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9 . LIFE AND CHARACTER OF THE PEOPLE. 41
showing him all the rights of humanity for as many days
as he desires to spend in a place his host sends him on to his
friends from one halting place to another.
"
As to the highest ideal of independent manly character
all over Scandinavia we cannot, I suppose, have a better
picture of it than as it appears in the persons of Beowulf,
the Weder-Goth, and of Sigurd in the Volsunga Saga.
The poem of Beowulf does not, I think, contain any sum
maries of good advice to heroes, but we have in the
later poem the remarkable "wise words" of Brynhild,
addressed to Sigurd, which read like an extract from a
Scandinavian book of Sirach :
"
Be kindly to friend and kin, and reward not their
trespasses against thee : bear and forbear, and win for thee
thereby long enduring praise of men." . . .
"
Let not thy
mind be over-much crossed by unwise men at thronged
meetings of folk ;
for these speak worse than they wot of ;
lest thou be called a dastard, and art minded to think that
thou art even as is said ; slay such an one on another day,
and so reward his ugly talk. . . . Let not fair women
beguile thee such as thou mayst meet at the feast, so that
the thought thereof stand thee in stead of sleep and a quiet
mind ; yea draw them not to thee with kisses or other sweet
things of love."
"
If thou hearest the fool s word of a drunken man, strive
not with him being drunk with drink and witless ; many a
grief, yea, and the very death groweth from out such
things."
"
Fight thy foes in the field, nor be burnt in thine
house."
11
Never swear thou wrongsome oath; great and grim is
the reward for the breaking of plighted troth."
"
Give kind heed to dead men sick-dead, sea-dead, or
sword-dead; deal needfully with their dead corpses"
(Volsunga Saga: ch. 21, translated by W. Morris).
This was advice to a hero who went about the world with
his sword ready to maintain his honour and that of his
kinsmen and friends, and being a law to himself. But
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