_House._ In a rich Norseman's home were many buildings. The finest and
largest was the great feast hall. Next were the bower, where the women
worked, and the guest house, where visitors slept. Besides these were
storehouses, stables, work-shops, a kitchen, a sleeping-house for
thralls. All these buildings were made of heavy, hewn logs, covered with
tar to fill the cracks and to keep the wood from rotting. The ends of
the logs, the door-posts, the peaks of gables, were carved into shapes
of men and animals and were painted with bright colors. These gay
buildings were close together, often set around the four sides of a
square yard. That yard was a busy and pleasant place, with men and women
running across from one bright building to another. Sometimes a high
fence with one gate went around all this, and only the tall, carved
peaks of roofs showed from the outside.
_Names._ An old Norse story says: "Most men had two names in one, and
thought it likeliest to lead to long life and good luck to have double
names." To be called after a god was very lucky. Here are some of those
double names with their meanings: "Thorstein" means Thor's stone;
"Thorkel" means Thor's fire; "Thorbiorn" means Thor's bear; "Gudbrand"
means Gunnr's sword (Gunnr was one of the Valkyrias[16]); "Gunnbiorn"
means Gunnr's bear; "Gudrid" means Gunnr's rider; "Gudrod" means
Gunnr's land-clearer. (Most of the land in old Norway was covered with
forests. When a man got new land he had to clear off the trees.) In
those olden days a man did not have a surname that belonged to everyone
in his family. Sometimes there were two or three men of the same name in
a neighborhood. That caused trouble. People thought of two ways of
making it easy to tell which man was being spoken of. Each was given a
nickname. Suppose the name of each was Haki. One would be called Haki
the Black because he had black hair. The other would be called Haki the
Ship-chested because his chest was broad and strong. These nicknames
were often given only for the fun of it. Most men had them,--Eric the
Red, Leif the Lucky, Harald Hairfair, Rolf Go-afoot. The other way of
knowing one Haki from the other was to tell his father's name. One was
Haki, Eric's son. The other was Haki, Halfdan's son. If you speak these
names quickly, they sound like Haki Ericsson and Haki Halfdansson. After
a while they were written like that, and men handed them on to their
sons and daughters. Some names that we have nowadays have come down to
us in just that way--Swanson, Anderson, Peterson, Jansen. There was
another reason for these last names: a man was proud to have people know
who his father was.
_Drinking-horns._ The Norsemen had few cups or goblets. They used
instead the horns of cattle, polished and trimmed with gold or silver or
bronze. They were often very beautiful, and a man was almost as proud
of his drinking-horn as of his sword.
_Tables._ Before a meal thralls brought trestles into the feast hall and
set them before the benches. Then they laid long boards across from
trestle to trestle. These narrow tables stretched all along both sides
of the hall. People sat at the outside edge only. So the thralls served
from the middle of the room. They put baskets of bread and wooden
platters of meat upon these bare boards. At the end of the meal they
carried out tables and all, and the drinking-horns went round in a clean
room.
_Beds._ Around the sides of the feast hall were shut-beds. They were
like big boxes with doors opening into the hall. On the floor of this
box was straw with blankets thrown over it. The people got into these
beds and closed the doors and so shut themselves in. Olaf's men could
have set heavy things against these doors or have put props against
them. Then the people could not have got out; for on the other side of
the bed was the thick outside wall of the feast hall, and there were no
windows in it.
_Feast Hall._ The feast hall was long and narrow, with a door at each
end. Down the middle of the room were flat stones in the dirt floor.
Here the fires burned. In the roof above these fires were holes for the
smoke to go out, but some of it blew about the hall, and the walls and
rafters were stained with it. But it was pleasant wood smoke, and the
Norsemen did not dislike it. There were no large windows in a feast hall
or in any other Norse building. High up under the eaves or in the roof
itself were narrow slits that were called wind's-eyes. There was no
glass in them, for the Norsemen did not know how to make it; but there
were, instead, covers made of thin, oiled skin. These were put into the
wind's-eyes in stormy weather. There were covers, too, for the
smoke-holes. The only light came through these narrow holes, so on dark
days the people needed the fire as much for light as for warmth.
_Foster-father._ A Norse father sent his children away from home to grow
up. They went when they were three or four years old and stayed until
they were grown. The father thought: "They will be better so. If they
stayed at home, their mother would spoil them with much petting."
_Foster-brothers._ When two men loved each other very much they said,
"Let us become foster-brothers."
Then they went and cut three long pieces of turf and put a spear into
the ground so that it held up the strips of turf like an arch. Runes
were cut on the handle of the spear, telling the duties of
foster-brothers. The two men walked under this arch, and each made a
little cut in his palm. They knelt and clasped hands, so that the blood
of the two flowed together, and they said, "Now we are of one blood."
Then each made this vow: "I will fight for my foster-brother whenever he
shall need me. If he is killed before I am, I will punish the man who
did it. Whatever things I own are as much my foster-brother's as mine. I
will love this man until I die. I call Odin and Thor and all the gods to
hear my vow. May they hate me if I break it!"
_Ran._ Ran was the wife of Aegir, who was god of the sea. They lived in
a cave at the bottom of the ocean. Ran had a great net, and she caught
in it all men who were shipwrecked and took them to her cave. She also
caught all the gold and rich treasures that went down in ships. So her
cave was filled with shining things.
_Valkyrias._ These were the maidens of Odin. They waited on the table in
Valhalla. But whenever a battle was being fought they rode through the
air on their horses and watched to see what warriors were brave enough
to go to Valhalla. Sometimes during the fight a man would think that he
saw the Valkyrias. Then he was glad; for he knew that he would go to
Valhalla.
An old Norse story says this about the Valkyrias: "With lightning around
them, with bloody shirts of mail, and with shining spears they ride
through the air and the ocean. When their horses shake their manes, dew
falls on the deep valleys and hail on the high forests."
_Odin's Ravens._ Odin had a great throne in his palace in Asgard. When
he sat in it he could look all over the world. But it was so far to see
that he could not tell all of the things that were happening. So he had
two ravens to help him. An old Norse story tells this about them: "Two
ravens sit on Odin's shoulders and whisper in his ears all that they
have heard and seen. He sends them out at dawn of day to see over the
whole world. They return at evening near meal time. This is why Odin
knows so many things."
_Reykjavik._ Reykjavik means "smoky sea." Ingolf called it that because
of the steaming hot-springs by the sea. The place is still called
Reykjavik. A little city has grown up there, the only city in Iceland.
It is the capital of the country.
_Peace-bands._ A Norseman always carried his sword, even at a feast; for
he did not know when he might need it. But when he went somewhere on an
errand of peace and had no quarrel he tied his sword into its scabbard
with white bands that he called peace-bands. If all at once something
happened to make him need his sword, he broke the peace-bands and drew
it out.
_Eskimos._ Now, the Eskimos live in Greenland and Alaska and on the very
northern shores of Canada. But once they lived farther south in
pleasanter lands. After a while the other Indian tribes began to grow
strong. Then they wanted the pleasant land of the Eskimos and the
seashore that the Eskimos had. So they fought again and again with those
people and won and drove them farther north and farther north. At last
the Eskimos were on the very shores of the cold sea, with the Indians
still pushing them on. So some of them got into their boats and rowed
across the narrow water and came to Greenland and lived there. Some
people think that these things happened before Eric found Greenland. In
that case he found Eskimos there; and Thorfinn saw red Indians in
Wineland. Other people think that this happened after Eric went to
Greenland. If that is true, he found an empty land, and it was Eskimos
that Thorfinn saw in Wineland.