X PREFACE. 



By reading carefully every Saga and there are hundreds 

 of them dealing with the events of a man's life from his 

 birth to his death, I was able to select the passages bearing 

 on the various customs. When in one Saga the bare fact of 

 a birth, or a marriage, or a burial, or a feast, etc., etc., was 

 mentioned, in others full details of the ceremonies connected 

 with them were found. After thus collecting my material, 

 which was of the most superabundant character, I went over 

 it and selected what seemed to me to be the best accounts of 

 the various customs with which I deal in these volumes. I 

 have not been content with the translations of other persons, 

 but have in every case gone to the original documents and 

 adopted my own rendering of them. 



Some extracts from the Frankish Chronicles are given in 



O 



the Appendix, as showing the power of the Northmen, and 

 bearing strong testimony to the truthfulness of the Sagas. If 

 I had not been afraid of being tedious, I could also have 

 given extracts from Arabic, Russian, and other annals to the 

 same effect. 



The testimony of archeology as corroborating the Sagas 

 forms one of the most important links in the chain of my 

 argument ; parchments and written records form but a portion 

 of the material from which I have derived my account of the 

 ' Viking Age.' During the last fifty years the History of the 

 Northmen has been unearthed as it were like that of the 

 Egyptians, Assyrians, and Romans by the discovery of almost 

 every kind of implement, weapon, and ornament produced by 

 that accomplished race. 



The Museums of Denmark, Sweden, Norway, England, 

 France, Germany, Russia, are as richly stored with such objects 

 as are the British Museum, the Louvre, the Museums of Naples 

 and Boulak with the treasures of Egypt and Pompeii. 



I have myself seen nearly all the objects or graves illus- 

 trated in this book, with the exception of a few Runic stones 

 which have now disappeared, but are given in an old work of 

 Jorgensen. 



As my materials expanded themselves before me I felt like 

 one of those mariners of old on a voyage of discovery. To 

 them new lands were continuously coming into view ; to me 



