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IMAGES OF THE GODS. 203
came in sight of Iceland ; then they would select
their place of residence on the spot where the columns
were found drifted to land.
Thus did Ing61f, the first Northman who settled
permanently upon the island.* It is related of Bjorn
Ketilsson from Sokn, one of the first settlers, that
when on his arrival he found his sacred pillars drifted
into a bay, he believed that a home was shown
him there.f Similar directions were followed by his
sister Au5 in choosing her abode.:]: The settler
Thord Hrappsson had been living for ten or fifteen
years upon the eastern side of Iceland when he
learned that his sacred columns had been cast Upon
the western coast of the island ; thereupon he
straightway sold his estate, in order to remove
thither.§ So also did another of the first settlers,
Lomund the Old, from Yors.|| When Eirik the Eed,
who went from Ja5ar to Iceland, had loaned his
Setstokkar (Posts of Honor) to another Icelander
named Thorgest, and could not get them back again,
it gave occasion for a quarrel, which cost the lives
of many of the adherents of both parties, and at last
was the cause of Eirik's banishment and settlement
in Greenland.*!" Halstein Thorolfsson, who settled in
the western part of Iceland, offered up his son, and
* LandnSmabak I, 8.
t Laxd. S. 3.
i lb. 6; KormatsS. 2.
§ Landnmb. I., 10.
II
i
lb. IV., 5.
lb. II., 14.