brand. influence them by his words, but destroyed several of their temples and idols, whereupon he and other Christians were forced to leave and to take refuge in Norway. The next to attempt the conversion of Iceland was one than whom it were hard to conceive a more unsuitable missionary. The author of the Heimskringla writes of him: "There was a Saxon priest who was called Thangbrand, a passionate, un- Thanggovernable man, and a great man-slayer, but he was a good scholar and a clever man. The king (Olaf) would not have him in his house upon account of his misdeeds, but gave him the errand to go to Iceland and bring that land to the Christian faith." King Olaf's authority procured for him a hearing, but his missionary activities met with little success, and having murdered two scalds who had ridiculed him, he was pursued as a murderer and returned to Norway in 999. King Olaf threatened to take vengeance for the repulse of Thangbrand on the Icelanders who were in Norway, but eventually agreed to pardon them on condition of their accepting baptism. In 1000 two Icelanders named Gissur and Hiallti, accompanied Gissur and by a priest named Thormud and several other clergy, undertook a mission to Iceland. This mission met with more success and the Christians soon became an important section of the whole population. A meeting at which the introduction of Christianity was being discussed was interrupted by a messenger who came running to say that a frightful volcanic eruption had just occurred and that "a stream of lava had burst out at Olfus and would run over the homestead of 2 Id. i. 465. 1 Heimskringla, i. p. 441. Hiallti. Thorod the priest." Then the heathen began to say, "No wonder that the gods are wroth at such speeches as we have heard." Whereupon Snorro, the (heathen) priest, spoke and said, “At what, then, were the gods wroth when this lava was molten and ran over the spot on which we now stand? The heathen eventually decided that, in accordance with their custom in times of great calamities, each of the four districts of the island should offer two men in sacrifice to their gods. When this proposal was adopted Hialti and Gissur said to their friends: “The pagans devote as sacrifices to their gods the most abandoned men and cast them headlong from precipices. We will choose an equal number from the best of the people, who in the true sense shall devote themselves as offerings to our Lord Christ, shining forth to all as conspicuous examples of Christian life and confession." Of the results which attended this new missionary enterprise we have no information, but soon afterwards Sido-Hallr one of the leaders of the Christians came to an agreement with Thorgeir the supervisor of laws, which was subsequently ratified by a national council, that the following new laws should be enacted: 1. that all the people of Iceland should accept baptism and profess Christianity; 2. that all Christi idol-temples and idols which stood in any public place should be destroyed; 3. that anyone who offered sacrifices to idols in public or performed any public idolatrous ceremonies should be banished, but that the worship of idols in secret should not be prohibited. Though paganism continued to be recognised for some time as a private religion, the influence of Christianity General accept ance of anity. Isleif, tended to increase. King Olaf Tryggvason of Norway shortly after his accession in 995 sent an embassy to Iceland to urge that the exposure of infants and other pagan customs that still prevailed should be abolished. Until the middle of the eleventh century the bishops who had worked in Iceland had all been foreigners, but in 1056 Isleif, who had been sent by his father Bishop Gissur to Erfurt to be educated, was chosen by the 1056. Icelanders as their bishop and fixed his see at Skalholt. A second see was founded in 1107 at Holum. The teaching and influence of these bishops who were natives of Iceland soon resulted in the extirpation of heathen worship and customs. The first bishops who were appointed by the Icelanders themselves exereised regal authority.1 tions of Adam of Bremen gives an optimistic account of the Condiconditions prevailing in Iceland a little later than this. life in IceHe writes of its inhabitants: "As in their simplicity land. they lead a holy life and seek nothing beyond what nature has bestowed on them, they can cheerfully say with the Apostle Paul, having food and raiment let us be therewith content,' for their mountains serve to them as forts, and their springs are their delight. Happy people whose poverty no one envies, and happiest in this that at the present time they have all received Christianity. Many things are remarkable in their manners, but above all their charity, which places all they own in common, alike to the foreigner and the native.” 2 1 See Adam Bremensis, Descriptio insularum Aquilonis, 35, "episcopum habent pro rege, ad cujus nutum respicit omnis populus, quicquid ex Deo, ex scripturis, ex consuetudine 2 Id. CHAPTER XVII Heims Sturleson. NORWAY The THE chief source of information relating to the early kringla by history of Norway and the introduction of Christianity Snorro into this country is Snorro Sturleson, 1178-1241, whose work the Heimskringla (i.e. the World) was written in Icelandic. The author was murdered by Hakon the king of Norway in 1241. His work throws much light upon the religion and customs of the early inhabitants of Norway and of Iceland and may be regarded as generally trustworthy. Until the latter half of the ninth century Norway was divided into a number of independent states or principalities, the first king to rule over the whole being Harald Haarfagar (Fair-hair), who in 933 resigned the throne to his son Eric Blodöxe (Bloody-axe). Soon after the death of Harald, which took place in 936, his youngest son Hakon, who had been residing with King Athelstan in well attested (The National Church of Sweden, p. 39 n.). The evidence, however, which is available relates exclusively to sons of princes, and we are inclined to agree with Laing, the English translator of the Heimskringla, that this baptism was attributed by later Christian writers to the ancestors of their kings in order to enhance their dignity and sanctity. See Laing's Heimskringla, i. p. 82. Harald Haarfagar. 1 An English translation was pub- It is interesting to note that according to the Saga of Halfdan the Black (c. 7) Harald Haarfagar had received heathen baptism. Thus the Saga states, Queen Ragnhild gave birth to a son, and water was poured over him and the name Harald given him." Bishop Wordsworth referring to this statement writes: "This ceremony of heathen baptism is |