1 44 Norivay and the N orivegians 



smaller local Things. But there were also larger ones, 

 of which the ones most spoken of in the Sagas seem to 

 have been four. The Borgar Thing was held at Sarpsborg, 

 on the river Glommeu, not far from the modern Chris- 

 tiania. Its jurisdiction took in all the coast which lies 

 round the Skagerrak and Cattegat. In those days Nor- 

 way extended as far as the Gota Kiver, now in Sweden, 

 so that its coast-line stretched along both the Skagerrak 

 and Cattegat ; and this coast district was generally 

 known as Vikeu, or the Bay. The western portion of 

 it was also called Westfold. Behind this coast district, 

 higher up the country, towards Lake Mjosen, there was 

 another fertile district, which ended in what is called 

 the Upland, — that is to say, the country reaching back 

 to the great back-bone of Scandinavia, which the Norse- 

 men called the Keel. This district had another ThinQ 

 for itself : it was at Eidesvold, not far from Lake 

 Mjosen. Eound to the west there was a Thing district, 

 which included the two great fjords — the Hardanger and 

 the Sogne : these were comprised in the district of the 

 Gola Thing. And after that we come to the Trondhjem 

 district ; its assembly was called the Frosta Thing. 

 All the region of the extreme south (Thelemarken, 

 for instance, and the still wilder Satersdal) seems to 

 have no special electorate of its own. Probably these 

 districts were very thinly inhabited ; as, indeed, they 

 still are. And we read of no great Thing belonging to 

 the northern part, Halogaland. 



Among the districts of these four Things, the Viken 

 district and the Trondhjem district were by far the most 

 fertile and the most thickly inhabited. The tra- 

 veller in Norway to-day will notice this characteristic 



