KINGS OF NORWAY.
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Haukadal, and. afterwards dwelt there himself. He taught Are the priest, and gave him information about many circumstances which Are afterwards wrote down. Are also got many a piece of information from Thurid, a daughter of the godar[1] Snorro. She was wise and intelligent, and remembered her father Snorro, who was nearly thirty-five years of age when Christianity was introduced into Iceland, and died a year after King Olaf the Saint's fall.[2] So it is not wonderful that Are the priest had good information about ancient events both here in Iceland, and abroad, being a man anxious for information, intelligent, and of excellent memory, and having besides learned much from old intelligent persons.
- ↑ Godars were priests and judges, and an hereditary class, apparently, in Iceland in the heathen time. But we hear little or nothing of such a priesthood in Norway; nor is it clear what their civil jurisdiction may have been in Iceland compared to that of the lagmen, or whether the godars, originally the priests by hereditary right, as descendants of Odin's twelve diars, were not ex officio the lagmen or judges also,
- ↑ This happened 1030.
