te hung in the balance, and life or death depended on the
sentence of its sire. After it had passed safely through that ordeal, it
was duly washed, signed with Thorns holy hammer, and solemnly received
into the family. If it were a weakly boy, and still more often, if it
were a girl, no matter whether she were strong or weak, the infant was
exposed to die by ravening beasts, or the inclemency of the climate.
Many instances occur of children so exposed, who, saved by some kindly
neighbour, and fostered beneath a stranger's roof, thus contracted ties
reckoned still more binding than blood itself. So long as his children
remained under his roof, they were their father's own. When the sons
left the paternal roof, they were emancipated, and when the daughters
were married they were also free, but the marriage itself remained till
the latest times a matter of sale and barter in deed as well as name.
The wife came into the house, in the patriarchal state, either stolen or
bought from her nearest male relations; and though in later times when
the sale took place it was softened by settling part of the dower and
portion on the wife, we shall do well to bear in mind, that originally
dower was only the price paid by the suitor to the father for his good
will; while portion, on the other hand, was the sum paid by the father
to persuade a suitor to take a daughter off his hands. Let us remember,
therefore, that in those times, as Odin was supreme in Asgard as the
Great Father of Gods and men, so in his own house every father of the
race that revered Odin was also sovereign and supreme.

In the second place, as the creed of the race was one that adored the
Great Father as the God of Battles; as it was his will that turned the
fight; nay, as that was the very way in which he chose to call his own
to himself,--it followed, that any appeal to arms was looked upon as an
appeal to God. Victory was indeed the sign of a rightful cause, and he
that won the day remained behind to enjoy the rights which he had won in
fair fight, but he that lost it, if he fell bravely and like a man, if
he truly believed his quarrel just, and brought it without guile to the
issue of the sword, went by the very manner of his death to a better
place. The Father of the Slain wanted him, and he was welcomed by the
Valkyries, by Odin's corse-choosers, to the festive board in Valhalla.
In every point of view, therefore, war and battle was a holy thing, and
the Northm