and in standing.  A rumor of their secret meeting was circulated, and Fridthjof was summoned before the council of heroes to answer to the charge.  If ever a lie were justifiable, it would seem to be when a pure woman’s honor was at stake, and when a hero’s happiness and power for good pivoted on it.  Fridthjof tells to Ingeborg the story of his sore temptation when, in the presence of the council, Helge challenges his course.

“’Say, Fridthjof, Balder’s peace hast thou not broken, Not seen my sister in his house while Day Concealed himself, abashed, before your meeting?  Speak! yea or nay!’ Then echoed from the ring Of crowded warriors, ’Say but nay, say nay!  Thy simple word we’ll trust; we’ll court for thee,—­Thou, Thorstein’s son, art good as any king’s.  Say nay! say nay! and thine is Ingeborg!’ ’The happiness,’ I answered, ’of my life On one word hangs; but fear not therefore, Helge!  I would not lie to gain the joys of Valhal, Much less this earth’s delights.  I’ve seen thy sister, Have spoken with her in the temple’s night, But have not therefore broken Balder’s peace!’ More none would hear.  A murmur of deep horror The diet traversed; they who nearest stood Drew back, as I had with the plague been smitten."[1]

[Footnote 1:  Anderson’s Viking Tales of the North, p. 223.]

And so, because Fridthjof would not lie, he lost his bride and became a wanderer from his land, and Ingeborg became the wife of another; and this record is to this day told to the honor of Fridthjof, in accordance with the standard of the North in the matter of truth-telling.

In ancient Persia, the same high standard prevailed.  Herodotus says of the Persians:  “The most disgraceful thing in the world, they think, is to tell a lie; the next worse, to owe a debt; because, among other reasons, the debtor is obliged to tell lies."[1] “Their sons are carefully instructed, from their fifth to their twentieth year, in three things alone,—­to ride, to draw the bow, and to speak the truth."[2] Here the one duty in the realm of morals is truth-telling.  In the famous inscription of Darius, the son of Hystaspes, on the Rock of Behistun,[3] there are repeated references to lying as the chief of sins, and to the evil time when lying was introduced into Persia, and “the lie grew in the provinces, in Persia as well as in Media and in the other provinces.”  Darius claims to have had the help of “Ormuzd and the other gods that may exist,” because he “was not wicked, nor a liar;” and he enjoins it on his successor to “punish severely him who is a liar or a rebel.”

[Footnote 1:  Rawlinson’s Herodotus, Bk.  I., sec. 139.]

[Footnote 2:  Ibid., Bk.  I., sec. 136.]

[Footnote 3:  Sayce’s Introduction to Ezra, Nehemiah, and Esther, pp. 120-137.]