Page:The Heimskringla; or, Chronicle of the Kings of Norway Vol 1.djvu/205

 in the year 1248, and of there being more than 200 vessels in that port at the same time. The poorer lands and countries of Europe, and the employment of their inhabitants, have in fact undergone a great depreciation in value, and which is still going on, by the introduction and general diffusion of better articles for food, clothing, and enjoyment, from better climes, and by the diffusion of more refined tastes and habits than the products of their soil and industry can gratify. When wadmal, or coarse woollen cloth, was the ordinary wear; stock-fish, or salt fish, in great use even in royal households; fish oil the only means in the North for lighting rooms,—the poorest countries, such as Iceland, Greenland, or the north of Norway, which produced these, must have been much more on a par with better countries, such as Denmark or England, which did not produce them, and must have been comparatively much better to live in, and the inhabitants nearer to the general condition of the people of other countries, than they are now. The daughter of King Magnus Barefoot would probably be as well lodged, fed, clothed, and attended, as she would have been in Scotland in that age.

John Loptson died when Snorro was nineteen years of age. Snorro continued to live with his foster-brothers, his own father being dead, and his patrimony inconsiderable and much wasted by his mother. At twenty-one years of age he married Herdisa, the daughter of a wealthy priest called Berse, who lived at Berg, in the bailiwick of Myre, where he also took up his abode. He got a considerable fortune with his wife, by whom he had several children, but only two who grew up; a son called John Murt, and a daughter called Halbera. He had also several illegitimate