The first, want was a man who could make a code of laws." The man was found in one Ulfljót, who came from a Norwegian family long famous for knowledge of the customary law, and who was sent to the mother country to consult the wisest of his kin. "Three years he stayed abroad; and when he returned, the chiefs, who, no doubt, day by day felt more strongly the need of a common centre of action as well as of a common code, lost no time in carrying out their scheme. … The time of the annual meeting was fixed at first for the middle of the month of June, but in the year 999 it was agreed to meet a week later, and the Althing then met when ten full weeks of summer had passed. {2369} It lasted fourteen days. … In its legal capacity it [the Althing] was both a deliberative and executive assembly; both Parliament and High Court of Justice in one. … With the establishment of the Althing we have for the first time a Commonwealth in Iceland." _G. W. Dasent, The Story of Burnt Njal, introduction (volume 1)._ "The reason why Iceland, which was destitute of inhabitants at the time of its discovery, about the middle of the 9th century, became so rapidly settled and secured so eminent a position in the world's history and literature, must be sought in the events which took place in Norway at the time when Harald Hárfragi (Fairhair), after a long and obstinate resistance, succeeded in usurping the monarchical power. … The people who emigrated to Iceland were for the most part the flower of the nation. They went especially from the west coast of Norway, where the peculiar Norse spirit had been most perfectly developed. Men of the noblest birth in Norway set out with their families and followers to find a home where they might be as free and independent as their fathers had been before them. No wonder then that they took with them the cream of the ancient culture of the fatherland. … Toward the end of the 11th century it is expressly stated that many of the chiefs were so learned that they with perfect propriety might have been ordained to the priesthood [Christianity having been formally adopted by the Althing in the year 1000], and in the 12th century there were, in addition to those to be found in the cloisters, several private libraries in the island. On the other hand, secular culture, knowledge of law and history, and of the skaldic art, were, so to speak, common property. And thus, when the means for committing a literature to writing were at hand, the highly developed popular taste for history gave the literature the direction which it afterward maintained. The fact is, there really existed a whole literature which was merely waiting to be put in writing. … Many causes contributed toward making the Icelanders preeminently a historical people. The settlers were