrote the book which is called "Flos theregrinationis" (Sturlunga, ii 206). This Gizur was the grandson of that Teit, son of Bishop Isleif, who set up the school of Hawkdale, which was an outgrowth of the cathedral school of Skalaholt that his father had organized. Gizur seems in his time to have been the most influential man in Iceland, and was Logsogumathr, 1181-1200. His three sons were: Magnus, Bishop of Skalaholt, 1216-1236; Thorvald, the founder and first ruler of the monastery of Vithey, 1226-1235; and Hall, the Holyfell abbot. Hall must have received at the school of Hawkdale or Skalaholt the best education that was to be obtained in the land at that time. And it is clear that he must have enjoyed high esteem among his countrymen, since, when his father resigned the Speakership-at-law in 1200, Hall was elected his successor. He, however, resigned the office after nine years' tenure, and became a monk, which shows that studious life was more to his taste than the turmoil of public affairs. Among the congregation of Holyfell during the period within which the composition of "Eyrbyggja saga" must fall, there is, so far as we know, none to be named at all beside Hall as in the least likely to have undertaken the task. And since, on the author's own showing, the saga must have been composed at Holyfell, it is but an obvious inference that it must owe its existence to the only man who can be supposed to have written it. In point of time there are no obstacles at all in the way of the saga's having been written during the period of Hall's abbotship. Thus we consider that a strong case is established in favour of Abbot Hall Gizurson being indeed the author of "Eyrbyggja saga". Assuming such to be the case, we can regard Hall as a transplanter of the Skalaholt-Hawkdale school of learning to Holyfell, and thus Vigfusson's talk about the saga school of the Broadfirthers, which was somewhat distrustfully dealt with by Maurer twenty-seven years ago, finds a corroboration which Vigfusson himself never dreamt of.

It is abundantly evident, that the author of our saga had access to a library of sagas, which is saying as much as that the Ere-dwellers' story was put to writing in a monastery. This library he seems to have examined with the one main view of at least making note of everything which he found bearing on the life of the principal hero, Snorri. This research of his has led exactly to the result that was to be expected. While he seems entirely unacquainted with Snorri's important share in the terrible affairs of Nial and his sons, A.D. 1011-1012, and consequently had no "Nial's saga" to refer to; and was equally ignorant of Snorri's interest in the affairs of Grettir the Strong, hence had no "Grettir's saga" at hand; while, in fact, sagas not specially connected with the Westfirthers' quarter seem to have been beyond his reach; those that bore on men and matters of Broadfirth, and the Westland generally, he had pretty completely at his command. For the fifty years that Broadfirth had boasted of a seat of learning in the monastery of Flatey- Holyfell, when Hall Gizurson became abbot, we may be sure that the history of its highborn chieftains, some of whom were really great and noble men, had, in particular, arrested the attention of the brotherhood. And it may fairly be assumed that such a work as Brand the Learned's Breithfirthinga kynsloth (Broadfirthers' race) early found its way into the library of the monastery. Out of the sagas our author drew upon for information, he only mentions two by their titles, the saga of the Laxdalemen ("Laxdaela saga"), with the events of which Snorri was so intimately connected, and the saga of the Heath-slayings ("Heitharviga saga"), which, by a mistake, as it were (see Introduction to the Story of the Heath-slayings), spun itself out of Snorri's ignoble revenge for the killing of his wrong-doing father-in-law, Stir. It is not on that account, however, that our author brings in a mention of this saga, but he does it for the purpose of exhibiting Snorri's interest in Bardi, whose affairs, after the Heath-slaughters, but for Snorri's intervention, might have taken a very serious turn, not only for Bardi himself and his allies, but even for the general peace of the land.

Of unnamed sagas our author has known undoubtedly that of Thord the Yeller, which is mentioned as a special saga in "Landnama" (ii. 16); this is to be inferred, not only from the part that Thord takes in the affairs between the Thorsnessings and the Kiallekings, but especially from the reference (p. 18) the author makes to the constitutional law which Yeller carried through A.D. 965 (see vol. i, p. xxxi foll.), full thirty years later than the religious fight at Thorsness Thing took place. This, of all sagas, was the one that might be supposed to have early formed an item of the library of the monastery of Holyfell.

The disjointed notices in chaps. XII and XIII about the slaying of Snorri's father, Thorgrim, by Gisli Surson; the marriage of Thordis, Snorri's mother, to Bork the Thick, and her attempt on the life of Eyolf the Gray, her brother's slayer, are clearly culled from the saga of Gisli Surson, the author contenting himself with incorporating only as much as directly bore on the life of Snorri. Not knowing Nial's saga, he was ignorant of the fact that Snorri himself, being taunted by Skarphedin for not having avenged his father, confessed that that was commonly thrown in his teeth ("Nial's saga", chap. cxix.); otherwise our author is fond of introducing notices at the expense of Snorri's courage.

In chap. XXIV, we come upon a short account of Eric the Red's voyage of discovery to Greenland. It stands in no connection with the thread of our story, and is inserted here apparently for no other reason than that Snorri is mentioned as agreeing to Stir's request to keep aloof from Eric's enemies and not to meddle in his affairs. The notice is interesting, showing that it is drawn from a saga of Eric the Red which now exists no more. The "Eric's saga" which we now have, knows nothing of Snorri as mixed up in the affairs of Eric the Red, and is, besides, an abstract of a longer saga of the Greenland discoverer, eked out by matter borrowed from the story of Thorfin Karlsefni (see Reeves, "Discovery of Vineland the Good", 1891, which affords excellent opportunity of comparing the two saga texts). (3)

In chap. XLVIII, we meet the abrupt statement that "Thorgils the Eagle was son of Hallstein, the Priest of Hallstein-ness, the thrall-owner," or, more literally, "who owned the thralls." In "Landnama" ii., xxiii., p. 131, mention is made of these thralls, and the additional information supplied that Hallstein had captured them in a war-raid on Scotland, and sent them out to the islands called Svefneyjar in Broadfirth, for the making of salt. About Hallstein there must once have existed a separate saga. Like his father and brother of Thorsness, he was of an intensely deep religious character, and, according to some accounts, sacrificed to Thor even his own son, that the god might deign to send him high-seat pillars, he himself having come from abroad to Iceland before he had become a householder. His prayer was heard, and Thor sent him a large tree, out of which he not only got his own high-seat pillars, but most houses in the "thwart bays" (those cutting into the northern littoral of Broadfirth) besides. Hallstein was a gothi of the Codfirthers (Thorskfirthinga gothi), and of the Codfirth folk there is still extant a saga, "Thorskfirthinga saga", also called the saga of Gold-Thorir (Gullthorir). But this is not the saga from which the incidents of Hallstein's life, in "Landnama" and in our story, are drawn. The Codfirther's saga, on the contrary, merely alludes to the sacrifice above-mentioned as a story commonly known, and knows nothing about the thralls. "Landnama"'s and our story's reference to Hallstein and his thralls is also only an allusion to what the authors of each record assume as a generally current tale. In the folklore of Iceland of the present day a slight tale is told of these slaves, to the effect that Hallstein came upon them one day sleeping, and hanged them ("Islenzkar thjothsogur, ii, 85). If the tale be a traditional descendant of other days, and not a later imaginative gloss on the statement of our saga or that of the "Landnama", then the original incident must have been of a nature to impress the hearers deeply. However that may be, it seems that our author has known a now lost saga of Hallstein Thorolfson.

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