ghtforward, even in the Earl's hall, and never thought
twice about them? where for Njal himself, the man who never dipped his
hands in blood, who could unravel all the knotty points of the law; who
foresaw all that was coming, whether for good or ill, for friend or for
foe; who knew what his own end would be, though quite powerless to avert
it; and when it came, laid him down to his rest, and never uttered sound
or groan, though the flames roared loud around him? Nor are the minor
characters less carefully drawn, the scolding tongue of Thrain's first
wife, the mischief-making Thiostolf with his pole-axe, which divorced
Hallgerda's first husband, Hrut's swordsmanship, Asgrim's dignity,
Gizur's good counsel, Snorri's common sense and shrewdness, Gudmund's
grandeur, Thorgeir's thirst for fame, Kettle's kindliness, Ingialld's
heartiness, and, though last not least, Bjorn's boastfulness, which his
gudewife is ever ready to cry down--are all sketched with a few sharp
strokes which leave their mark for once and for ever on the reader's
mind. Strange! were it not that human nature is herself in every age,
that such forbearance and forgiveness as is shown by Njal and Hauskuld
and Hall, should have shot up out of that social soil, so stained and
steeped with the blood-shedding of revenge. Revenge was the great duty
of Icelandic life, yet Njal is always ready to make up a quarrel, though
he acknowledges the duty, when he refuses in his last moments to outlive
his children, whom he feels himself unable to revenge. The last words of
Hauskuld, when he was foully assassinated through the tale-bearing of
Mord, were, "God help me and forgive you"; nor did the beauty of a
Christian spirit ever shine out more brightly than in Hall, who, when
his son Ljot, the flower of his flock, fell full of youth, and strength,
and promise, in chance-medley at the battle on the Thingfield, at once
for the sake of peace gave up the father's and the freeman's dearest
rights, those of compensation and revenge, and allowed his son to fall
unatoned in order that peace might be made. This struggle between the
principle of an old system now turned to evil, and that of a new state
of things which was still fresh and good, between heathendom as it sinks
into superstition, and Christianity before it has had time to become
superstitious, stands strongly forth in the latter part of the Saga; but
as yet the new faith can only assert its forbearance and forgiveness in