f. a ‘grey goose,’ a wild goose, Edda (Gl.), Þiðr. 347.

II. metaph. the name of a Norse code of laws in Drontheim (Frostaþingslög), prob. from the grey binding or from being written with a goose quill, Fms. viii. 277 (Sverr. S.), Hkr. iii. 23; cp. Gullfjöðr, gold feather, gold quill, name of an eccl. code; or Hryggjar-stykki, a kind of duck, but also the name of a book.

2. in later times (in the 16th century) the name Grágás was misapplied to an old MS. of Icel. laws of the Commonwealth time, the present Cod. Arna-Magn. 134 folio, or Sb., and has since been made to serve as a collective name for all Icel. laws framed before the union with Norway, sometimes including, sometimes excluding the eccl. law (Kristinna-laga þáttr = K. Þ. K.); the whole matter is fully treated by Maurer, s. v. ‘Graagaas,’ in Ersch and Gruber’s Encyclopedia; he makes out that the Icel. of the Commonwealth, although they had written laws, had no code, and that the passage in Íb. ch. 10 does not refer to codification, but to the committal of oral laws to writing; the two vellum MSS., the Kb. and Sb., are merely private collections of the 13th century, and differ very much one from the other. Upon the union with Norway, Iceland was for the first time blessed with a code, which they called Ironside (Js.); and a second code, the Jon’s Book, was introduced A. D. 1281.