THINGS of many other kinds and of inferior powers, summoned as occasion arose, were named from their objects, functions, or place of meeting, as the Leidar-Thing, Höf-Thing, or Huss-Thing, or sometimes styled _Stefnar_ or _Citations_, as the Hirdman-Stefn or _Council of Warriors_. Each Herad, Hrepp, Skathald or Parish, regulated its local administration and assessments by a Herad-Stefn, Hreppa-mot or Vard-thing, assembled on its Ward Hill or round its Mör-steinn, where the Under-foud presided as the ruler’s representative, and the Lögrettman watched the interests of the Commons, and guarded and applied the Standards of weight and measure. A SCHYND or inquest of Thingmen, sanctioned every Erffd or division of Odal heritage by its Skind-Bref or Schynd-bill, and in later times, confirmed every alienation of land-right by a similar document. Every three or four years the Vard-thing, headed by its Under-foud, “rode the Hagra,” or perambulated the march of the common, and exacted from all intruders on the Hagi or Skathald a rent of Hagleyffi, or a subsidiary Toldber-Skatt, for the benefit of the Heradsmen, Hreppsmen or Skat-brethren. Every seventh year the accumulated offences of the district were visited by a Thing of SKULDING or GRAND-REFF for correction of abuses, where every offence had its appropriate SKULD or _Fine_. But no sentence affecting life or limb could be pronounced, except by the Althing or Lawthing, and every decision was founded on the principles of the venerated LÖG-BOK. This BOOK OF THE LAWS was probably a selection from the early Norse codes of the Gula-Thing and Frosta-Thing, and the later enactments of Sverrer, Magnus Lagabæter, and Haken the Fifth, with such additions and modifications as the circumstances of the Islands required, together with a record of former Dooms and Decreets. It was guarded by the Islanders with superstitious reverence, and the final abstraction of their LAW BOOK and their COMMON SEAL was perhaps the most unpopular accusation against Earl Patrick. His perversion of justice under its pretended sanction, and the irreparable loss occasioned by its disappearance, gave to the Scottish Crown an excuse for abrogating the LAWS OF ORKNEY, which, after being acknowledged by frequent Acts of Parliament, were finally abolished by an Order of the Privy Council in 1612. The Things, though formally abolished by Cromwell and the submissive Convention, still continued at times to haunt their ancient Dom-rings, but their power and spirit had vanished with the laws which gave them life. The Thing was a mere Jury of Inquest, their Lawman a Sheriff, their Underfoud a Baillie; and strange to say, what may be called the last ghost of a Thing was (1691) called into a vampire existence, to give with its expiring breath the shadow of a sanction to the fraudulent Weights and Measures, against which its Odal fathers had protested.