[121] Dasent, Burnt Njal, i. p. lvii, and Vigfusson and Powell, Origines Islandicæ, i. 348.
[122] Anc. Laws of Ireland, iv. p. vii.
[123] This appears very strongly in the famous twelfth-century law case which Longchamp pleaded so successfully. Rotuli curia Regis, i. p. lxii.
[124] Early Law and Custom, 9; cf. Burnell and Hopkins, Ordinances of Manu, pp. xx, xxxi. It is worth while quoting here the following interesting note from a letter from the Marquis di Spineto printed in Clarke's Travels, viii. 417:—
"From the most remote antiquity men joined together, and wishing either to amuse themselves or to celebrate the praises of their gods sang short poems to a fixed tune. Indeed, generally speaking, the laws by which they were governed, the events which had made the greatest impression on their minds, the praises which they bestowed upon their gods or on their heroes were all sung long before they were written, and I need not mention that according to Aristotle this is the reason why the Greeks gave the same appellation to laws and to songs."
[125] The references are all given in Smith's Dict. of Greek and Roman Antiquities sub νόμος. Aristotle in the Problems, 19, 28, definitely says, "Before the use of letters men sang their laws that they might not forget them, as the custom continues yet among the Agathyrsoi."
[126] Lib. xii. cap. ii. 9.
[127] Hist. English Commonwealth, 43.
[128] Anc. Laws of Ireland, iv. pp. viii, x.
[129] Hampson's Origines Patriciæ, 106-107; Kemble, line 5763 et seq.