SKALHOLT. 
163 
may be considered as such; neither will my me- 
mory, at this time, enable me to recollect what I 
was informed concerning them. The pulpit in 
the church is extremely well made, and some 
small, but not ill executed, figures, are painted 
upon it. A very tolerable Danish painting, also, 
of the late bishop of the place, Finnur Joneson, 
who had married a sister of Madame Joneson, is 
hanging up against the wall; and, underneath the 
floor, which affords a protection to it from injury, 
and of which a part lifts up, like a trap-door, to 
exhibit it, is laid a handsome tablet, richly in¬ 
scribed in gilt letters, in commemoration of his 
virtues and learning. The cathedral of Skalholt 
is reported to have been a noble structure, and 
perhaps really was so for Iceland, but the founda¬ 
tion, which still remains, and may be traced 
which I can so well compare it. The numerous small build¬ 
ings that were then situated close by the cathedral, and form¬ 
ed the town, were occupied, as Sir Joseph Banks informs 
me, entirely by the bishop’s dependants and twenty-eight 
boys who were at the school, and were maintained at the 
expence of the King of Denmark. Among the whole cluster, 
I can now only recognise the house at present occupied by 
Madame Joneson; so much is the place altered within these 
forty years.— : Sir Joseph also possesses the drawing of an 
ancient weapon, seven feet long, which he saw in the 
cathedral of Skalholt, in shape much like a halberd, and 
said to have belonged to a famous hero named Skarphedin , 
who died in the year 1004. 
