The beauty of _Njála_, and especially of the chapters about Njal's death, is the result of a harmony between two extremes of sentiment, each of which by itself was dangerous, and both of which have here been brought to terms with each other and with the whole design of the work. The ugliness of Skarphedinn's demeanour might have turned out to be as excessive as the brutalities of _Svarfdæla_ or _Ljósvetninga Saga_; the gentleness of Njal has some affinities with the gentleness of the martyrs. Some few passages have distinctly the homiletic or legendary tone about them:-- Then Flosi and his men made a great pile before each of the doors, and then the women-folk who were inside began to weep and to wail. Njal spoke to them, and said: "Keep up your hearts, nor utter shrieks, for this is but a passing storm, and it will be long before you have another such; and put your faith in God, and believe that He is so merciful that He will not let us burn both in this world and the next." Such words of comfort had he for them all, and others still more strong (c. 128, Dasent's translation). It is easy to see in what school the style of this was learned, and of this other passage, about Njal after his death:-- Then Hjallti said, "I shall speak what I say with all freedom of speech. The body of Bergthora looks as it was likely she would look, and still fair; but Njal's body and visage seem to me so bright that I have never seen any dead man's body so bright as this" (c. 131). At the other extreme are the heathenish manners of Skarphedinn, who, in the scene at the Althing, uses all the bad language of the old "flytings" in the heroic poetry,[58] who "grins" at the attempts to make peace, who might easily, by a little exaggeration and change of emphasis, have been turned into one of the types of the false heroic. [Footnote 58: Pp. 96, 113, above.] Something like this has happened to Egil, in another Saga, through want of balance, want of comprehensive imagination in the author. In _Njála_, where no element is left to itself, the picture is complete and full of variety. The prevailing tone is neither that of the homily nor that of the robustious Viking; it is the tone of a narrative that has command of itself and its subject, and can play securely with everything that comes within its scope. In the death of Njal the author's imagination has found room for everything,--for the severity and the nobility of the old Northern life, for the gentleness of the new religion, for the irony in which the temper of Skarphedinn is made to complement and illustrate the temper of Njal. Then Flosi went to the door and called out to Njal, and said he would speak with him and Bergthora. Now Njal does so, and Flosi said: "I will offer thee, master Njal, leave to go out, for it is unworthy that thou shouldst burn indoors."