Page:History of the Literature of the Scandinavian North.djvu/75

Rh him many enemies, and he was constantly engaged in litigation with other prominent men, mostly his own kinsfolk. In the year 1218 Snorre came for the first time to Norway, where the young Hakon Hakonson was then reigning under the protection of Jarl Skule. Snorre was received with great distinction, composed the poem Háttatal in honor of the king and jarl, and was made a courtier. The next year a serious trouble arose between the Norwegians and the Icelanders, and Skule even contemplated an expedition to Iceland in order to avenge an outrage which one of the chiefs there had inflicted on some Norwegian merchants. Snorre, it is true, succeeded in persuading the jarl to abandon his project, but he had to pledge himself to work for the realization of a plan long cherished by the Norwegian king, of subjugating Iceland to the throne of Norway, a promise which Snorre does not, however, seem to have kept. After his return to Iceland he increased his fortune and influence, but on the other hand he became more and more entangled in hostilities, and his enemies, headed by his own nephew, Sturla Sighvatson, made use of the feud between King Hakon and Jarl Skule to turn the former againt Snorre, whose position was thus greatly imperilled. He therefore betook himself to Norway to seek help from the jarl. Then he returned to Iceland, where his nephew in the meantime had fallen in a struggle with Snorre's son-in-law, Gissur. But in Gissur he found a no less dangerous enemy than his nephew had been, and at the behest of king Hakon Gissur murdered his father-in-law, September 22, 1241.

Despite this restless life, which constitutes but a single, though a prominent episode in this stormy time by which Iceland was visited before the fall of the republic, and which necessarily weakened and shattered all social and political ties and made the country a sure prey of the Norwegian king, we say despite this restless life, Snorre found time to develop a literary activity which marks the zenith of the production of historical sagas. His sagas of the kings of