Ancient Games and Pastimes. 559 
their serious pursuits ; and with such recklessness do they 
play as regards winning or losing, that when all other 
things have failed they stake liberty and body on a last 
and final throw. He who loses goes into voluntary servi- 
tude; and although he be younger and more robust than 
his adversary, suffers himself to be bound and sold. In 
this matter they are possessed by wilful obstinacy: they 
themselves call it honour.” 
The sportive exercises and pastimes practised among 
the Saxons appear to have been such as were common 
among the ancient nations, and most of them consisted of 
robust exercises. In an old chronicle of Norway we find 
it recorded of Olaf Tryggesen, a king of that country, that 
he was stronger and more nimble than any man in his 
dominions. He could climb up the rock Smalserhern, and 
fix his shield upon the top of it; he could walk round the 
outside of a boat upon the oars while the men were row- 
ing ; he could play with three darts, alternately throwing 
them in the air, and always kept two of them up whilst he 
held the third in one of his hands; he was ambi-dexter, 
and could cast two darts at once; he excelled all the men 
of his time in shooting with the bow, and he had no equal 
in swimming. Another northern hero, whose name was 
Kelsen, boasts of nine accomplishments in which he was 
well skilled. “I know,” says he, “how to play at chess, 
I can engrave Runic letters, I am expert with my book, 
I know how to handle the tools of the smith, I can tra~ 
verse the snow on skates of wood, I excel in shooting 
with the bow, I use the oar with facility, I can sing to the 
harp, and I compose verses.” Kelsen, however, had been 
on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, and this may account 
for his literary attainments, which must certainly have 
been far superior to those of his countrymen ; and his skill 
in chess may probably be thus accounted for—a game, 
we should imagine, to be little adapted to the tastes of a 
turbulent and ignorant people. 
The habits and amusements of the people were pro- 
bably not much changed by the Norman Conquest. 
The period immediately succeeding the Conquest was 
particularly marked by the complete establishment of 
feudalism and the development of chivalry, which gradu- 
ally produced great effect upon the national character; 
at the same time the Crusades attracted vast masses of 
persons to the East, where they came in contact with a 
civilization far in advance of that of their own country. 
