Note 175 — Chapter VI · THE FINDING OF STRANGE COASTS.
Reading edition
Footnote 175: Just what was then considered wealth, for an individual, may best be understood by a concrete instance. The historian Snorro Sturleson, born in 1178, was called a rich man. "In one year, in which fodder was scarce, he lost 120 head of oxen without being seriously affected by it." The fortune which he got with his first wife Herdisa, in 1199, was equivalent nominally to $4,000, or, according to the standard of to-day, about $80,000. Laing, Heimskringla, vol. i. pp. 191, 193.[Back to Main Text]