Coming of Age In the olden time, Scandinavian children were considered grown up at an earlier age than is now the case. In Iceland, boys scarcely out of babyhood were given adult responsibilities in some respects-as, the right to baptize a dying infant in the absence of an older "man person"; and at the age of twelve they could serve as witnesses in lawsuits; but they must be sixteen before they were considered mature enough to take charge of the prosecution for their father's murder, or before they might consent to the re-marriage of their mothers. In parts of Denmark, the father could not force his sons to remain at home after they had attained their fifteenth birthday, if they wished to take their inheritance from their mother and set up for themselves; but the boys were not allowed to sell their land, if it was ancestral, before they were eighteen. In some provinces of Sweden, however, they were allowed to make sales of land when but fifteen. As a rule, girls must be distinctly older than their brothers before they were permitted to assume the same responsibilities-if these were permitted to them at all; but they entered marriage very young, fourteen years not being an unusual age at which to take this step. In general, it may be said that young people were considered of age at fifteen, but it should be borne in mind that, in consequence of the conditions of the time in which they lived, and of the duties thrust upon them, they were more mature mentally and more capable of playing the part of men and women than would be young people of the same years in the present day.23 23 Grágás, III, 37, 167; IV, 28; Valdemar den Andens Jydske Lov, 20; Biarköa Rätten, 8. CHAPTER V DRESS AND ORNAMENT; PERSONAL REFINEMENT Hallgerda... had on a cloak of rich blue woof, and under it a scarlet kirtle, and a silver girdle round her waist. Her hair came down on both sides of her bosom, and she had turned the locks up under her girdle. Love of Display in Dress Saga of Burnt Njal. LIKE the Elizabethan period in England, the Viking Age in the Scandinavian North was one of great prosperity and intense self-consciousness. This condition produced a love of pomp and parade, of color and display-a desire to exhibit one's wealth to the public gaze for the sake of exciting admiration and envy among one's neighbors. Such an object could be gained by means of dress and ornament; hence, we find that all who could afford to do so wore, during leisure and upon festive occasions, gorgeous and elaborately ornamented clothing, and decorated their persons with a great amount and variety of jewelry. Olaf Hauskuld's son is the best example of this love for fine clothes. The sagas tell of his appearance at the meeting of the Icelandic parliament gaily and elaborately clad, and equipped with such splendid weapons that those who beheld the gorgeous display seem, in wondering admiration and envy, to have nicknamed him "Peacock" (Pá), and "Olaf Peacock" he remained ever after.1 The materials used for clothing varied according to whether they were intended for the use of the rich or the 1 Bugge, Norges Historie, vol. I, pt. II, 229. poor; for every-day wear, or for special social gatherings. Skins and furs did much service, as for Cloth well as textiles; undressed sheep-skins, in Materials woolen cloth. This was comparatively cheap, and easily obtained, for most families owned a sheep or two. As the spinning-wheel was not yet known, all thread was made by hand by means of the distaff and the spinning whorl of bone or pottery; and from the thread thus produced the Scandinavian housewife and her servants made the cloth upon simple looms closely resembling those employed in recent times by the population of the Faroes. Most of the wadmal seems to have been worn in the natural colors of the original wool, plain white or brown, or the two colors combined in stripes. The plainer and cheaper the cloth, the plainer the color, seems to have been the rule; but the coarsest of wadmal was also dyed, sometimes in bright shades. For the most part, vegetable coloring was used; blue, yellow, black, brown, and green, especially, were easily obtained from certain weeds and flowers and from the barks of trees.2 The heavy threads from which the woolen goods were fashioned were also sometimes dyed before being worked up, after which they were wrought into brightly striped or checked material, or into more elaborate patterns composed of raised figures in different colors. The native weavers also made distinctly finer qualities of cloth from the best of the native wool; and in this brighter colors were displayed, and more attention given to fancy de 2 Origines Islandicae, I, 151; Olassen and Povelsen, Reise durch Island, I, 87-88. signs and patterns. Still another home-woven fabric was produced by simple under-and-over weaving, between the threads of which hair was worked, thus producing a kind of plush.3 Imported Cotton was not yet grown in Southern Europe to any appreciable degree, but the Scandinavians imported a little of it into their homeland from the Orient. It was so expensive, however, that it could be worn only by the rich. The same was true of linen, which was spun and woven from domestic flax, as well as purchased from abroad; but the price was three or four times as great as that of wool, which, in the form of cloth of a finer and thinner quality than the native product, was imported for the use of the wealthy, as were also ready-made woolen garments. The foreign fabrics were usually of gayer color than the Northern weaves, bright reds, blues, and purples being favorite shades; for the colors worn by the men were as gay as those of the women. These imported stuffs sometimes displayed patterns woven of silk, and designs worked into the wool in gold and silver thread. Native merchants also brought home some silk from the Orient, secured in trade; but this fabric in the form of hangings and clerical robes, stolen by the vikings from the Christian monasteries and churches to the south, also found its way into Scandinavia, to be used by the pagan natives for their adornment. Silk was, however, to a greater degree than the best imported woolen goods, inaccessible to all except those having plenty of money; for it sold for about twice the price of the latter, which, in turn, was much more expensive than the domestic wool product. 3 Gudmundsson, Valtýr, “Kleiderstoffe," in Hoops, Reallexikon. 4 Ibid.; Bugge, Vesterlandenes Indflydelse, 146; Weinhold, Altnordisches Leben, 160-161. Garment Making Garment-making, as well as the ornamentation of the garments by means of embroidery and other decorative means, was entirely the work of the women. All women doubtless could sew to some extent, and it is likely that every large household included at least one woman who was well skilled in the art of garment-making and could direct the work of the rest in providing clothing for all. The garmentmaker employed a pair of primitive shears of bronze or iron, and probably cut free hand, without a pattern, after being sure of measurements, for garments were less complex then than in modern times, and fitted less snugly; but it is quite possible that for the more difficult garments she used old worn articles of the same style for patterns, or made special ones of cheap or old cloth; for, obviously, no paper was to be had in Europe at the time. As steel needles did not come into use until many centuries after the period in question, the seamstresses were dependent upon ones made from bone, bronze, iron or silver. Though used to some extent for fastening garments, as well as for ornamentation, buttons were not at the time so indispensable as later, for their place was supplied by strings, belts, brooches, and buckles. Naturally, the garments of the poor were simpler in style than those worn by the rich or the better-to-do; and they were also more conservative, showing less the influence of foreign fashions. the Poor The slave his face shaven and his hair close Dress of cropped, as a badge of servitude-was clad in plain garments of coarse white wadmal, with perhaps a cap and coat of undressed sheep-skin. And the clothing of the humble cottier was almost as poor and simple-homespun, in white or sober colors. The undergarments of the common people, were, like |