The most beloved of the gods of the northmen was Baldur, the god of Spring. Once, he had a dream that a great cloud passed over him, and his mother, in sorrow, summoned all the things upon the earth to promise never to hurt her son. Everything promised, the mountains and the trees and the rocks and the rivers, everything except the little mistletoe, which grew at the palace gate and was so small that nobody thought it could do any harm. But Loki, the god of mischief, Baldur's brother, guided the hand of blind Hödur and so killed Baldur with an arrow made from the mistletoe.
Odin was very angry when he heard the news and mounted his war horse to ride to Valhalla, to fetch Baldur from the home of the spirits. But the old witch, who sat at the gates, would not let Baldur return to the earth until she heard that everything on the earth was weeping for him. Everything did weep, except Loki and the little mistletoe. So the witch allows Baldur to come back for three months every year, and then the earth puts on her freshest green, the flowers blossom, the corn ripens, and gods and men rejoice. Thus, the Saxons showed how much they loved the sunshine and the warmth and the south winds that come in the summer time.
When a hero died, the Saxons sent him on his journey to Valhalla, with food enough to last a week and with all his treasures, his sword and helmet, his hunting trophies and his most loved things. They liked best of all to send him on his boat across the unknown seas. They towed it to the harbour mouth, set fire to it, when the sun was going down, shouting as they watched it drift away, "Odin, receive thy Champion." They fancied Odin sat in the far North with all the gods waiting to welcome a brave man and to give him a seat of honour in his hall. For the Saxons thought a brave soldier the noblest of all men.
CHAPTER IV
THE SAXON VILLAGE
Though the Saxons loved fighting, they soon learned to love peace and to rule their kingdoms well. They divided the spoil amongst themselves and the chiefs rewarded their soldiers with lands. They built their villages as near the streams as they could, so that they might get water easily. They built them near the woods, if possible, so that they could get timber to build their houses and fuel for the winter; but not so near that an enemy could spring on them suddenly without a warning, or the packs of hungry wolves come prowling round in the long, dark nights. Any stranger who came in sight of the village must blow his horn three times loudly, else the Saxons killed him, for they feared anyone they did not know.
The soldiers who settled in the village were freemen, and they shared in the harvest of the soil. Only half the land was ploughed for seed and the other half was left fallow or idle for a year. In the ploughed land, they planted wheat or rye one year and barley next time, after a year's rest. Sometimes they divided the land and planted wheat in one half in October and barley in the other in March. When the ploughing was done, they were all very careful to throw up a little heap of earth to make a ridge between the strips in each field, so that each freeman might know his own strip in the wheat field and in the barley field too. He made bread from the wheat or rye and a drink from the barley, and if there were any to spare he would exchange it for some of the things he wanted very much, honey perhaps, for everybody needed that when there was no sugar.
Beyond the ploughed lands, there was a piece of common ground, where all the freemen turned out their geese and cows and sheep and pigs, though the pigs liked the woods better, for there they could find acorns and hazel nuts.
There was a hayfield, too, and, when spring came, a fence was put all round it and it was carefully divided into strips, so that everyone had a share of the hay. The "hayward" was a busy man, for it was his duty to keep the woods, corn and meadows. In haytime, he looked after the mowers. In August, he was to be seen, rod in hand, in the cornfields, watching early and late, so that no beasts strayed and trampled down the corn.