The Danish History, Books I-IX | Page 8

a smith recalls the mockery
with which the Homeric gods treat Hephaistos.
Slavery.--As noble birth is manifest by fine eyes and personal beauty,
courage and endurance, and delicate behaviour, so the slave nature is
manifested by cowardice, treachery, unbridled lust, bad manners,

falsehood, and low physical traits. Slaves had, of course, no right either
of honour, or life, or limb. Captive ladies are sent to a brothel; captive
kings cruelly put to death. Born slaves were naturally still less
considered, they were flogged; it was disgraceful to kill them with
honourable steel; to accept a slight service from a slave-woman was
beneath old Starcad's dignity. A man who loved another man's
slave-woman, and did base service to her master to obtain her as his
consort, was looked down on. Slaves frequently ran away to escape
punishment for carelessness, or fault, or to gain liberty.

CUSTOMARY LAW.
The evidence of Saxo to archaic law and customary institutions is
pretty much (as we should expect) that to be drawn from the Icelandic
Sagas, and even from the later Icelandic rimur and Scandinavian
kaempe-viser. But it helps to complete the picture of the older stage of
North Teutonic Law, which we are able to piece together out of our
various sources, English, Icelandic, and Scandinavian. In the twilight of
Yore every glowworm is a helper to the searcher.
There are a few MAXIMS of various times, but all seemingly drawn
from custom cited or implied by Saxo as authoritative:--
"It is disgraceful to be ruled by a woman."--The great men of Teutonic
nations held to this maxim. There is no Boudicea or Maidhbh in our
own annals till after the accession of the Tudors, when Great Eliza
rivals her elder kins-women's glories. Though Tacitus expressly notices
one tribe or confederacy, the Sitones, within the compass of his
Germania, ruled by a woman, as an exceptional case, it was contrary to
the feeling of mediaeval Christendom for a woman to be emperor; it
was not till late in the Middle Ages that Spain saw a queen regnant, and
France has never yet allowed such rule. It was not till long after Saxo
that the great queen of the North, Margaret, wielded a wider sway than
that rejected by Gustavus' wayward daughter.
"The suitor ought to urge his own suit."--This, an axiom of the most

archaic law, gets evaded bit by bit till the professional advocate takes
the place of the plaintiff. "Njal's Saga", in its legal scenes, shows the
transition period, when, as at Rome, a great and skilled chief was
sought by his client as the supporter of his cause at the Moot. In
England, the idea of representation at law is, as is well known, late and
largely derived from canon law practice.
"To exact the blood-fine was as honourable as to take
vengeance."--This maxim, begotten by Interest upon Legality,
established itself both in Scandinavia and Arabia. It marks the first
stage in a progress which, if carried out wholly, substitutes law for feud.
In the society of the heathen Danes the maxim was a novelty; even in
Christian Denmark men sometimes preferred blood to fees.
MARRIAGE.--There are many reminiscences of "archaic marriage
customs in Saxo." The capture marriage has left traces in the guarded
king's daughters, the challenging of kings to fight or hand over their
daughters, in the promises to give a daughter or sister as a reward to a
hero who shall accomplish some feat. The existence of polygamy is
attested, and it went on till the days of Charles the Great and Harold
Fairhair in singular instances, in the case of great kings, and finally
disappeared before the strict ecclesiastic regulations.
But there are evidences also of later customs, such as "marriage by
purchase", already looked on as archaic in Saxo's day; and the free
women in Denmark had clearly long had a veto or refusal of a husband
for some time back, and sometimes even free choice. "Go-betweens"
negotiate marriages.
Betrothal was of course the usage. For the groom to defile an espoused
woman is a foul reproach. Gifts made to father-in-law after bridal by
bridegroom seem to denote the old bride-price. Taking the bride home
in her car was an important ceremony, and a bride is taken to her future
husband's by her father. The wedding-feast, as in France in Rabelais'
time, was a noisy and drunken and tumultuous rejoicing, when
bone-throwing was in favor, with other rough sports and jokes. The
three days after the bridal and their observance in "sword-bed" are
noticed below.

A commoner or one of slave-blood could not pretend to wed a
high-born lady. A woman would sometimes require some proof of
power or courage at her suitor's hands; thus Gywritha, like the famous
lady who weds Harold Fairhair, required her husband Siwar