Note 39 — Chapter V

History tells of this great Icelandic poet, that owing to his treachery the free island of Iceland came beneath the Norwegian sceptre. For this reason he could never appear in Iceland without a strong guard, and therefore visited the Allthing under the protection of a small army of 600 men. Being at length surprised by his enemies in his house at Reikiadal, he fell beneath their blows, after a short and ineffectual resistance. [Snorri Sturluson, the most distinguished name of which Iceland can boast, was born, in 1178, at Hoam. In his early years he was remarkably fortunate in his worldly affairs. The fortune he derived from his father was small, but by means of a rich marriage, and by inheritance, he soon became proprietor of large estates in Iceland. Some writers say that his guard of 600 men, during his visit to the Allthing, was intended not as a defence, as indicated in Madame Pfeiffer’s note, but for the purposes of display, and to impress the inhabitants with forcible ideas of his influence and power. He was invited to the court of the Norwegian king, and there he either promised or was bribed to bring Iceland under the Norwegian power. For this he has been greatly blamed, and stigmatised as a traitor; though it would appear from some historians that he only undertook to do by peaceable means what otherwise the Norwegian kings would have effected by force, and thus saved his country from a foreign invasion. But be this as it may, it is quite clear that he sunk in the estimation of his countrymen, and the feeling against him became so strong, that he was obliged to fly to Norway. He returned, however, in 1239, and in two years afterwards he was assassinated by his own son-in-law. The work by which he is chiefly known is the Heimskringla, or Chronicle of the Sea-Kings of Norway, one of the most valuable pieces of northern history, which has been admirably translated into English by Mr. Samuel Laing. This curious name of Heimskringla was given to the work because it contains the words with which begins, and means literally the circle of the world.—Ed.]