SCANDINAVIA

SCANDINAVIA, a general name for the countries of Norway, Sweden, and Denmark, anciently under the dominion of one prince. The inhabitants of these countries, in former times, were excessively addicted to war. From their earliest years they applied themselves to the military art, and accustomed themselves to cold, fatigue, and hunger. Even the very sports of youth and childhood were dangerous. They consisted in taking frightful leaps, climbing up the steepest rocks, fighting naked with offensive weapons, and wrestling with the utmost fury; so that it was usual to see them grown up to be robust men, and terrible in the combat, at the age of fifteen. At this early age the young men became their own masters, which they did by receiving a sword, a buckler, and a lance. The ceremony

Scandin- was performed at some public meeting. One of the prin-
cipal men of the assembly named the youth in public; af-
ter which he was obliged to provide for his own subsistence,
and was either now to live by hunting, or by joining in
some incursion against the enemy. Great care was taken
to prevent the young men from too early connexions with
the female sex; and indeed they could have no hope to
gain the affection of the fair, but in proportion to the courage
and address they had shown in their military exercises.
Accordingly, in an ancient song, we find Bartholin, king
of Norway, extremely surprised that his mistress should
prove unkind, as he could perform eight different exercises.
The children were generally born in camps; and being
nursed from their infancy to behold nothing but arms, effu-
sion of blood, and slaughter, they imbibed the cruel dis-
position of their fathers, and when they broke forth upon
other nations, behaved rather like furies than like human
creatures.

The laws of this people, in some measure, resembled
those of the ancient Lacedæmonians. They knew no vir-
tue but bravery, and no vice but cowardice. The greatest
penalties were inflicted on such as fled from battle. The
laws of the ancient Danes declared such persons infamous,
and excluded them from society. Among the Germans,
cowards were sometimes suffocated in mud; after which
they were covered over with hurdles, to show, 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 oblivion. Frotho king of Denmark
enacted by law, that whoever solicited an eminent post
ought upon all occasions to attack one enemy, to face two,
to retire only one step back from three, and never to make
an actual retreat till assaulted by four. The rules of jus-
tice were themselves adapted and warped to these pre-
judices. War was looked upon as a real act of justice, and
force was thought to be an incontestable title over the
weak, a visible mark that God had intended them to be
subject to the strong. They had no doubt but that the
intentions of the Deity had been to establish the same de-
pendency among men that takes place among inferior cre-
atures; and, setting out from this principle of the natural
inequality among men, they had from thence inferred that
the weak had no right to what they could not defend. This
maxim was adopted with such rigour, that the name of di-
vine judgment was given not only to the judicial combat,
but to conflicts and battles of all sorts; victory being, in
their opinion, the only certain mark by which Providence
enables us to distinguish those whom it has appointed to
command others.

Lastly, their religion, by annexing eternal happiness to
the military virtues, gave the utmost possible degree of vi-
gour to that propensity which these people had for war,
and to their contempt of death, of which we shall now give
some instances. We are informed that Harold, surnamed
Blaatand, or Blue-tooth, a king of Denmark, who lived in
the beginning of the ninth century, had founded on the
coast of Pomerania a city named Julin or Jomsburg. To
this place he sent a colony of young Danes, bestowing the
government on a celebrated warrior called Palnatoko. In
this colony it was forbidden to mention the word fear, even
in the most imminent dangers. No citizen of Jomsburg
was to yield to any number of enemies, however great.
The sight of inevitable death was not to be taken as an
excuse for showing the smallest apprehension. And this
legislator really appears to have eradicated from the minds
of most of the youths bred up under him all traces of that
sentiment so natural and so universal, which makes men
think on their destruction with horror. Nothing can show
this better than a single fact in their history, which de-
serves to have a place here for its singularity. Some of them
having made an incursion into the territories of a powerful

Norwegian lord, named Haquin, were overcome in spite of Scandina-
via. the obstinacy of their resistance, and the most distinguished
among them being made prisoners, were, according to
the custom of those times, condemned to death. The news
of this, far from afflicting them, was on the contrary re-
ceived with joy. The first who was led to punishment
was content to say, without changing countenance, and
without expressing the least sign of fear, "Why should
not the same happen to me as did to my father? He died,
and so must I." A warrior named Thorchill, who was to
cut off the head of the second, having asked him what he
felt at the sight of death, he answered, "that he remem-
bered too well the laws of Jomsburg, to utter any words that
denoted fear." The third, in reply to the same question,
said, "he rejoiced to die with glory, and that he preferred
such a death to an infamous life like that of Thorchill's."
The fourth made an answer much longer and more extra-
ordinary. "I suffer with a good heart, and the present
hour is to me very agreeable. I only beg of you," added he,
addressing himself to Thorchill, "to be very quick in
cutting off my head; for it is a question often debated by
us at Jomsburg, whether one retains any sense after being
beheaded. I will therefore grasp this knife in my hand;
if, after my head is cut off, I strike it towards you, it will
show I have not lost all sense; if I let it drop, it will be a
proof of the contrary. Make haste, therefore, and decide
the dispute." Thorchill, adds the historian, cut off his
head in a most expeditious manner; but the knife, as might
be expected, dropped from his hand. The fifth showed the
same tranquillity, and died rallying and jeering his enemies.
The sixth begged of Thorchill that he might not be led
to punishment like a sheep: "Strike the blow in my face,"
said he; "I will sit still without shrinking; and take no-
tice whether I once wink my eyes, or betray one sign of
fear in my countenance; for we inhabitants of Jomsburg
are used to exercise ourselves in trials of this sort, so as to
meet the stroke of death without once moving." He kept
his promise before all the spectators, and received the blow
without betraying the least sign of fear, or so much as
winking with his eyes. The seventh, says the historian,
was a very beautiful young man, in the flower of his age.
His long hair, as fine as silk, floated in curls and in ringlets
on his shoulders. Thorchill asked him what he thought of
death. "I receive it willingly," said he, "since I have
fulfilled the greatest duty of life, and have seen all those put
to death whom I would not survive. I only beg of you one
favour, not to let my hair be touched by a slave, or stained
with my blood."

Neither was this intrepidity peculiar to the inhabitants
of Jomsburg. It was the general character of all the Scan-
dinavians, of which we shall only give this further instance.
A warrior, having been thrown upon his back in wrestling
with his enemy, and the latter finding himself without his
arms, the vanquished person promised to wait, without
changing his posture, till his antagonist fetched a sword to
kill him; and he faithfully kept his word. To die with
arms in his hand was the ardent wish of every free man;
and the pleasing idea which they had of this kind of death
led them to dread such as proceeded from old age and dis-
ease. The history of ancient Scandinavia is full of in-
stances of this way of thinking. The warriors who found
themselves lingering in disease often availed themselves of
their few remaining moments to shake off life, by a way
that they supposed to be more glorious. Some of them
would be carried into a field of battle, that they might die
in the engagement. Others slew themselves. Many got
this melancholy service performed by their friends, who con-
sidered it as a most sacred duty. "There is, on a mountain
of Iceland," says the author of an old Iceland romance, "a
rock so high that no animal can fall from the top of it and
live. Here men betake themselves when they are afflicted

and unhappy. From this place all our ancestors, even without waiting for sickness, have departed into Eden. It is useless, therefore, to give ourselves up to groans and complaints, or to put our relations to needless expenses, since we can easily follow the example of our fathers, who have all gone by the way of this rock." When all these methods failed, and at last when Christianity had banished such barbarous practices, the disconsolate heroes consoled themselves by putting on complete armour as soon as they found their end approaching.