Silver beads, real size, together with coins, &c., in a box in the earth, by a working
man while digging a ditch, at Fölhagen, Götland, near the Monastery de Roma,
from a lot of 49 beads of thirteen different patterns.
Fölhagen ground find, Götland. The objects were in a copper box, which however
could not be taken whole, and contained, besides some of the objects represented
above, an ingot of chemically pure gold, 8 bracelets of silver, 835 Kufic coins
(971), 400 German coins, the latest from Otto III. before 1002; 4 English coins
of Æthelred, and many other jewels.
Insurance companies were known from early times.
“Damages are to be paid if a disease comes among a man’s cattle so that one-fourth or more of his cattle dies; then the men of the Hrepp shall pay the loss. The man shall call five of his neighbours to him during the next half month after the disease has ceased, in order to value his loss. He shall tell them his loss and show them the flesh and the skin of the dead cattle. Thereupon he shall take an oath before them that his loss is as great as they estimated it, or more. Then at a meeting he shall tell how great they valued his loss to be and the bœndr shall pay him one-half of the loss” (Gragas, i. 458.)