tired to follow the Latin Bible. Sturla had many good models before him, and he was already practised in historical writing. The task, however, was a new one, and Hákonar Saga is in many respects very different from Sturlunga; chiefly owing to difference in the subject.
Norway and Iceland, in the thirteenth century, are in contrast almost as if they had been intended for a logical example, to illustrate the method of Agreement and Difference; or for an historical demonstration, to explain the nature and functions of monarchy in the Middle Ages. The original emigmtion to Iceland did not drain away all the freedom out of Norway; the Norwegians who stayed behind were not slavish and obedient people; it was a long time before the ideas of Harald Fairhair got the better of the old modes of life. The original Germania still throve in Norway in spite of the great kings, and anarchy kept returning, in ways that were quite well understood by the Norwegians themselves. Their name for it was neskonungar—'ness-kings'—as we speak of the Heptarchy; in Norway in the old days there had been a number of little independent kings each on his own headland, ruling his own stretch of a fiord. By the year 1200 a new monarchical experiment had succeeded under Sverre, one of the most remarkable adventurers who have ever come forward as Saviours of Society. He had a ragged regiment, the Birkibeinar, or Birchlegs, as they were nicknamed from their birch-bark gaiters—a company like that of David—every one that was in distress, and every one that was in debt, and every one that was discontented. These Birkibeinar for a long time were a terror to the country; a bad report of them was brought to England in the reign of Henry II by the Norwegian Archbishop Eystein, and their nickname is
