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32 I. THE COUNTRY AND PEOPLE.
tears. . . . The conception which we form of a subject
often depends upon the name by which we are accustomed
to designate it. The term Viking-voyage suggests a
chivalrous pursuit of dangers and warlike adventures, but
the thing is better defined as a voyage for the purpose of
killing and plundering. We translate it, therefore, with
perfect truth as piracy undertaken as a means of liveli
hood."
It must, of course, be added that the pirates were often
men who became valuable settlers in the countries which
they raided, and that they infused new blood and vigour
into Normandy and England, Apulia, Naples and Sicily
and other countries. They also had something to give to
the Christianity of the older lands. But the good was
done at the expense of much needless sorrow, misery and
confusion.
9. GENERAL IDEA OF THE CHARACTER AND LIFE OF THE
PEOPLE. FORESHADOWINGS OF LATER DAYS.
The stories of early Sweden in the dark millennium
which follows the birth of Christ are conspicuously full of
a particular kind of interest the interest attaching to re
velations of national character. For this purpose it makes
little difference whether the legends are historically true
or represent what the people loved to think, or naturally
thought, of as true. In them we have remarkable fore-
shadowings of later history, both in the lives of men and
in the institutions which form the framework of their lives.
In studying them we are struck by the persistence of cer
tain types of character and social habit even to the present
day. This is what we should certainly expect in a people
of simple temperament, and, to a great extent, unmixed
blood, living under the conditions which have prevailed,
and to a great extent still prevail, in Sweden. People of
homogeneous race in which both father and mother have
the same kind of thoughts and prejudices, century after
century, are naturally fuller than others of racial instincts
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