﻿NO. 19 NORSE VISITS TO NORTH AMERICA — BABCOCK 99 



being less definitely anchored politically and more ready to drop 

 anchor permanently abroad. The second was a predatory son of the 

 vik or fiord (as his name tells us) in which he had his den, and whence 

 he issued, to pounce on passing ships or harry the farmers along the 

 shore. 



If these things were done far afield, men counted them acts of war 

 against the outer world and the perpetrators were considered heroes. 

 Many generally commendable Scandinavians engaged in them. Some- 

 times even formidable associations were organized, to more efficiently 

 exploit this wide opportunity. But excitement and yet more the 

 prospect of booty were at the bottom of it all. In proportion as the 

 achievements occurred nearer home, they were regarded with more 

 disfavor. Especially was this true in that northern island which was 

 colonized by picked men choosing exile rather than submission, whose 

 natures also were modified from the beginning by other blood of 

 more ripe and gracious culture. The home-raider was held not 

 wholly admirable in Norway ; he became in Iceland (see Landnama) 

 " the most wrongful of men " and " a viking and a scoundrel." Just 

 so, Ospak 1 of the northern Ere and his merry men, owned a lieuten- 

 ant, one Raven, adequately stigmatized in another great saga as " by 

 named the viking, he was nought but an evil doer." There is no com- 

 promise in the characterization of such folk by the early heroic litera- 

 ture. The teaching is often by example rather than precept, by dra- 

 matic exhibition rather than denunciation ; but we are expected to feel 

 that the boiling alive 2 of professional bullies might be overlooked, if 

 not applauded, and that almost the very worst type of man was he 

 who brutally afflicted his neighbors, and thus acquired their wives 

 and goods. To the Icelander, if there were one kind of robberbully 

 more intolerable than another, it was the local amphibious viking. 

 Rather early in the prosperity of the island, it necessarily made an 

 end of him. But that " viking " should be anything but a synonym 

 for aquatic hero in these northern lands hardly seems to have sug- 

 gested itself to most English-writing historians. The sea-king and 

 the viking were the greater nuisance and the less of their period ; but 

 there was this to be said for the former, that he revived in some 

 form the order which he overturned and often was a factor in improve- 

 ment, whereas the viking was merely destructive, except in his own 

 home or within the limits of his predatory association. 



The Eyrbyggja Saga. Morris and Magnusson'stransl., pp. 164,291. Notes. 

 ! Eyrbyggja Saga, p. 70. 



