90 
THINGEVALLE. 
along a strait passage, you come to others which 
branch off to the right and left, and communi¬ 
cate to the different chambers or rather cabins, 
of which the whole house is composed. One or 
two are occupied as sleeping rooms, where two 
or three beds, elevated about four feet from the 
ground, are placed by the side of the wall, the 
head of one touching the foot of another. The 
bedstead is made of boards, and has high boards 
on the side, so that, except in being larger, it 
differs but little from such as are frequently seen 
in ships’ cabins. Curtains, and all other kinds 
of bed-furniture, are unknown. The beds them¬ 
selves are either made of down, or are merely a 
loose heap of Zoster a marina , over which are 
thrown three or four thick coarse pieces of wad- 
mal. One room is appropriated to the loom, 
another serves as a sitting room, and a third as 
a kitchen, where the fire is made of turf, or, as 
is the case at Thingevalle, of small twigs of 
birch. Sometimes, also, the same entrance serves 
for the dairy, but the priest of Thingevalle had 
a separate building, differing, however, in no 
respect from the rest, where the milk and cream 
were kept in large square shallow wooden troughs, 
standing upon stools all round the apartment. 
The fish-house, where, besides the dried fish, 
wool, clothes, tallow, saddles, and the few im¬ 
plements of husbandry are placed, is consider- 
