built is still called Templestead.  Thorolf was a very pious colonist.  “He had so great faith in the mountain that stood upon the ness that he called it Holyfell;” and he gave out that no man should look upon it unwashed.  It should be sanctuary also for man and beast, a hill of refuge.  “It was the faith of Thorolf and all his kin that they should all die into this hill.”  I hope that they did so, but Landnama Book doesn’t say.

There were few, if any, Christians among these fine people.  King Olaf and his masterful ways with the heathen were yet to come.  And those who took on the new religion took it lightly.  They cast it, like an outer garment, over shoulders still snug in the livery of Frey and Thor.  It was not allowed to interfere with their customs, which were free, or their manners, which were hearty.  Glum, son of Thorkel, son of Kettle Black, “took Christendom when he was old.  He was wont thus to pray before the Cross, ’Good for ever to the old!  Good for ever to the young.’” That seems to have been all his prayer, which was comprehensive enough.  But there are older and more obstinate garments than religions.  Illugi the Red and Holm-Starri “exchanged lands and wives with all their stock.”  But the plan miscarried, for Sigrid, who was Illugi’s wife, “hanged herself in the Temple because she would not change husbands.”  The compliment was greater than Illugi deserved.

With the world as large as it was in those spacious days there was room for strange things to happen.  Here is the experience of Grim, son of Ingiald.  “He used to row out to fish in the winter with his thralls, and his son used to be with him.  When the boy began to grow cold they wrapt him in a sealskin bag and pulled it up to his neck.  Grim pulled up a merman.  And when he came up Grim said, ’Do thou tell us our life and how long we shall live, or else thou shalt never see thy home again.’  ‘It is of little worth to you to know this,’ he answered,’ though it is to the boy in the sealskin bag, for thou shalt be dead ere the spring come, but thy son shall take up his abode and take land in settlement where thy mare Skalm shall lie down under the pack.’  They got no more words out of him.  But later in the winter Grim died, and he is buried there.”  So much for Grim.  His widow took her son forth to Broadfrith, and all that summer Skalm never lay down.  Next year they were on Borgfrith, “and Skalm went on till they came off the heath south to Borgfrith, where two red sand-dunes were, and there she lay down under the pack below the outermost sand-well.”  There the son of Grim set up his rest.  There will nevermore be room in the world for things like that, but it is pleasant to know of them,

“WORKS AND DAYS”