ers of the House of Keys are the twenty-four material keys whereby
the closed doors of the law are unlocked. But besides the sea-folk of
the ship-shires King Orry remembered the Church. He found it on the
island at his coming, left it where he found it, and gave it a voice
in the government. He established a Tynwald Court, equivalent to
the Icelandic All Moot, where Church and State sat together. Then he
appointed two law-men, called Deemsters, one for the north and the other
for the south. These were equivalent to his Icelandic Loegsoegumadur,
speaker of the law and judge of all offences. Finally, he caused to
be built an artificial Mount of Laws, similar in its features to the
Icelandic Logberg at Thingvellir. Such was the machinery of the Norse
Constitution which King Orry established in Man. The working of it was
very simple. The House of Keys, the people's delegates, discussed all
questions of interest to the people, and sent up its desires to the
Tynwald Court. This assembly of people and Church in joint session
assented, and the desires of the people became Acts of Tynwald. These
Acts were submitted to the King. Having obtained the King's sanction
they were promulgated on the Tynwald Hill on the national day in the
presence of the nation. The scene of that promulgation of the laws was
stirring and impressive. Let me describe it.

THE TYNWALD

Perhaps there were two Tynwald Hills in King Orry's time, but I shall
assume that there was one only. It stood somewhere about midway in
the island. In the heart of a wide range of hill and dale, with a long
valley to the south, a hill to the north, a table-land to the east, and
to the west the broad Irish Sea. Not, of course, a place to be compared
with the grand and gloomy valley of the Logberg, where in a vast
amphitheatre of dark hills and great joekulls tipped with snow, with deep
chasms and yawning black pits, one's heart stands still. But the place
of the Manx Tynwald was an impressive spot. The Hill itself was a
circular mount cut into broad steps, the apex being only a few feet in
diameter. About it was a flat grass plot. Near it, just a hundred and
forty yards away, connected with the mount by a beaten path, was a
chapel. All around was bare and solitary, perhaps as bleak and stark as
the lonely plains of Thingvellir.

Such was the scene. Hither came the King and his people on Tynwald
Day. It fell on the 24th of June, the first of the seven days of the
Iceland