(1) The penalty, compensation, or manbod for every injury, due
the party injured, or to his family and next of kin if the
injury was the death or premeditated murder of the party,
appears to have been fixed for every rank and condition,
from the murder of the king down to the maiming or beating a
man's cattle or his slave. A man for whom no compensation
was due was a dishonored person, or an outlaw. It appears
to have been optional with the injured party, or his kin if
he had been killed, to take the mulct or compensation, or to
refuse it, and wait for an opportunity of taking vengeance
for the injury on the party who inflicted it, or on his kin.
A part of each mulct or compensation was due to the king;
and, these fines or penalties appear to have constituted a
great proportion of the king's revenues, and to have been
settled in the Things held in every district for
administering the law with the lagman. -- L.



8. HALFDAN'S MEAT VANISHES AT A FEAST

King Halfdan was at a Yule-feast in Hadeland, where a wonderful
thing happened one Yule evening. When the great number of guests
assembled were going to sit down to table, all the meat and all
the ale disappeared from the table. The king sat alone very
confused in mind; all the others set off, each to his home, in
consternation. That the king might come to some certainty about
what had occasioned this event, he ordered a Fin to be seized who
was particularly knowing, and tried to force him to disclose the