Snorre Sturlason held some important offices in Iceland. On a visit to Norway he won the friendship of Duke Skule and King Haakon, and the latter even appointed him a king's chamberlain. He is said to have promised the king to induce the people of Iceland to submit to the supremacy of the king of Norway; but if this promise was given he seems to have forgotten it. When afterward, during the conflict between Duke Skule and King Haakon, Snorre was said to be a friend or adherent of Duke Skule, the king declared him to be a traitor, and, in a letter, requested Snorre's son-in-law and bitterest enemy, Gissur Torvaldson, to bring Snorre to Norway, dead or alive. On this authority Gissur, and other relatives of Snorre, who were his enemies on account of differences about the division of property, came on the night of September 22, 1241, with seventy armed men to Snorre's residence at Reykholt and murdered him in the sixty-third year of his age. It was the same party which, two years afterward, brought Iceland under subjection to the crown of Norway. Snorre Sturlason's famous work, the sagas (chronicles) of the kings of Norway, reaches from the earliest times to the fall of Eystein Meyla, in the battle at Ree, in 1177. The book is also called the "Heimskringla"--the world's circle--from the first word of the manuscript. It is written in the old Norse language. Snorre also wrote a book called the "Edda,"[13] which treats of the old Norse mythology and contains rules for the writing of poetry. [13] The word _Edda_ means great-grandmother. Snorre's nephew (his brother's son), Sturla Thordson, afterward wrote the saga of King Haakon Haakonson. During the reign of King Haakon, another remarkable book was written, "The King's Mirror." In the form of a dialogue between a father and his son, it contains information about the seas and the countries that Norway had communication with, especially Ireland, Iceland and Greenland. It also gives the rules of life and conduct for traders and for men at the royal court. CHAPTER XXXII _Magnus Law-Mender (1263-1280)_ Haakon's son Magnus now became king of Norway. He had been crowned six years before his father's death, and there was no one to dispute his right, King Haakon having declared on his death-bed that he left no other son. Magnus was twenty-five years old when he assumed the government in his own name. He was a wise and peaceable ruler, and soon made up his mind that it was not for the benefit of Norway to continue the war with Scotland about the islands which were so distant and had been of so little value to the country. He opened negotiations with Alexander III., and on July 2, 1266, peace was finally concluded. The Norwegian king ceded the Isle of Man and the Hebrides to Scotland, although retaining the rights belonging to the Nidaros archbishopric. On the other hand, the Scotch king agreed to pay the Norwegian king 4,000 marks sterling, besides a permanent annual tribute of one hundred marks.