from the income from the kings' private estates, tribute paid by conquered chieftains, other direct taxes, monopolies, court fines, and tolls levied upon foreign traders.39 39 See below, pp. 196, 223, 310–312.

CHAPTER IV

INFANCY, CHILDHOOD, AND YOUTH

A son, though late born after his father's death, is better than none. Few road-stones stand by the wayside that were not raised by son for father.

The Guest's Wisdom.

of Infants

SCANDINAVIAN parents of ancient times generally desired and welcomed children; to be without offspring was looked upon as a real calamity, and childless couples prayed to the goddess Freyia. Exposure But in the early North,-like in ancient Greece and Rome and present-day China,-parents occasionally voluntarily rid themselves of their children immediately after birth. The baby was placed in an open grave in the woods, or by the roadside, to be devoured by wild beasts, to die from starvation or the effects of the weather, or to be rescued and adopted by a merciful passer-by.

Various considerations moved fathers and mothers to such conduct, but poverty or unwillingness to trouble with the rearing of the infant were perhaps the most usual. Sometimes ill feeling between the husband and the wife was thus visited upon their offspring. Illegitimate children, because of the stigma attached to the mother, were more frequently cast out than those born in wedlock. Occasionally a bad dream or some other superstitious influence resulted in the destruction of the child. In those uncertain times when there was such great need for a strong physique, weakly or deformed

babies were also seldom reared; likewise, girls, since they could not perform military service as well as their brothers, were more frequently exposed than boys. The fact that among many barbarian peoples new-born infants are not thought of as possessing a personality, also helps explain this practice among a people so advanced as the Scandinavians of the viking period.1 But that the custom had fallen into disrepute by the earliest historic period in the North is evident from the saga statement that though the law permitted parents to cast their children away, "it was thought an evil deed." The attitude of disapproval may have been caused to some extent by pre-historic Christian influence.

But a tenderness of heart and an unwillingness wantonly to destroy life was sometimes indicated in the manner in which the child was exposed. If poverty was the motive forcing parents to cast out their child, they often supplied it with salt pork or other food to suck, wrapped it warmly, and placed it beside the highway in the hope that life might be preserved until it should be found by some one willing to rear it. Similarly, the mother at times saved the life of her child after the father had given instructions for its exposure, by bribing the servant or slave ordered to dispose of it to take the infant to people who would rear it.

The Naming Ceremony

The fate of the new-born baby generally rested with the father, or, in his absence, with the male relative who acted as head of the family; but in some cases the decision was left with the mother. The matter was considered promptly after birth; and if it was decided to rear the child, the latter was washed, wrapped in swaddling clothes, and 1 Todd, Arthur James, The Primitive Family as an Educational Agency,

2 Origines Islandicae, II, 583.

given a name. The naming of an infant was looked upon as giving it a spiritual existence and membership in the family, and to expose it after this was counted as murder. The father, or some other male relative of rank, generally officiated at the naming ceremony. He sprinkled the child with water, signed it with "Thor's holy hammer," and pronounced the name by which it should be known. The resemblance of this heathen ceremony to the ordinance of child-christening in the Christian church is obvious, and there is reason to believe that some of the points possessed in common were due to conscious imitation on the part of the Scandinavians, resulting from early contact with the Christian ceremony in Southern Europe. It seems that originally the placing of the child at its mother's breast was the token that it was to be reared; that after it had taken nourishment it had full right of inheritance, and to kill it was murder. After the intention to rear the child had thus been signified, it was named, and the naming was accompanied with a religious ceremony, not connected with the use of water. Later, in imitation of the Christian practice-but long before the adoption of Christianity—the naming ceremony, in which water was used, was given additional significance, and only shadowy remnants of the importance attached to the child's taking its first nourishment were surviving in the earliest historical time.5

According to this view, the heathen child-naming cere3 Ibid., II, 52.

4 Maurer, Konrad, Ueber die Wasserweihe des germanischen Heidenthumes, 1-11.

Ibid., 80, and passim. In his monograph Dr. Maurer presented these ideas as part of a fairly well supported theory rather than as established facts; before the hypothesis could be proved, he said, further investigation would have to be made of early child christening in various parts of Europe.

mony, which included sprinkling with water, marked the transition between the pre-historic, purely heathen, rite and the Christian. Be that as it may, this form was in general use in the pagan North in the viking time. And it is probable that the elements which it had in common with Christian baptism made it much easier to substitute the latter, with the formal adoption of the new religion. Yet, some of the ideas peculiar to the heathen form were carried over into Christianity and long survived. According to some laws, only a christened child could inherit or receive the protection of the laws; but, for religious reasons, a person was more severely punished for killing an unchristened child than a christened one. There was an exception made, however, in the early Christian period, in Norway-perhaps in the other Scandinavian countries-in the case of children born so malformed as to be monstrosities. Such infants were not to be baptized but to be taken to the churchyard at once after birth, and left there to die. All other children must be baptized promptly; and if a child was ill and likely not to live, in the absence of a priest, any man might perform the ceremony. If no man was present, a woman was permitted to christen the baby, in continental Scandinavia; but the law of Iceland provided that a boy as young as seven years might officiate, in the absence of a grown man; and even one who was younger, if he knew his Pater Noster and Credo. Only in the complete absence of any such "man person" could a woman perform the ceremony for her dying child, or for the child of another."

Relatives gave great attention to the selection of the 6 Maurer, Wasserweihe, 37, 71, 75-76.

7 Norges Gamle Love, I, 12, 131–132; Valdemar den Andens Jydske Lov, 10-12; Grágás, IV, 213.