Here, on the dark winter nights of a region only just without the Arctic Circle, were written and enjoyed those sagas that are true history and very human, while nothing but dry chronicles were being composed in all Europe besides. Far less we should know of the early story of the British Isles and of North America had the Icelanders been dumb. Worthily appears the name of their Republic among those of other famous Commonwealths of earth in the hub of the universe, the State House at Boston, Massachusetts! Interest in Iceland and her sagas has been greatly revived of recent years. In these days it seems strange to read what P. H. Mallet (p. 152) wrote about 1755: "Such was the constitution of a republic, which is at present quite forgotten in the North, and utterly unknown through the rest of Europe even to men of much reading, notwithstanding the great number of poets and historians which that republic produced." The stories of the early settlers, as related in the sagas, slightly recall the conditions that even to-day exist in such places as Rhodesia and newly-opened districts of the Western States. The details are as different as they could well be, but there is something of the same overflowing youthful vitality, the same grim sort of humour and vigorous enjoyment of life. This tale, for instance, from the _Liosvetninga Saga_, shows a rather indirect and possibly somewhat modern method of leading up to an extremely simple point: "When the table was set there Ufey put his fist on the board, and spake, 'How big dost think that fist is, Gudmund?' He spake, 'Very big!' Ufey spake, 'Thou wouldst think that there would be strength in it.' Gudmund spake, 'Indeed I would.' Ufey answers, 'A heavy blow thou wouldst think it would give?' Gudmund spake, 'Mighty heavy.' Ufey spake, 'What harm wouldst think it would do?' Gudmund spake, 'Breaking of bones or death.' Ufey spake, 'How wouldst like that way of death?' Gudmund spake, 'Very ill, and I should not wish it to happen to me.' Ufey spake, 'Then do not thou sit in my seat.'" The settlement of Iceland was part of the happy movement that first carried Norsemen to the Faroe Islands and far beyond. There was a man named Gard-here, a Swede, and he journeyed to Sodor, or the Southern Islands[8] on the very common quest of getting in the inheritance of his wife's father, who had died. A gale broke his moorings. He was driven westward into the sea, and the eventual result was that he reached the island with which we are concerned. He praised the land much, and desired that it should be called by his own name.