Froude, in one of his sketches of travel in Norway, made the excellent observation that if we could suddenly go back to the time of the terrible sea-kings, if we could revisit to-day the homes of the old Northern pirates, and find them exactly as they were one thousand or fifteen hundred years ago, we should find them very much like the modern Englishmen—­big, simple, silent men, concealing a great deal of shrewdness under an aspect of simplicity.  The teachings of the “Havamal” give great force to this supposition.  The book must have been known in some form to the early English—­or at least the verses composing it (it is all written in verse); and as I have already said, the morals of the old English, as well as their character, differed very little from those of the men of the still further North, with whom they mingled and intermarried freely, both before and after the Danish conquest, when for one moment England and Sweden were one kingdom.

Of course you must remember that Northern society was a very terrible thing in some ways.  Every man carried his life in his hands; every farmer kept sword and spear at his side even in his own fields; and every man expected to die fighting.  In fact, among the men of the more savage North—­the men of Norway in especial—­it was considered a great disgrace to die of sickness, to die on one’s bed.  That was not to die like a man.  Men would go out and get themselves killed, when they felt old age or sickness coming on.  But these facts must not blind us to the other fact that there was even in that society a great force of moral cohesion, and sound principles of morality.  If there had not been, it could not have existed; much less could the people who lived under it have become the masters of a great part of the world, which they are at the present day.  There was, in spite of all that fierceness, much kindness and good nature among them; there were rules of conduct such as no man could find fault with—­rules which still govern English society to some extent.  And there was opportunity enough for social amusement, social enjoyment, and the winning of public esteem by a noble life.

Still, even in the “Havamal,” one is occasionally startled by teachings which show the darker side of Northern life, a life of perpetual vendetta.  As in old Japan, no man could live under the same heaven with the murderer of his brother or father; vengeance was a duty even in the case of a friend.  On the subject of enemies the “Havamal” gives not a little curious advice: 

    A man should never step a foot beyond his weapons; for he can
    never tell where, on his path without, he may need his spear.

A man, before he goes into a house, should look to and espy all the doorways (so that he can find his way out quickly again), for he can never know where foes may be sitting in another man’s house.

Does not this remind us of the Japanese proverb that everybody has three enemies outside of his own door?  But the meaning of the “Havamal” teaching is much more sinister.  And when the man goes into the house, he is still told to be extremely watchful—­to keep his ears and eyes open so that he may not be taken by surprise: