It has been urged[255] that the persons mentioned in the _Landnámabók_ as coming from Ireland and Scotland form a very small percentage of the whole number of settlers. But we have to remember that by no means all the colonists are mentioned in the records and genealogies. There can be no doubt that a number of slaves and freedmen accompanied the more important settlers to Iceland, and of these probably the great majority were of Celtic blood. Their numbers, too, were being continually reinforced during the tenth century. It is difficult, however, to estimate how many they were, because in the case of thralls Icelandic names were not infrequently substituted for Irish ones. Thus, of the Irish thralls whom Hjörleifr brought to Iceland only one, Dufthakr, had a Gaelic name. Such slaves were not always people of humble origin. Gilli (Ir. Giolla), the slave who killed Thorsteinn, son of Hallr[256] of Side, was a descendant of Cearbhall, king of Ossory. Mention is made elsewhere of Nithbjörg, daughter of the Irish king Biolan (Ir. Beollán) who was carried off from Ireland in a Viking raid;[257] also of Melkorka, King Myrkjartan’s daughter, who was bought from a slave dealer in Norway.[258] Icelandic custom did not necessarily prevent the children of slave women from becoming persons of wealth and influence; indeed Ósvifr, son of Nithbjörg and Olaf Pái, son of Melkorka, were among the leading men in Iceland in their time. It is not unreasonable, then, to suppose that by the end of the tenth century Irish blood had found its way into a large number of Icelandic families. Lastly we may observe that the Irish and Icelandic sagas bear certain resemblances to one another which are at least worthy of attention. In both cases the narrative prose is frequently interspersed with poetry, and in both the use of dialogue is a prominent feature. Nor is the subject matter dissimilar. Indeed it is possible to apply to the Irish stories a classification roughly similar to that which is adopted for the more important of the Icelandic sagas.[259] As far as the “stories of the kings” are concerned, the resemblance is most striking in the case of sagas relating to early times such as _Ynglinga Saga_. There are Irish stories, too, corresponding to a certain extent to the _Íslendínga Sögur_, though they are comparatively few in number, while many of the _Fornaldar Sögur_ may be said to bear a certain resemblance to the Irish epic stories. The evidence discussed above seems to afford some ground for suspecting that the saga literature of Iceland and Ireland may not be wholly unconnected, and, as we have seen, the conditions of the time, particularly the frequent intercourse between the two countries, were such as to favour the exercise of literary influence by one people upon the other. If so, one can hardly doubt that in this case the influence came to Iceland from Ireland.