HISTORY OF ICELAND. 



95 



Kings of Norway. Returning home in 1221, he was again named Logmathur- 

 man ; but as he endeavored to pave the way for the annexation of his native 

 country to the Norwegian reahii, his foreign intrigues caused a rising against 

 his authority, and he was once more compelled to take refuge in Norway. 

 Here he remained several years, until the triumph of his own faction allowed 

 him to return to his family estate at Reikholt, where he was nmrdered on a 

 dark September night in the year 1241. Thus perished the most remarkable 

 man Iceland ever has produced. The republic itself did not long survive his 

 fall ; for, weary of the interminable feuds of their chiefs, the people voluntarily 

 submitted to Hakon in 1254, and the middle of the thirteenth century was 

 signalized by the transfer of the island to the Norwegian crown, after three 

 hundred and forty years of a turbulent but glorious independence. 



From that time the political history of the Icelanders offers but little inter- 

 est. With their annexation to a European monarchy perished the vigor, rest- 

 lessness, and activity which had characterized their forefathers ; and though 

 the Althing still met at Thingvalla, the national spirit had fled. It was still 

 further subdued by a long chain of calamities — plagues, famines, volcanic erup- 

 tions, and piratical invasions — which, following each other in rapid succession, 

 devastated the land and decimated its unfortunate inhabitants. 



In 1402 that terrible plague, the memory of which is still preserved under 

 the name of the " Black Death," carried off nearly two-thirds of the whole pop- 

 ulation, and was followed by such an inclement winter that nine-tenths of the 

 cattle in the island died. The miseries of a people suffering from pestilence 

 and famine were aggravated by the English fishermen, who, in spite of the re- 

 monstrances of the Danish government, frequented the defenseless coast in con- 

 siderable numbers, and were in fact little better than the old sea-robbers who 

 first colonized the island, plundering and burning on the main, and holding the 

 wealthy inhabitants to ransom. Their predatory incursions were frequently re- 

 peated during the seventeenth century, and even the distant Mediterranean sent 

 its Algerine pirates to add to the calamities of Iceland. 



The eighteenth century was ushered in by the small-pox, which carried off 

 sixteen thousand of the inhabitants. In the middle of the century — severe win- 

 ters following in rapid succession — vast numbers of cattle died, inducing a fam- 

 ine that again swept away ten thousand inhabitants. 



Since the first colonization of Iceland, its numerous volcanoes had frequently 

 brought ruin upon w^hole districts — twenty-five times had Hecla, eleven times 

 Kotlugia, six times TroUadyngja, five times Oraefa, vomited forth their tor- 

 rents of molten stone, without counting a number of submarine volcanic explo- 

 sions, or where the plain was suddenly rent and flames and ashes burst out of 

 the earth; but the eruption of Skaptar Jokul in 1783 was the most frightful 

 visitation ever known to have desolated the island. The preceding winter and 

 spring had been unusually mild, and the islanders looked forward to a prosper- 

 ous summer ; but in the beginning of June repeated tremblings of the earth, 

 increasing in violence from day to day, announced that the subterranean powers 

 that had long been slumbering under the icy mantle of the Skaptar were ready 

 to awake. All the neighboring peasants abandoned their huts and erected 



