unfree were tenderly handled. "A well-born youth, who grew
up amongst the same herds and on the same land with an unfree youth,
eating and drinking together, and sharing joy and sorrow, could not
handle shamefully the comrades of the unfree man."[837] In the
Scandinavian _Rigsmal_, Rig, the hero, begets a representative of each
of three ranks,--noble, yeoman, laborer,--the first with the mother, the
second with the grandmother, and the third with the great-grandmother,
as if they had come from later and later strata of population.[838] Rig
slept between man and wife when he begot the yeoman and thrall, but not
when he begot the noble. The thrall has no marriage ceremony. The food,
dwelling, dress, furniture, occupations, and manners of the three
classes are carefully distinguished, also the physique, as if they were
racially different, and the names of the children are in each case
characteristic epithets. The great-grandfather wears the most ancient
dress; his wife provides an ash-baked loaf, flat, heavy, mixed with
bran. She bore Thrall, who was swarthy, had callous hands, bent
knuckles, thick fingers, an ugly face, a broad back, long heels.
Toddle-shankie also came sunburnt, having scarred feet, a broken nose,
called Theow. Their children were named: the boys,--Sooty, Cowherd,
Clumsy, Clod, Bastard, Mud, Log, Thickard, Laggard, Grey Coat, Lout, and
Stumpy; the girls,--Loggie, Cloggie, Lumpy [= Leggie], Snub-nosie,
Cinders, Bond-maid, Woody [= Peggy], Tatter-coatie, Crane-shankie. The
story seems to present the three classes or ranks as founded in natural
facts. Slaves were such by birth, by sale of themselves to get
maintenance (esteemed the worst of all, debtors, war captives, perhaps
victims of shipwreck), and free women who committed fornication with
slave men.[839] If a debtor would not pay he was brought into court, and
the creditor might cut off a piece [of his body] above or below.[840] A
free man would not allow his slave to be buried by his side, even if the
slave had lost his life in loyalty to his master. Slaves, criminals, and
outlaws were buried dishonorably in a place by themselves on one side.
They were harnessed to plows when there were no oxen at hand. When
Eisten, king of Opland, wanted to annihilate the Ernds, he gave them
their choice of his slave or his dog for a king. They chose the
dog.[841] The sister of King Canute bought in England most beautiful
slave men and women, who were sent to Denmark,