In the Eyrbyggja Saga we have descriptions of the "fire-hall," _skali_ or _eldhus_. "The fire-hall was the common sleeping-room in Icelandic homesteads." Guests and strangers slept there; not in the portico, as in Homer. "Here were the lock-beds." There were butteries; one of these was reached by a ladder. The walls were panelled. [Footnote: _The Ere Dwellers_, p. 145.] Thorgunna had a "berth," apparently partitioned off, in the hall. [Footnote: _Ibid_., 137-140.] As in Homer the hall was entered from the courtyard, in which were separate rooms for stores and other purposes. In the courtyard also, in the houses of Gunnar of Lithend and Gisli at Hawkdale, and doubtless in other cases, were the _dyngfur_, or ladies' chambers, their "bowers" (_Thalamos_, like that of Telemachus in the courtyard), where they sat spinning and gossiping. The _dyngja_ was originally called _bur_, our "bower"; the ballads say "in bower and hall." In the ballad of _MARGARET_, her parents are said to put her in the way of deadly sin by building her a bower, apparently separate from the main building; she would have been safer in an upper chamber, though, even there, not safe--at least, if a god wooed her! It does not appear that all houses had these chambers for ladies apart from the main building. You did not enter the main hall in Iceland from the court directly in front, but by the "man's door" at the west side, whence you walked through the porch or outer hall (_prodomos_, _aithonsa_), in the centre of which, to the right, were the doors of the hall. The women entered by the women's door, at the eastern extremity. Guests did not sleep, as in Homer, in the _prodomos_, or the portico--the climate did not permit it--but in one or other hall. The hall was wainscotted; the walls were hung with shields and weapons, like the hall of Odysseus. The heads of the family usually slept in the aisles, in chambers entered through the wainscot of the hall. Such a chamber might be called _muchos_; it was private from the hall though under the same roof. It appears not improbable that some Homeric halls had sleeping places of this kind; such a _muchos_ in Iceland seems to have had windows. [Footnote: Story of Burnt _Njal_, i. 242.] Gunnar himself, however, slept with his wife, Halegerda, in an upper chamber; his mother, who lived with him, also had a room upstairs. In Njal's house, too, there was an upper chamber, wherein the foes of Njal threw fire. [Footnote:_Ibid_., ii. 173.] But Njal and Bergthora, his wife, when all hope was ended, went into their own bride-chamber in the separate aisle of the hall "and gave over their souls into God's hand." Under a hide they lay; and when men raised up the hide, after the fire had done its work, "they were unburnt under it. All praised God for that, and thought it was a _GREAT_ token." In this house was a weaving room for the women. [Footnote:_Ibid_, ii. 195.]