Chiefs seem to have often set the fashions.

“One summer a seagoing ship owned by Icelanders came from Iceland. It was loaded with trade-cloaks (varar-feld), and they went with it to Hardangr, for they heard that many people were there. When they began to sell none wanted to buy the cloaks. The steersman went to King Harald, for he had spoken to him before, and told him this difficulty. Harald said he would come down, and did so. He was a condescending and very merry man. He came on a fully-manned skúta. He looked at the goods, and said to the steersman: ‘Wilt thou give me one of the grey cloaks?’ ‘Willingly,’ answered the steersman: ‘more than one.’ Harald took one cloak and put it on, and then went down into the skúta. Before they rowed away every one of his men had bought a cloak. A few days after there came so many who all wanted to buy cloaks that not half of them got any. Thereafter the king was called Harald gráfeld (grey cloak)” (Harald Gráfeld’s Saga, c. 7).

The fashion in the time of King Sverri is thus described:—

“Thou shalt always choose brown cloth for hose; it is not wrong to use black skin for hose or other kinds of cloth except scarlet. Thou shalt also have a brown or green or red kirtle of good and beseeming cloth. Thy linen clothes thou shalt have made of good linen, but not much of it; have thy shirt short and all thy linen-clothes light. Always have thy shirt a good deal shorter than thy kirtle, for no good-mannered man can make himself look well with flax or hemp. Thy beard and hair thou shalt have well prepared before thou comest before the king, after the customs prevailing at the time in the hird.[[218]] When I was in the hird it was customary to cut the hair shorter than the lobes of the ears, and comb it so that each hair would lie flat, and a short lock of hair be over the eyebrows. It was customary to cut the beard and the moustaches short and have whiskers like the German custom; it is not likely that there will be any better or more becoming fashion for warriors” (Konungs Skuggsjá, p. 66).

Fig. 1158.

Fig. 1159.

Iron tweezers, ⅔ real size, found in a quadrangular stone setting, with a bent sword, a bent spear head, both of iron, and burnt bones.—Öland.

From the earlier Edda and the Sagas we find that kings or warriors were easily recognised by the splendour of their accoutrements. They wore gilt spurs.