precisely like the toilette of Bayeaux. In Icelandic the word for this chivalric bower, 'búr,' merely means the pantry or storehouse [whilst 'dyngja' or 'stufa' denotes the ladies' room]. 'Baith bour and ha' stood in a 'tún' or court [in Iceland 'tún' means the homefield]; there is a 'ta' or forecourt, a broad platform probably on which the great hall stands or the space just before it [the word is unknown in Iceland]. In the 'tún' games go on and ceremonies take place. The Tapestry-poet speaks of a 'borg' or 'fort,' with high walls, a gateway (hlio), and a gate (grind) which enclose its garth (garð). On the wall by the gateway is a watch-tower (hlid-skialf). For all the world the picture of a late Irish 'liss' or 'rath,' and not very far removed, when we are told of 'lofty walls,' from the rudimentary 'peel' or 'keep and baily' of a feudal age.
The hall inside is set with tables, 'bióŏr' [in Iceland tables are boards, 'bord']. Among the articles of furniture there is a cupboard, 'vá' [Dan. 'vrá'], on which stand cans (canna) and cups (kalkr or calcr), an oft-repeated word [Lat. calicem, through Keltic, but unknown in Iceland]. The cup is mounted, 'varðir calkar' of the Lay of Righ ['hrim-calcr' of the Aristophanes-poet we cannot explain]. In this the 'biór' [a foreign word] is drunk, and wine [foreign]. Among the dishes are roast birds [of land-birds there is only the ptarmigan eatable in Iceland], killed no doubt by the hawk, which is kept in the hall. Oats ['æti,' a Gaelic word] are among the grains known, as are rye, bigg, wheat. The cooking-vessel and brewing-vat is 'hver' [which in Ice- land means a hot-spring], an oft-repeated word. The bread is such as the Scotch bannock baked on the hearth. Dainties, such as boiled veal, are noticed in the Lay of Righ.
The fuel is peat, which is dug on the estate and stacked for burning. When one remembers the patriotic endeavours of Mr. Asbiornsen (a forester by business, better known in England as the collector of the delightful Norwegian Fairy Tales) to stay his countrymen from destroy- ing their magnificent forests by their wanton misuse of wood, when peat was to be had in any quantity for the trouble of digging; and when one knows, too, that his beneficent crusade met with a sturdy resistance,--it is not easy to imagine for a moment that a poem in which such mention of peat occurs is Norwegian of the tenth or eleventh century, when there was far more wood-land than there is even now.
Then there is well-developed agriculture, carts (kart), wheeled wagons (hvel-vagn), ploughs (plógr) [all un-Icelandic entirely]. There are geese kept in the court; tame pigs who are fed with swill, goats herd on the hills, and the goat-keeper with his hazel stick, who guards them from the wolves, are vividly presented to us by the Helgi-poet; sheep [so essentially Icelandic] are never mentioned; oxen and neat are frequent.
The dogs, of whom there are many, are kept for watch-dogs and hunting, and tied up at night [Iceland only knows sheep-dogs]. There is plenty of scope for hunting, wolves in the waste, harts on the hill, tallest of deer. Bears are rarely met with but are mentioned; the white bear in the Greenland Lay is a piece of undoubted local colour.
