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'Precept upon precept, line upon line, here a little and there a little', was the motto of Rome in her dealings with the heathen Norsemen, and if she suited herself at first rather to their habits and temper than to those of more enlightened nations, she had an excuse in St Paul's maxim of making herself 'all things to all men. Thus, when a second attempt to Christianize Iceland proved more successful for in the meantime, King Olof Tryggvason, a zealous Christian, had seized as hostages all the Icelanders of family and fame who happened to be in Norway, and thus worked on the feelings of the chiefs of those families at home, who in their turn bribed the lawman who presided over the Great Assembly to pronounce in favour of the new Faith even then the adherents of the old religion were allowed to perform its rites in secret, and two old heathen practices only were expressly prohibited, the exposure of infants and the eating of horseflesh, for horses were sacred animals, and the heathen ate their flesh after they had been solemnly sacrificed to the gods.
'A statue tall, on a pillar of stone, Telling its story to great and small Of the dust reclaimed from the sand-waste lone. THERE was a man named Emund of Skara; lawman in Western Gautland, and very wise and eloquent. Of high birth he was, had a numerous kin, and was very wealthy. Men deemed him cunning, and not very trusty.
After his parting with Bardi, Grettir fared to Biarg, and very ill he it thought that he might nowhere try his strength, and searched all about if anywhere might be somewhat wherewith he might contend. <i>Of the Haunting at Thorhall-stead; and how Thorhall took a Shepherd by the rede of Skapti the Lawman, and of what befell thereafter</i>.
So, as was his nature, he turned to guile for shelter, like a fox to his hole, and spoke to them with the tongue of a lawman; for Gizur had great skill in speech. "That tale was not all true which Eric Brighteyes told you," he said. "He was mad with grief, and moreover it seems that he slept, and only woke to find Gudruda dead.
Then was the Lawman prayed for a decision, and he said that he would fain hear if any charges came against this, whereby Angle should forfeit his blood-money, or else he said he must have whatsoever had been put on Grettir's head.
Men who did nothing did not suit him. "Where do you mean me to go to?" asked Grettir. Thorsteinn told him to go South to his kinsmen, but to return to him if he found them of no use. Grettir did so. He went to Borgarfjord in the South to visit Grim the son of Thorhall, and stayed with him till the Thing was over. Grim sent him on to Skapti the Lawman at Hjalli.
Thus he spoke, but still men looked doubtfully upon him, for his eye was the eye of a liar and Eric, as they knew, did not lie. "It is hard to find the truth between lawman's brain and tongue," said the old viking Ketel. "Eric is no lawman, but a true man, and he sang another song.
And when I began to tell of that he looked up again, with his eyes dancing, and asked me how I came on Quantock hill. Thereat the king laughed a little, saying that Alfred should have been a lawman, and the atheling said that, with his father's help, he meant to be such, and a good one.
Skapti the Lawman died during the winter, whereby Grettir suffered a great loss, for he had promised to press for a removal of his sentence when he had been twenty years an outlaw, and the events just related were in the nineteenth year. In the spring died Snorri the Godi, and much more happened during this winter season which does not belong to our saga.
Blacktooth sat in his booth and by him sat Gizur his son the Lawman. When he saw a beauteous lady, very richly clad, enter the booth he did not know who it might be. But Gizur knew her well, for he could never put Swanhild from his mind. "Lo! here comes Swanhild the Fatherless, Atli's widow," said Gizur, flushing red with joy at the sight of her.
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