The Hersir’s wife was generally of Odin’s kin, and their children were wrapped in silk and the finest of linen; their descendants were the highest in the land.
Their sons broke horses, bent shields, smoothed shafts, shook ashen spears, rowed and sailed ships, were believed to be able to write magic runes to save the lives of men; to blunt the edges of weapons and calm the sea by spells; to understand the language of birds; to quench fire, read minds, allay sorrows, and to have the strength and energy of eight men. Their chief occupation was to go to war and fell the enemy. Their hair was fair, their cheeks bright and healthy, and their eyes as keen as those of a young snake.
The Hersir’s daughters were slender-fingered, their hands and arms were soft, their hearts lighter and their necks whiter than pure snow. They were fair and gentle, endowed with all the accomplishments belonging to high-born women; when they married they were clad in white bridal linen, according to the custom of high-born people, and walked under a bridal veil.
Next in rank to the Hersir were the Haulds, the highest class of dwellers in the land. They lived on the estates that had descended to them for generations. As a body of men, they were the power of the land, and no Hersir could ever rule without their consent.
Their sons, as they grew up, learned how to handle the shield, bend the elm, or make bows, shaft the arrow, throw the spear, ride horses, set on the hounds, brandish the sword, practise swimming, to write runes, play chess, wrestle, and be foremost in all athletic games. They had the same education as the Hersir’s children; their daughters were dressed in white, also, when they married.
After the Hauld came another class of land owners, the Bondi, whose estates were also entailed. These people throve well on the land, broke oxen, made ploughs, timbered houses, made barns and carts, and drove the plough. Their daughters carried keys hanging at their side, and helped their mothers. When they married, they too were allowed to wear white, like the daughters of Hersirs and Haulds, to set up a household, and sleep under linen bed-clothes; they divided wealth with their husbands.
There was another class of freemen who rented lands, for they had no estate. The doors of the houses of these were always ajar; there was a fire in the middle of the floor; a lumpy loaf, heavy and thick, hand-mixed, was on the trencher; broth in a bowl, and veal, considered the choicest of dainties, were often seen on the table.
A poorer class of freemen existed. Their doors were also always ajar; husband and wife were always busy with their work; his beard was trimmed, his hair lay on his forehead, his shirt was tight. His wife twirled a distaff, stretched out her arms, and made cloth. She wore a head-dress on her head, to show that she was no longer a maiden; a kerchief on her neck, and brooches fastening the folds of the dress on the shoulders.
Then came the slave, distinct from all, dressed always in thick, white woollen stuff, with his hair cropped close, in contrast to the long hair worn by the freeman. Such was his badge of servitude. He was always of foreign birth or origin. He had been captured in war, or bought at a market-place or at a fair in distant lands, and generations of slavery had degraded him; nevertheless he also throve well in the land, but the wrinkled skin and crooked knuckles, the thick fingers, the ugly face, the bent back, the long heels, told the tale of his slavery and of that of his forefathers. His life was passed in trying to learn how much he could endure and bear; his time was employed in binding bark or bast, in making loads, and in carrying these the live-long day. His wife came home in the evening, weary of standing up all day. Scars were on the soles of her feet, her arms were sunburnt, her appearance told of her bondage. After she had come in, she sat down on the middle of the household bench, and her son sat at her side. Husband and wife lived happily with their children; when these grew up, they laid the fences, tended swine, herded goats, cut wood, or dug peat. Such were the classes that made up the population of that great and powerful Viking land.