19G EARLY KINGS OF NORWAY. triumphant boat progress, which such disasters soon followed. Hakon gathered his wrecks together, and sorrow- fully made for Orkney. It is possible enough, as our Guide Books now say, he may have gone by lona. Mull, and the narrow seas inside of Skye; and that the Kyle- Akin, favourably known to sea-bathers in that region, may actually mean the Kyle (narrow strait) of Hakon, where Hakon may have dropped anchor, and rested for a little while in smooth water and beautiful environment, safe from equinoctial storms. But poor Hakon's heart was now broken. He went to Orkney ; died there in the winter ; never beholding Norway more. He it was who got Iceland, which had been a Bepublic for four centuries, united to his kingdom of Norway : a long and intricate operation, — much pre- sided over by our Snorro Sturleson, so often quoted here, who indeed lost his -life (by assassination from his sons-in-law) and out of great wealth sank at once into poverty of zero, — one midnight in his own cellar, in the course of that bad business. Hakon
