Among other disgraceful acts, that make the offender infamous, but do not necessarily involve public action:—­

“Manslaughter in Breach of Hospitality".—­Probably any gross breach of hospitality was disreputable and highly abhorred, but “guest-slaughter” is especially mentioned.  The ethical question as to whether a man should slay his guest or forego his just vengeance was often a “probleme du jour” in the archaic times to which these traditions witness.  Ingeld prefers his vengeance, but Thuriswend, in the Lay cited by Paul the Deacon, chooses to protect his guest.  Heremod slew his messmates in his wrath, and went forth alone into exile. ("Beowulf’s Lay".)

“Suicide".—­This was more honourable than what Earl Siward of Northumberland called a “cow-death.”  Hadding resolves to commit suicide at his friend’s death.  Wermund resolves to commit suicide if his son be slain (in hopelessness of being able to avenge him, cf.  “Njal’s Saga”, where the hero, a Christian, prefers to perish in his burning house than live dishonoured, “for I am an old man and little fitted to avenge my sons, but I will not live in shame").  Persons commit suicide by slaying each other in time of famine; while in England (so Baeda tells) they “decliffed” themselves in companies, and, as in the comic little Icelandic tale Gautrec’s birth, a Tarpeian death is noted as the customary method of relieving folks from the hateful starvation death.  It is probable that the violent death relieved the ghost or the survivors of some inconveniences which a “straw death” would have brought about.

“Procedure by Wager of Battle".—­This archaic process pervades Saxo’s whole narrative.  It is the main incident of many of the sagas from which he drew.  It is one of the chief characteristics of early Teutonic custom-law, and along with “Cormac’s Saga”, “Landnamaboc”, and the Walter Saga, our author has furnished us with most of the information we have upon its principles and practice.

Steps in the process are the Challenge, the Acceptance and Settlement of Conditions, the Engagement, the Treatment of the vanquished, the Reward of the conqueror, and there are rules touching each of these, enough almost to furnish a kind of “Galway code”.

A challenge could not, either to war or wager of battle, be refused with honor, though a superior was not bound to fight an inferior in rank.  An ally might accept for his principal, or a father for a son, but it was not honourable for a man unless helpless to send a champion instead of himself.

Men were bound to fight one to one, and one man might decline to fight two at once.  Great champions sometimes fought against odds.

The challenged man chose the place of battle, and possibly fixed the time.  This was usually an island in the river.

The regular weapons were swords and shields for men of gentle blood.  They fought by alternate separate strokes; the senior had the first blow.  The fight must go on face to face without change of place; for the ground was marked out for the combatants, as in our prize ring, though one can hardly help fancying that the fighting ground so carefully described in “Cormac’s Saga”, ch. 10, may have been Saxo’s authority.  The combatants change places accidentally in the struggle in one story.