The hope of taking it by assault was soon abandoned, but Hasting obtained his end by guile. … The priests were massacred, the gates thrown open, and the city taken and spoiled. Luna never recovered its old prosperity after the raid of the Northmen, and in Dante's time had fallen into utter decay. But Hasting's career in Italy ended with the sack of Luna; and, giving up all hope of attacking Rome, he re-embarked with the spoil of the town, the most beautiful of the women, and all the youths who could be used as soldiers or rowers. His fleet was, wrecked on the south coasts of France on its return westward, and all the spoil lost; but the devil had work yet for Hasting and his men, who got ashore in sufficient numbers to recompense themselves for their losses by the plunder of Provence." _T. Hughes, Alfred the Great, chapter 20._ NORMANS: A. D. 860-1100. The discovery and settlement of Iceland. Development of the Saga literature. The discovery of Iceland is attributed to a famous Norse Viking named Naddodd, and dated in 860, at the beginning of the reign, in Norway, of Harald Haarfager, who drove out so many adventurers, to seek fortune on the seas. He is said to have called it Snowland; but others who came to the cold island in 870 gave it the harsher name which it still bears. "Within sixty years after the first settlement by the Northmen the whole was inhabited; and, writes Uno Von Troil (p. 64), 'King Harold, who did not contribute a little towards it by his tyrannical treatment of the petty kings and lords in Norway, was obliged at last to issue an order, that no one should sail to Iceland without paying four ounces of fine silver to the Crown, in order to stop those continual emigrations which weakened his kingdom.' … Before the tenth century had reached its half-way period, the Norwegians had fully peopled the island with not less, perhaps, than 50,000 souls. A census taken about A. D. 1100 numbered the franklins who had to pay Thing-tax at 4,500, without including cotters and proletarians." _R. F. Burton, Ultima Thule, introduction, section 3 (volume 1)._ "About sixty years after the first settlement of the island, a step was taken towards turning Iceland into a commonwealth, and giving the whole island a legal constitution; and though we are ignorant of the immediate cause which led to this, we know enough of the state of things in the island to feel sure, that it could only have been with the common consent of the great chiefs, who, as Priests, presided over the various local Things. See THING.