BESSESTAD. 
47 
pace—brought us to the solitary farm-house of Bes- 
sestad. Fresh from the neat homesteads of England that 
we had left sparkling in the bright spring-weather, and 
sheltered by immemorial elms,—the scene before us 
looked inexpressibly desolate. In front rose a cluster 
of weather-beaten wooden buildings, and huts like 
ice-houses, surrounded by a scanty plot of grass, 
reclaimed from the craggy plain of broken lava that 
stretched—the home of ravens and foxes—on either 
side to the horizon. Beyond, lay a low black breadth 
of moorland, intersected by patches of what was neither 
land nor water, and last,—the sullen sea, while above 
our heads a wind, saturated with the damps of the 
Atlantic, went moaning over the landscape. Yet this 
was Bessestad, the ancient home of Snorro Sturleson! 
On dismounting from our horses and entering the 
house things began to look more cheery ; a dear old 
lady, to whom we were successively presented by the 
Rector, received us with the air of a princess, ushered 
us into her best room, made us sit down on the sofa 
-— the place of honour—and assisted by her niece, a 
pale lily-like maiden, named after Jarl Hakon’s Thora, 
proceeded to serve us with hot coffee, rusks, and sweet- 
