Now things go on till another Thing comes. Njal rode to the
Thing, and at first all is quiet until Njal says that it is high
time for men to give notice of their suits.
Then many said that they thought that came to little, when no man
could get his suit settled, even though the witnesses were
summoned to the Althing, “and so,” say they, “we would rather
seek our rights with point and edge.”
“So it must not be,” says Njal, “for it will never do to have no
law in the land. But yet ye have much to say on your side in
this matter, and it behoves us who know the law, and who are
bound to guide the law, to set men at one again, and to ensue
peace. ‘Twere good counsel, then, methinks, that we call
together all the chiefs and talk the matter over.”
Then they go to the Court of Laws, and Njal spoke and said,
“Thee, Skapti Thorod’s son and you other chiefs, I call on, and
say, that methinks our lawsuits have come into a dead lock, if we
have to follow up our suits in the Quarter Courts, and they get
so entangled that they can neither be pleaded nor ended.
Methinks, it were wiser if we had a Fifth Court, and there
pleaded those suits which cannot be brought to an end in the
Quarter Courts.”
“How,” said Skapti, “wilt thou name a Fifth Court, when the
Quarter Court is named for the old priesthoods, three twelves in
each quarter?”
“I can see help for that,” says Njal, “by setting up new
priesthoods, and filling them with the men who are best fitted in
each Quarter, and then let those men who are willing to agree to
it, declare themselves ready to join the new priest’s Thing.”
“Well,” says Skapti, “we will take this choice; but what weighty
suits shall come before the court?”
“These matters shall come before it,” says Njal, — “all matters
of contempt of the Thing, such as if men bear false witness, or
utter a false finding; hither, too, shall come all those suits in
which the judges are divided in opinion in the Quarter Court;
then they shall be summoned to the Fifth Court; so, too, if men
offer bribes, or take them, for their help in suits. In this
court all the oaths shall be of the strongest kind, and two men
shall follow every oath, who shall support on their words of
honour what the others swear. So it shall be also, if the
pleadings on one side are right in form, and the other wrong,
that the judgment shall be given for those that are right in
form. Every suit in this court shall be pleaded just as is now
done in the Quarter Court, save and except that when four twelves
are named in the Fifth Court, then the plaintiff shall name and
set aside six men out of the court, and the defendant other six;
but if he will not set them aside, then the plaintiff shall name
them and set them aside as he has done with his own six; but if
the plaintiff does not set them aside, then the suit comes to
naught, for three twelves shall utter judgment on all suits. We
