99 
special inhumanity was practised towards them ; such a suppo- 
sition, indeed, would be out of harmony with what we know of 
the genial serenity of the Scandinavian aristocrat, when he was 
not inflamed with the passion of war. The duties of the slave 
were simple and humble. He had to cultivate his master’s land, 
to cut and gather in hay, to reap and prepare the grain, to look 
after the cattle, to grind salt, and perform the other menial 
duties of the household. The hired servants, of whom I lately 
made mention, were chiefly men who had been liberated by 
their masters, and whose position, though entailing civic rights, 
was not in everyday matters much more elevated than that of 
the slaves themselves. I cannot leave the discussion of the 
domestic life without calling attention to a beautiful trait in 
the Scandinavian character, which must temper somewhat our 
natural indignation at the treatment of the slaves. We find 
abundant proof that tame animals were valued and carefully 
tended as part of the family. The dog and the cat were pro- 
vided for even in the laws of Iceland, and are spoken of re- 
peatedly as honoured and cared-for guests. Surely we cannot 
believe that those who could show a sense of the responsibility 
of man towards his dumb dependents far higher, alas ! than 
that shown at this day in several countries of Europe, could in 
practice have been very barbarous towards their human de- 
pendents, though the legal position of the latter may have been 
savage and degraded to the last. 
21. There was no fear of death among the Northmen, who 
had n® belief in punishment after death, nor any dread of 
annihilation. They anticipated a continuation of sensuous en- 
joyment in Odin’s halls, and believed that after the solitary 
passage of the spirit into the other world, the cares and sorrows 
of earth would cease. One kind of death alone was horrible 
of them, — death in bed, or by natural causes. This kind of 
decease, to which they gave the contemptuous title of straw- 
death, was repugnant to their religious traditions, for Odin had 
promised to receive into Valhal only those who died in battle. 
The fate of straw-diers was doubtful, and hence those who were 
not fortunate enough to fall in battle, acquiesced when they 
grew old and weak in the expediency of putting an end to their 
own lives, or, like Stcerkodder, of accepting death at the hands 
of others. No part of a heathen life is so dreary as its close ; 
never do the consolations of revealed religion appeal so strongly 
to the natural reason of the student of history as when he is 
occupied with the dolorous expedients by which the cowardly 
heathen seeks to evade or the heroic one to hasten the inevit- 
able close of life. Strange as it may seem, a not unusual mode 
