The Danish History, Books I-IX | Page 7

sometimes sacrificed for
better seasons (African fashion), and Wicar of Norway perishes, like
Iphigeneia, to procure fair winds. 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