"Towards the latter part of the tenth century the skaalwas used as common sleeping-room for the whole family, including servants and serfs; it was fitted up in the same way as the hall. Like this, it was divided in three naves by rows of wooden pillars; the middle floor was lower than that of the two side naves. In these were placed the so-called saetor bed-places, not running the whole length of the {blank space} from gable to gable, but sideways, filling about a third part. Each saetwas enclosed by broad, strong planks joined into the pillars, but not nailed on, so they might easily be taken out. These planks, called SATTESTOKKE, could also be turned sideways and used as benches during the day; they were often beautifully carved, and consequently highly valued."

"When settling abroad the people took away with them these planks, and put them up in their new home as a symbol of domestic happiness. The saetwas occupied by the servants of the farm as sleeping-rooms; generally it was screened by hangings and low panels, which partitioned it off like huge separate boxes, used as beds."

"All beds were filled with hay or straw; servants and serfs slept on this without any bedclothes, sometimes a sleeping-bag was used, or they covered themselves with deerskins or a mantle. The family had bed-clothes, but only in very wealthy houses were they also provided for the servants. Moveable beds were extremely rare, but are sometimes mentioned. Generally two people slept in each bed."

"In the further end of the skaal, facing the door, opened out one or several small bedrooms, destined for the husband with wife and children, besides other members of the family, including guests of a higher standing. These small dormitories were separated by partitions of planks into bedrooms with one or several beds, and shut away from the outer SKAALeither by a sliding-door in the wall or by an ordinary door shutting with a hasp. Sometimes only a hanging covered the opening."

"In some farms were found underground passages, leading from the master's bedside to an outside house, or even as far as a wood or another sheltered place in the neighbourhood, to enable the inhabitants to save themselves during a night attack. For the same reason each man had his arms suspended over his bed."

" Ildhusor fire-house was the kitchen, often used besides as a sleeping-room when the farms were very small. This was quite abolished after the year 1000."

" Buretwas the provision house."

"The bathroom was heated from a stone oven; the stones were heated red-hot and cold water thrown upon them, which developed a quantity of vapour. As the heat and the steam mounted, the people—men and women—crawled up to a shelf under the roof and remained there as in a Turkish bath."

"In large and wealthy houses there was also a women's room, with a fireplace built low down in the middle, as in the hall, where the women used to sit with their handiwork all day. The men were allowed to come in and talk to them, also beggar-women and other vagabonds, who brought them the news from other places. Towards evening and for meals all assembled together in the hall."

On this showing, people did not sleep in cabins partitioned off the dining-hall, but in the skaale; and two similar and similarly situated rooms, one the common dining-hall, the other the common sleeping-hall, have been confused by writers on the sagas. {Footnote: Gudmundsson, p, 14, Note I.} Can there be a similar confusion in the uses of megaron, doma, and domos?

In the Eyrbyggja Saga we have descriptions of the "fire-hall," skбlior eldhъs. "The fire-hall was the common sleeping-room in Icelandic homesteads." Guests and strangers slept there; not in the portico, as in Homer. "Here were the lock-beds." There were butteries; one of these was reached by a ladder. The walls were panelled. {Footnote: The Ere Dwellers, p. 145.} Thorgunna had a "berth," apparently partitioned off, in the hall. {Footnote: Ibid., 137-140.} As in Homer the hall was entered from the courtyard, in which were separate rooms for stores and other purposes. In the courtyard also, in the houses of Gunnar of Lithend and Gisli at Hawkdale, and doubtless in other cases, were the dyngfur, or ladies' chambers, their "bowers" ( Thalamos, like that of Telemachus in the courtyard), where they sat spinning and gossiping. The dyngjawas originally called bъr, our "bower"; the ballads say "in bower and hall." In the ballad of MARGARET, her parents are said to put her in the way of deadly sin by building her a bower, apparently separate from the main building; she would have been safer in an upper chamber, though, even there, not safe—at least, if a god wooed her! It does not appear that all houses had these chambers for ladies apart from the main building. You did not enter the main hall in Iceland from the court directly in front, but by the "man's door" at the west side, whence you walked through the porch or outer hall ( prodomos, aithonsa), in the centre of which, to the right, were the doors of the hall. The women entered by the women's door, at the eastern extremity.

Guests did not sleep, as in Homer, in the prodomos, or the

portico—the climate did not permit it—but in one or other hall. The

hall was wainscotted; the walls were hung with shields and weapons,

like the hall of Odysseus. The heads of the family usually slept in the

aisles, in chambers entered through the wainscot of the hall. Such a

chamber might be called muchos; it was private from the hall though

under the same roof. It appears not improbable that some Homeric halls

had sleeping places of this kind; such a muchosin Iceland seems to

have had windows. {Footnote: Story of Burnt Njal, i. 242.}

Gunnar himself, however, slept with his wife, Halegerda, in an

upper chamber; his mother, who lived with him, also had a room upstairs.

In Njal's house, too, there was an upper chamber, wherein the foes of Njal threw fire. {Footnote: Ibid., ii. 173.} But Njal and Bergthora, his wife, when all hope was ended, went into their own bride-chamber in the separate aisle of the hall "and gave over their souls into God's hand." Under a hide they lay; and when men raised up the hide, after the fire had done its work, "they were unburnt under it. All praised God for that, and thought it was a GREATtoken." In this house was a weaving room for the women. {Footnote: Ibid, ii. 195.}

It thus appears that Icelandic houses of the heroic age, as regards structural arrangements, were practically identical with the house of Odysseus, allowing for a separate sleeping-hall, while the differences between that and other Homeric houses may be no more than the differences between various Icelandic dwellings. The parents might sleep in bedchambers off the hall or in upper chambers. Ladies might have bowers in the courtyard or might have none. The {Greek: laurae}—each passage outside the hall—yielded sleeping rooms for servants; and there were store-rooms behind the passage at the top end of the hall, as well as separate chambers for stores in the courtyard. Mr. Leaf judiciously reconstructs the Homeric house in its "public rooms," of which we hear most, while he leaves the residential portion with "details and limits probably very variable." {Footnote: Iliad, vol. i. pp. 586-589, with diagram based on the palace of Tiryns.}

Given variability, which is natural and to be expected, and given the absence of detail about the "residential portion" of other houses than that of Odysseus in the poems, it does not seem to us that this house is conspicuously "late," still less that it is the house of historical Greece. Manifestly, in all respects it more resembles the houses of Njal and Gunnar of Lithend in the heroic age of Iceland.