“Toward the North; in the land of the Swedes and Frisians, there was an ancient kingdom, and hunger came upon the people, and they gathered together, and it was resolved that every tenth man should depart.  And so they went forth from among their friends, in three bands under three leaders, six thousand fighting men, great like unto giants, with their wives and children and all their worldly goods.  And they swore never to desert one another, and smote with victorious arm Graf Peter of the Franks, who would obstruct their progress.  They besought of God a land like that of their ancestors, where they might pasture their cattle in peace; and God led them into the country of Brochenburg, and they built there Schwyz; and the people increased, and there was no more room for them in the valley.  Some went forth, therefore, into the country round about, even as far as the Weissland; and it is still in the memory of old men how the people went from mountain to mountain, from valley to valley, to Frutigen, Obersibenthal, Sanen, Afflentsch, and Jaun;—­and beyond Jaun dwell other races.”

The time and circumstance of this wandering are unknown, and we may make what we will of it; but to the men of Schwyz the tradition is an affirmation of their original primal independence.  And of old time, also, the Emperors have admitted that these people of their own free will sought and obtained the protection of the Empire,—­a privilege by no means extended to all the dwellers of the Waldstaette, (or Forest Cantons,) but confined to the men of Schwyz.

As the Emperors were often absent, engaged in great wars, and the times were very troublous, and there was need of some commanding character among them, for the administration of the criminal law touching the shedding of blood, they often made the Count of Lenzburg Bailiff.  But no matter of any moment could be acted upon without the sense of the people being taken, of the serf as well as the freeman:  for these two classes existed not less among these primitive people than elsewhere, in the feudal times; and this community of counsel of freeman and serf is related to have worked harmoniously, “for equality existed of itself, by nature, there.”  They chose a Landammann, or chief magistrate,—­a man free by birth, of an honorable name and some substance; and for judges also they were careful to select men of substance, “for he careth most for freedom and order who hath most to lose”; and for the greater peace of the land there was a Street-Council, consisting of seven reputable men, who went through the streets administering justice in small causes here and there, as in the East the judges sat at the city-gate or at the door of the palace.