Let us turn back the pages of time 800 years. We stand upon the upper portion of the _Lögberg_, upon the bloodstone, where the backs of criminals were broken before they were hurled into the abyss at our feet. The Thingmen are in solemn assembly a little lower down the incline. Along the brink of _Almannajgá_ throng the populace in assembled thousands in their annual August festival, gathered from every portion of the island. They await the issue of some vital subject under discussion on the mound. It is the year 1112 and the trial for the Burning of Njal is well under way. That old man with the quiet mien and full flowing beard is Mord. He rises, faces the Court and says,—
“I take witness to this, that I take a Fifth Court oath. I pray God so to help me in this light and in the next, as I shall plead this suit as I know to be most truthful, and just, and lawful. I believe with all my heart that Flosi is truly guilty in this suit, if I may bring forward my proofs; and I have not brought money into this court in this suit, and I will not bring it. I have not taken money and I will not take it, neither for a lawful nor for an unlawful end.”
The great trial proceeds but a flaw is found in the pleading and the technicality destroys all that has been gained. Now men rush to their weapons and Flosi would gain the Great Rift as a place of defense. Snorri, the Priest, forsees the outcome and has quietly stationed another hardy band at this vantage point. The throng upon the moorland press to the brink to watch the fierce fight waged by the contending factions, who attempt to settle at the point of the spear the question which has just failed in the court. Might is still right. Doughty blows are showered as Odin chants the warsong under the shields of his few remaining warriors. Spear and battle axe ring loudly upon shield and helmet. The verdict is rendered. The decree is written in blood upon the grass. A prolonged shout of acclamation mingled with the roar of disapproval rises from the multitude. The clamor dies away, for the sturdy bodies of these iron heroes, who can give and take such blows, can endure no longer and the struggle ends with lifelong feuds.
Upon the sunken plain along the banks of the _Öxerá_ stand the booths of the prominent Thingmen, the priests, the chieftains and the poets. To these the people assemble in noisy factions to cool their blood in long draughts of mead. See, there by the snowy falls near to the perpendicular wall is the booth of Snorri. Down the river a little distance is the booth where Njal so often gave counsel ere the burning; there by the lake is the booth of the fair and treacherous Hallgerða. It was here that Gunnar first spied her sitting in the doorway fresh from her bath in the lake. The bloodshed is not quite over, look where the river foams through its rocky jaws, leaping in two great bounds for the lake, impatient for _its_ victims. In that surging eddy within the rift that group of women convicted of infanticide and adultery are now to be drowned and on that mound where those fagots of birch are piled that witch is to be burned.