Kings having to lead in war, and sometimes being willing to fight wagers of battle, are short-lived as a rule, and assassination is a continual peril, whether by fire at a time of feast, of which there are numerous examples, besides the classic one on which Biarea-mal is founded and the not less famous one of Hamlet's vengeance, or whether by steel, as with Hiartuar, or by trick, as in Wicar's case above cited.The reward for slaying a king is in one case 120 gold lbs.; 19 "talents" of gold from each ringleader, 1 oz.of gold from each commoner, in the story of Godfred, known as Ref's gild, "i.e., Fox tax".In the case of a great king, Frode, his death is concealed for three years to avoid disturbance within and danger from without.Captive kings were not as a rule well treated.A Slavonic king, Daxo, offers Ragnar's son Whitesark his daughter and half his realm, or death, and the captive strangely desires death by fire.A captive king is exposed, chained to wild beasts, thrown into a serpent-pit, wherein Ragnar is given the fate of the elder Gunnar in the Eddic Lays, Atlakvida.The king is treated with great respect by his people, he is finely clad, and his commands are carried out, however abhorrent or absurd, as long as they do not upset customary or statute law.The king has slaves in his household, men and women, besides his guard of housecarles and his bearsark champions.A king's daughter has thirty slaves with her, and the footmaiden existed exactly as in the stories of the Wicked Waiting Maid.He is not to be awakened in his slumbers (cf.St.
Olaf's Life, where the naming of King Magnus is the result of adherence to this etiquette).A champion weds the king's leman.
His thanes are created by the delivery of a sword, which the king bolds by the blade and the thane takes by the hilt.(English earls were created by the girding with a sword."Taking treasure, and weapons and horses, and feasting in a hall with the king" is synonymous with thane-hood or gesith-ship in "Beowulf's Lay").A king's thanes must avenge him if he falls, and owe him allegiance.(This was paid in the old English monarchies by kneeling and laying the head down at the lord's knee.)The trick by which the Mock-king, or King of the Beggars (parallel to our Boy-bishop, and perhaps to that enigmatic churls' King of the "O.E.Chronicle", s.a.1017, Eadwiceorla-kyning) gets allegiance paid to him, and so secures himself in his attack on the real king, is cleverly devised.The king, besides being a counsel giver himself, and speaking the law, has "counsellors", old and wise men, "sapientes" (like the 0.E.
Thyle).The aged warrior counsellor, as Starcad here and Master Hildebrand in the "Nibelungenlied", is one type of these persons, another is the false counsellor, as Woden in guise of Bruni, another the braggart, as Hunferth in "Beowulf's Lay".At "moots"where laws are made, kings and regents chosen, cases judged, resolutions taken of national importance, there are discussions, as in that armed most the host.
The king has, beside his estates up and down the country, sometimes (like Hrothgar with his palace Heorot in "Beowulf's Lay") a great fort and treasure house, as Eormenric, whose palace may well have really existed.There is often a primitive and negroid character about dwellings of formidable personages, heads placed on stakes adorn their exterior, or shields are ranged round the walls.
The provinces are ruled by removable earls appointed by the king, often his own kinsmen, sometimes the heads of old ruling families.The "hundreds" make up the province or subkingdom.
They may be granted to king's thanes, who became "hundred-elders".Twelve hundreds are in one case bestowed upon a man.
The "yeoman's" estate is not only honourable but useful, as Starcad generously and truly acknowledges.Agriculture should be fostered and protected by the king, even at the cost of his life.
But gentle birth and birth royal place certain families above the common body of freemen (landed or not); and for a commoner to pretend to a king's daughter is an act of presumption, and generally rigorously resented.
The "smith" was the object of a curious prejudice, probably akin to that expressed in St.Patrick's "Lorica", and derived from the smith's having inherited the functions of the savage weapon-maker with his poisons and charms.The curious attempt to distinguish smiths into good and useful swordsmiths and base and bad goldsmiths seems a merely modern explanation: Weland could both forge swords and make ornaments of metal.Starcad's loathing for 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.
