SCANDINAVIA. 
grew up from their infancy, their souls were easily disposed 
to imbibe the cruel prejudices of their fathers. 
Their laws, for the most part (like those of the ancient 
Lacedaemonians), seemed to know no other virtues than those 
of a military nature, and no other crimes but cowardice. 
They inflicted the greatest penalties on such as fled the first 
in battle. The laws of the ancient Danes, according to 
Saxo, excluded them from society and declared them infa¬ 
mous. Among the Germans, this was sometimes carried so 
far as to suffocate cowards in mud; after which, they co¬ 
vered them over with hurdles: to shew, says Tacitus, that 
though the punishment of crimes should be public, there are 
certain degrees of cowardice' and infamy which ought to be 
buried in eternal silence. The most flattering distinctions 
were reserved for such as had performed some signal exploit; 
and the laws themselves distributed men into different ranks, 
according to their different degrees of courage. 
Religion, by annexing eternal happiness to the military 
virtues, had given the last degree of activity to the ardour 
and propensity these people had for war. Their contempt 
of death was proverbial, and characterised the chief warrior 
and the private soldier. To die with his arms in his hand, 
was the vow of every free man, and the pleasing idea they 
had of this kind of death, naturally led them to dread such 
as proceeded from disease and old age. Among these people, 
none were found who were guilty of cowardice, and the 
bare suspicion of that vice was always attended with univer¬ 
sal contempt. A man who had lost his buckler, or who had 
received a wound behind, durst never more appear in public. 
In order to acquire glory, the ancient Scandinavians em¬ 
ployed various means suited to the grossness and rudeness 
of the times. One method which they practised with this 
view, was that of burying their heroes under little hills, 
which they raised in the middle of some plain, and of giving 
to these hillocks, and sometimes to the plains themselves, the 
names of the person ,who was there interred. They also 
availed themselves of the art of poetry, to immortalize their 
kings or great captains. See Scald. 
A people who nourished so strong a passion for war as 
the Scandinavians, would seek occasions for it: and so de¬ 
termined and prepared were they for acts of hostility, that 
they were accustomed every spring to hold a general assembly, 
at which every free man appeared completely armed, and 
ready to go upon any expedition. When they had deter¬ 
mined on war, and settled the plan of the campaign, they 
immediately began their march, furnished each of them with 
a proper quantity of provisions; and almost every grown 
man in the country made haste to join the army thus tumul¬ 
tuously assembled. We are not to wonder after this, that 
there should issue from the North swarms of soldiers, as for¬ 
midable for their numbers as their valour: and we ought not 
hastily to conclude from hence, that Scandinavia formerly 
contained more people than it does at present. We have had 
many reports of the incredible multitudes of men, which that 
country is said to have poured forth: but on the other hand, 
who does not know how much nations and historians have 
been, in all ages, inclined to exaggeration in this respect; 
some being desirous to enhance the power of their country, 
and others, when it has been conquered, being willing to save 
its credit by making it yield only to superior numbers? But 
the greatest part have been guilty of enlargement from no 
other motive than a blind love of the marvellous, authorized 
by the difficulty of pronouncing with certainty on a subject, 
in which men often commit great mistakes even after long 
researches. Besides this, it is very probable that many par¬ 
ticular circumstances of those famous expeditions made by the 
Scandinavians, have contributed to countenance that name of 
Vagina gentium, which an historian (Jornandes) gives their 
country. For vs hen these emigrations were made by sea, the 
promptitude and celerity with which they could carry their 
ravages from one coast to another, might easily multiply 
armies in the eyes of the people they attacked, and who heard 
many different irruptions spoken of almost at the same time. 
K, on the contrary, they issued forth by land, they found every 
739 
where on their march nations as greedy Of fame and plunder 
as themselves, who, joining with them, afterwards passed for 
people of the same original with the first swarm which put 
itself in motion. It should also be considered, that these 
emigrations did not all of them take place at the same time; 
and that after a nation was thus exhausted, it probably 
remained inactive until it had been able to recruit its num¬ 
bers. The vast extent of Scandinavia being in those times 
divided among many different people who were little known, 
and only described by some one general name, as that of 
Goths, for instance, or Normans (that is Northern men), it 
could not exactly be ascertained from what country each 
troop originally came, and still less to what degree of depo¬ 
pulation each country was reduced after losing so great a 
quantity of its inhabitants. But what, in Malletfs opinion, 
best accounts for those numerous and frequent inundations of 
northern people, is that we. have reason to believe, entire 
nations often engaged in enterprises of this sort: even the 
women and children sometimes marched in the rear of the 
armies, when a people, either by inconstancy, by indigence, 
or the attraction of a milder climate, resolved to change their 
place of abode. Projects of this kind, it is true, appear very 
strange to us at present; but it is no less true, that our ances¬ 
tors often engaged in them. 
From the observations already made, and other circum¬ 
stances that might be adduced, we may safely conclude, that 
as all were soldiers among the ancient Scandinavians, they 
could easily fill all Europe with the noise of their arms, and 
ravage for a long time different parts of it, although the sum 
total of the inhabitants should have been much less than it is 
at present. If it was otherwise, we must acknowledge, that 
this extreme population can be very ill reconciled, either with 
what history informs us of the manners, customs, and prin¬ 
ciples of the ancient Scandinavians, or with the soundest 
notions of policy with respect to what makes the true pros¬ 
perity of a people. For we cannot allow them such a supe¬ 
riority over us in the number of inhabitants, without granting 
them at the same time a proportionable excellence in their 
customs, manners, civil regulations, and constitution of 
government, as so many efficacious causes of the good or bad 
state of all societies, and consequently of their greater or less 
degree of population. But who can persuade himself, that 
those savage times when men sowed and reaped but little, 
when they had no other choice but that of the destructive pro- « 
fession of arms, or of a drowsy indolence no less destructive; 
when every petty nation was torn to pieces either by private 
revenge and factions within, or by war with their neighbours 
from without; when they had no other subsistence but 
rapine, and no other ramparts but wide frontiers laid waste 
who can believe such a stale as this to be more favour¬ 
able to the propagation of the human species, than that 
wherein men’s goods and persons are in full security; 
wherein the fields are covered with labourers, and their 
cities, rich and numerous, flourish in tranquillity; wherein 
the people are left to breathe during long intervals of peace 
and there is never more than a small part of the inhabitants 
to whom war is destructive : and lastly, wherein commerce, 
manufactures, and the arts offer so many resources, and 
second so well that natural propensity to increase and mul¬ 
tiply, which nothing but the fear of indigence can check and 
restrain ? 
As to the tactics of the Northern nations we may observe 
that it appears to have been their custom to dispose an army 
in the form of a triangle or pyramid, the point of which was 
directed against the centre of the enemy’s army. This body 
was only composed of infantry; the cavalry being generally 
upon a very inconsiderable footing in the North, whether 
because the country is so divided there by mountains and 
arms of the sea, or because their principal forces were 
reserved for the marine. They had only some soldiers who 
served both on foot and horseback, like our dragoons at 
present, and who were commonly placed in the flanks of 
their armies. When they were going to join battle, they 
raised great shouts, they clashed their arms together, they 
invoked 
