A Viking Lawsuit. the case out of court. To this end he sent to Thorstein, the most implacable of the plain tiffs, and offered blood-money. This having been refused, he proceeded to take precau tions against an adverse judgment quite in accordance with modern methods. As the defendants were not required to appear in person, Arison wisely discounted the future by placing them secretly on a ship bound to Norway. With this anchor to windward he serenely proceeded to court prepared to make the best of a bad case. Before the Althing we may assume the plaintiffs made out a prima facie case, although these facts are not brought out in the chronicle. Arison opened the defense by offering in open court to pay blood-money. This offer having been again refused he proceeded to his defence proper which, although now it would only be admis sible in mitigation of damages, was then a complete answer to the charge if only it could be established. This defence in brief con sisted in proving that all men had equal rights in wreckage found on tide-water lands and that thus the decedent had brought his death on himself by refusing to recognize an estab lished public privilege. It was a crafty move and one well calculated to appeal to popular prejudice, but Asmund the Greyhaired, de murred to this defence by showing that this law only applied to landholders and that be tween a bonder such as Thorgils and landless men like the accused, the rights of the former were paramount. He next traversed Anson's defence by proving affirmatively that the murdered man had even offered the accused an equal share in the uncut portion of the whale. This last evidently unexpected testi
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mony deprived the defendants of their last hope of success. For a moment Arison meditated a desperate attack on bench and bar alike, a coup de main which came very natural to a Viking advocate, but the cheering thought that after all the defend ants were safe for the present and the re straining influence of " six tens " of kinsmen that Asmund had thoughtfully brought to court, combined to convince him that such practice would be irregular. The decision of the court was that for the younger of the brother blood-money should be taken, but that Thorgeir, the elder, should be outlawed. By this doom he became the prey of any man who could and would slay him, either for the reward that the kin of the dead man would probably offer or simply as a matter of public policy that encouraged the killing of wolves and outlaws. At any time during his out lawry if the kinsmen of the dead man con sented to take blood-money he could again become a free man, so, too, if he survived the ban for the space of twenty years. There is no record, however, among the Sagas of any outlaw who ever regained his franchise by the latter method, so public-spirited were the Vikings in all matters of killing, and even Grettir, the Strong, most famous of Icelandic outlaws, was slain in the nineteenth year of his outlawry. It is a matter of regret that Thorgeir did not receive the news of his sentence with the respect due a decision of the Althing, and his grim remark that he would pay in full those who had brought about his outlawry, fore shadowed the vengeance that he aftenvards wrought on the blood of Asmund.
