Page:The Heimskringla; or, Chronicle of the Kings of Norway Vol 1.djvu/187

good to be true. The first question that arises to the doubting reader is, how, in Leif Ericson's time,— that is, about the year 1000, when Christianity was scarcely introduced, and church festivals, church time, and the knowledge and prayers of churchmen unknown,— did the Icelanders divide time? The whole circle of the horizon appears to have been divided by them into four quarters, each subdivided into two, making eight divisions, or attir (from which our old word airths, applied to the winds, seems derived); and these eight watches, each of three of our hours, made up the day, which we divide into 24 parts. It was not until 120 years after Leif's voyage, viz. in 1123, that Bishop Thorlak established in Iceland a code of church regulations or laws, by which time was more minutely ascertained for church prayers and observances. For all secular business, among a seafaring and labouring population, the division of time into eight watches was sufficiently minute for all their practical purposes. Now the saga says, "Sol havdi thar Eyktarstad ok Dagmalastad um skamdegi;" which clearly means that, on the shortest day, they had the sun in the watches called the Dagmalastad and the Eyktarstad; that the sun rose in the former, and set in the latter, and not as in Iceland, where the rising and setting were, on the shortest day, included in one watch. The Dagmalastad was the watch immediately before the mid-day watch (Middegi), and the Eyktarstad that immediately after. Now if we reckon from noon, the middle of the mid-day watch, it would begin at half-past ten o'clock of our time, and end at half-past one o'clock; Dagmalastad would begin at half-past seven, and end at half-past ten; and Eyktarstad begin at half-past one, and end at half-past four in the afternoon. Now if the sun rose any time within the Dagmalastad, and set any time within the Eyktarstad watch,—that is to say, any time between half-past