the latter over the entrance of the door, and
other appearances of antiquity about it, render
it probable that a portion of the dwelling
has actually existed from the days of the
historian. Very near the parsonage is a
circular grassy mound of earth, flat on the
summit, and evidently, to judge from the
sound caused by stamping with the foot,
hollow within; but what this formerly was,
or to what use it could have been applied,
is at present wholly unknown. It has
hitherto been suffered to remain entire, from
some superstitious notions of the natives,
who conceive that it was probably the spot
where Sturleson was murdered, and that
the disturbing of it would also disturb the
manes of their learned countryman. It is
far from unlikely that a slight tinge of this
superstition affected the mind of the late
incumbent of the living, who had just
breathed his last before our arrival; since
during his life be had constantly resisted the
entreaties of the Etatsroed to have the
mound opened, a thing that his less scrupulous
successor promised should soon be done.
At the distance of a few paces from this
mound is the Snorralaug, a perfectly circuo
lar aperture, about twenty feet in diameter
and four or five feet deep, cut in the side of
a small hill, and walled round with square
pieces of rock, not joined by any cement,
but neatly placed together, so as to present
a very even surface. The floor is paved with
the same materials, and about a foot and a
half of the lower part of the wall projects
into it, so as to form a bench all round,
where twenty or thirty persons may, with
more convenience than cleanliness, bathe at
once. The boiling fountain in the immediate
vicinity, called Skribla *, affords at all times
an abundant supply of hot water for the bath,
into which it is conveyed through long
wooden troughs. By means of a transverse
board, moving upon a pivot, the water may
be directed to the bath, or turned off to
another course, after a sufficient quantity has
been admitted; and, for the purpose of reducing
the temperature of this water to the
wishes of the persons about to bathe, a cold
* Near the source of this spring and attached to the
inside of the wooden troughs, I met with many specimens
of Anthoceros punctatus, flourishing in a very
great degree of heat.