The Icelandic Canadian - 01.06.1967, Page 87

THE ICELANDIC CANADIAN
85
ament familiarly known as the mother
of parliaments. In Iceland, there sits
a Parliament which has been called
the grandmother of parliaments. As
it was in the field first, it deserves this
name.
The Germanic tribes, of whom Taci-
tus tells us, had an assembly which was
held in the open air and attended by
all free men. It was called the Ting
or Thing, and had a two-fold purpose:
to make laws for the organization and
social control of the tribe, and to set-
tle legal disputes.
Adopting and refining this loose
organization of the Germanic tribes,
which came to them by way of Norway,
the Icelanders determined to establish
one central Ting or Thing for their
whole country. In 930, they set up an
organization which they called the Al-
thing. In his book, The Vikings,
Johannes Brondsted, says, “The an-
nual session of the Althing was held
in the summer in a place called Thing-
vellir in the south-western part of the
island. Here the people gathered to
hear the laws proclaimed, to lodge
their suits, to worship their gods, to
display their skills, and to buy and
sell.”
As these words suggest the Althing
had authority to adjudicate as well as
to legislate.
The great legal scholar, Sir Frederick
Pollock, once said; “In Iceland, about
the same time (he had been speaking
of England before the Norman Con-
quest of 1066) there was a highly techn-
ical system of law; courts were regular-
ly held, and their constitution was the
subject of minute rules; and there were
generally two or three persons to be
found who had the reputation of being
more skilled in law than their neigh-
bors.” For a picture of early Icelandic
law in action, that illustrates the
features to which Pollock refers, I go
to the Saga of Burnt Njal. Gwyn Jones,
in his book The North Atlantic Sagas,
refers to this saga as ‘Iceland’s supreme
work of art”. Its rich canvas, he says,
gives us “the very feel of the great days
of the Republic.”
Njal’s saga is an absorbing chronicle
of blood feuds and law suits. It makes
evident the inherent weakness in the
early Icelandic legal system. The Al-
thing had no machinery by which it
could enforce its decrees—like the
United Nations today. A powerful
litigant who was disappointed with an
award, often disregarded it, and, tak-
ing the law into his own hands, made
an appeal to the sword.
On the first page of Njal’s Saga, we
are introduced to Mord Fiddle, “a
great taker up of suits, and so great a
lawyer that no judgments were
thought lawful unless he had a hand
in them.” Fiddle does not survive until
the end of the tale. In his turn Njal
become a “taker up of suits.” He was
“wealthy in goods” and “handsome of
face; no beard grew on his chin. He
was so great a lawyer that his match
was not to be found. Wise, too, he
was, and foreknowing and foresight-
ed. Of good counsel, and ready to give
it, and all that he advised men was sure
to be the best for them to do. Gentle
and generous, he unravelled every
man’s knotty points who came to see
him about them.”
Njal had a good friend named Gun-
nar. But there was a serpent lurking
in ambush. She was Gunnar’s wife,
the beautiful, prodigal and fierce Hall-
gerda. By her treachery and base
scheming she instituted a feud between
the two friends. After sundry killings
on both sides, the climax of the feud
came when Njal was burnt to death,
with his sons and his wife, in his own
home.