"I like the place," Ingolf said. "I will make this land mine."
So he built fires at the mouth of the river near there, and stood by them and called out loudly:
"I have put my fire at the mouth of these rivers. All the land that they drain is mine, and no man shall claim it but me. I will call this place Reykjavik."[13]
Then Ingolf built his feast hall. He himself carved the beams and the door-posts. Gaily painted dragons leaned out from the doors and stood up from the gables. Men and animals fought on the door-posts. For the doors he made at the forge great iron hinges. Their ends curved and spread all over the door. Near his feast hall he built a storehouse and a kitchen and a smithy and a stable and a bower for the women.
"We do not need a sleeping-house for guests," he said. "Who would be our guests?"
He roofed all his buildings with turf. It made them look like green mounds with gay carved and painted walls under them. He built also a temple, and on that was beautiful carving. In this he set up those statues that had been in his old temple. He put up, too, those pillars of his high seat that had been drifting about so long. Under them he laid the soil of Norway that he had brought in the little bronze chest.
"I have kept my vow, O Thor!" he cried.
Then he sacrificed three horses that he had promised to Thor. After that was over, he said:
"Here is a good field for sport. Let us have some of the old games that we used to play at home. Who will wrestle with me?"
So they wrestled there and ran races and swam in the water. The women sat and looked on.