Full resolution (JPEG) - On this page / på denna sida - II. Land and People from the Heathen Period
<< prev. page << föreg. sida << >> nästa sida >> next page >>
Below is the raw OCR text
from the above scanned image.
Do you see an error? Proofread the page now!
Här nedan syns maskintolkade texten från faksimilbilden ovan.
Ser du något fel? Korrekturläs sidan nu!
This page has been proofread at least once.
(diff)
(history)
Denna sida har korrekturlästs minst en gång.
(skillnad)
(historik)
of champions and warriors; they were called
host-kings, sea-kings, and were in right of their birth
leaders of those warlike bands which devastated
the European coasts. This uninterrupted devotion
to war in the remaining houses of kingly rank,
appears to have induced the people to elect from
their own number guardians of their interests, for
their defence against the arbitrary violences of
the sovereign.
Thus arose the power of the Lagman [1], which
attained such great importance towards the end of
the heathen period. They were chosen by the
people, but did not venture to assume the Tignar
name, which began to be confined to the officers of
the royal household. The Lagmen, themselves
peasants, stood at the head of this class in their
own province, and had the chief voice in its court
(land-ting), where they expounded the law with
the best skilled and most discreet of the people.
They spoke also in the name of the people to the
king, in the great assemblies of the nation [2].
The odalbonders, or free-born yeomen, composed
the body of the nation, or more correctly of the
different nations, for the inhabitants of the various
provinces became dissociated from one another by
distinct codes of laws, administered in each by its
own justiciary. There were besides unfree persons
and slaves, for the most part captives in war;
these were beyond the pale of the law and the
land’s right, and dependent on the good pleasure
of their masters. This might raise them to wealth
and power; and we find the slave Tunne, treasurer
of king Aun the Aged in Sweden, powerful enough
to rise against his son and successor; but they
could neither contract legitimate marriages, nor in
general acquire property, although their condition
was tolerable under a good master. It is related
of Erling, a Norwegian herse, that he had prescribed
to his slaves a fixed day’s work, after the
completion of which they were allowed to labour
in the evening on their own account till they had
earned their ransom, and there were few who did not
redeem themselves within three years. With the
price of their liberty Erling purchased other slaves;
his freedmen he employed in the herring fishery
and the like gainful labour, or permitted to build
cots and settle in the forest [3].
The first teachers of Christianity describe old
Sweden as a fruitful territory, with wide-stretching
woodlands and waters, rich meadows, abounding in
honey and herds of kine, which were often tended
by the best-born men of the land [4]. Rye and
barley-fields are spoken of in the sagas; oats, which
according to Pliny the Germans cultivated, must
also have been early known in the North; wheat
we find as an article of traffic. Mention is made
also in ancient records, and sometimes even in the
mythic songs, of ploughing both with horses and
oxen, of sowing and harvest, of the brewing of beer
and mead, and the baking of bread. Malt and
butter formed part of the tributes paid to the king at
Christmas [5]; to eat raw flesh was held a mark of
barbarism [6]. At the sacrificial feasts, to which the
peasants brought victuals and beer, when the
victims had been slaughtered, the idols, the walls of
the temple within and without, and the assembled
people, were besprinkled with blood; the boiled
flesh and broth were then eaten. Food and drink
were blessed with Thor’s hammer-sign [7]. The
houses and likewise the temples were for the most
part of wood, surrounded with a palisade or fence.
In the dwellings of the principal men there were
upper chambers under the roof, corresponding to
the sleeping-rooms in the houses of the country
people in modern times. It was from such an
apartment that king Fiolner fell into the vat of
mead. The more indigent were sometimes reduced
to live in caves. In the houses the floor was of
earth, covered on solemn occasions with straw;
the fire burned in the middle of the room, and
the smoke obtained vent through an aperture
called the wind-eye (vindögat) in the roof or wall.
By the walls stood long benches with tables before
them; on the inner side of these the guests sat,
and drank to each other across the chamber, the
beer being sent over the fire. The king and queen
sat on the chair of state in the midmost place of
the bench which was turned towards the sun. On
the bench overagainst them was placed the
principal guest [8]; men and women sat in pairs and
drank with one another. This was the manner of
peace; but the usage of the Vikings, on the other
hand, was to exclude women from the drinking
parties [9].
Knitting and weaving were as usual the occupations
of the female sex. Brynhild wove in gold
the famous exploits of Sigurd [10]. Ragnar Lodbroc’s
standard, with the figure of a raven, to which
honours almost divine were paid by the northern
pagans, was wrought by his daughters [11]. Examples
are found of splendour in arms, raiment, and
ornaments, but generally wadmal (the woollen-cloth
above-mentioned) was an acceptable present even
to a queen. The arts of divination and medicine
were also practised by women, who were not entire
strangers even to the fatigues of war. The
shield-maiden (skölde-mö) was dedicated to Odin, and
forbidden to wed; her love brought calamity.
The artists most highly esteemed were, as in
Homer, the poet, the soothsayer, the leech, the
armourer. The weapons and fleets of the Vikings
show that iron was in use at an early period.
Previously, arms were made of copper or a metal
mixed with copper, and the oldest of stone. The
implements of flint stone found in graves are often
religious symbols.
In the exercise of northern hospitality, the old
Swedes surpassed every other people. Piracy
brought into the country abundance of foreign
wares [12]; and the hoards often dug up show that
gold and silver could not have been scarce. The
poor were so few, that the first Christians could
only find a use for their alms in foreign countries [13].
<< prev. page << föreg. sida << >> nästa sida >> next page >>
