168 
LETTERS FROM HIGH LATITUDES. 
are to be seen wonderful ranges of columnar basalt, 
prismatic caverns, ancient craters, and specimens of 
almost every formation that can result from tlie agency 
of subterranean fires; while each glen, and bay, and 
headland, in the neighbourhood, teems with traditionary 
lore. On the north-western side of the mountain stretches 
the famous Eyrbiggja district, the most classic ground in 
Iceland, with the towns, or rather farmsteads, of Froda, 
Helgafell, and Biarnarhaf. 
This last place was the scene of one of the most 
curious and characteristic Sagas to be found in the 
whole catalogue of Icelandic chronicles. 
In the days when the same Jarl Hakon I have 
already mentioned lorded it over Norway, an Icelander 
of the name of Vermund, who had come to pay his court 
to the lord of Lade, took a violent wish to engage in his 
own service a couple of gigantic Berserks, 1 named Halli 
1 Berserk, i>e. bare sark. The berserks seem to have been a 
description of athletes, who were in the habit of stimulating their 
nervous energies by the use of some intoxicating drug, which 
rendered them capable of feats of extraordinary strength and daring. 
The Berserker gang must have been something very like the Malay 
custom of running a muck. Their moments of excitement were 
followed by periods of great exhaustion. 
