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40 I. THE COUNTRY AND PEOPLE.
Even in Christian times the clergy on the spot do not
seem to have censured this laxity, although, of course, it
appeared wrong to Adam. But even he does not mention
the vice of drunkenness as prevalent in Scandinavia, prob
ably because it was so common all round him in Germany
as to excite no remark. The Sagas make many references
to it, although it was not so much of daily occurrence as an
incident of festivity. In King Sigurd s well-ordered
household at Ringarike, when Olaf the Saint visited him
and his mother, the food was milk and fish one day, alter
nating with meat and ale on another. Games of chance
were also played very largely, and we find evidence from
the first centuries after Christ that dice were used for gamb
ling (Montelius :
fig. 371). Draughts were also played,
and the game of chess was introduced as early as the eighth
or ninth century, and was evidently much in favour.
Among such a people the sentiment of family life was
naturally very strong. The graves of the dead were near
the houses, and were places for religious worship and
meditation. On these family-howes (att-hogar), as they
were called, the head of the family was wont to sit, accord
ing to old custom, for hours together, no doubt to hold
converse with the spirits of the departed and to look for
ward to the uncertain future.29
These howes were also
places for games and athletic sports, as in the Iliad and
Aeneid. The use of the churchyard for festivals is clearly
a relic of this custom, which prevailed also in England.
The most distinctive virtue of the Swedes, which yet
characterizes them, was their hospitality. "It is the
greatest disgrace among them (says Adam, 230) to deny
hospitality to wayfarers ; they in fact vie with one another
as to which of them is worthy to receive a guest. After
son, Hakon the Good, by a slave-girl, Thora Mosterstang, was
baptized by Earl Sigurd (H. Harfager s Saga, ch. 40).
So Sigurd (Sigfrid) was baptized in the house of King Hjalfrek,
not indeed as his son (see Volsunga Saga, chap. 13, trans, by
Morris, published in the Scott Library).
29
See the quotation from PIallfred s Saga about Thorlaf in
C. P. ., Vol. i., p. 416.
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