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SCANDINAVIAN ANTIQUITIES OF DUBLIN'. 107
discussion was referred. 1
To the astonishment of BOOK n.
3H nI
^_
Gudlief, the old man addressed him in Norse, and,
after various disclosures, which left no doubt that he
was that Biorn whom Snorri had induced to leave Discovers
Iceland, he gave Gudlief a gold ring for Thurida, and
a sword for her son Kiartan, at the same time re-
questing that, as he was an old man, neither friends
nor relatives would incur the danger of seeking him
in this foreign and savage land. Biorn had pre- Biorn refuses
viously decided that the strangers should be freed,
and Gadlief thus saved from captivity or death,
returned to Dublin, where he passed the winter, and
in summer sailed for Iceland, the bearer of Biorn's
presents and message. 2
Passing over the narratives of other voyages to
America by the Norsemen, 3 we will extract from the
Laxdale Saga another episode connected with the
history of Dublin, and illustrative of the manners
and customs of the period.
Early in the tenth century Hoskulld, a great story of
grandson of Aulaf, first King of Dublin, went from her son out
Iceland to the Brenneyar Islands, where King Hakon 952.
'
had convened that popular assembly denominated a
" Thing." 4
The meeting combined festivity with
business, political and judicial labours being en-
1
Eyrbyggia Saga, chap. Ixiv.
4 " A fragment of Irish history or
p. 328, et seq. a voyage to Ireland undertaken
2 Ibid. The closing chapter of from Iceland in the tenth century."
tin- Kyrbyggia Saga is altogether Fragments of English and Irish
occupied with this tale. history in the ninth and tenth
8 America was visited by Eric centuries. Translated from the
the Red in A.U. 986, by Lief, Eric's original Icelandic by Grimes John*
son, in A.D. 1000, and by Thorwald son Thorkelin, 4to. : London, 1788.
Eric-son in A.D. 1002.