[7] “The Gray Goose,” so called probably from the color of the parchment on which it is written, is one of the most curious relics of the Middle Ages, and gives us an unexpected view of the social condition of the Northmen in the eleventh century. Law appears to have been so far advanced among them that the forms were not merely established, but the slightest breach of the legal forms of proceeding involved the loss of the case. “The Gray Goose” embraces subjects not dealt with probably by any other code in Europe at that period. The provision for the poor, the equality of weights and measures, police of markets and of sea havens, provision for illegitimate children of the poor, inns for travellers, wages of servants and support of them in sickness, protection of pregnant women and even of domestic animals from injury, roads, bridges, vagrants, beggars, are subjects treated of in this code. (S. Laing.)
[8] From this union descended, in direct line, the royal house of Brunswick and Saxony, whose members until lately occupied the thrones of Hanover and Brunswick and still reign in England.
[9] The “guests” were one division of the king’s men. They were of a lower rank than the hird-men.
[10] Ice-legs were skates made of sheep legs.
[11] Ski (pronounced she), the long snow-shoe used in the North.
[12] With this battle at Ree end the Sagas of the Norse Kings by Snorre Sturlason.
[13] The word Edda means great-grandmother.
[14] During the next twenty-five years Christian Frederick led an unnoticed life in Denmark and was soon forgotten by the Norwegian people. In 1839 he ascended the Danish throne as Christian VIII. He died in 1848.
[15] The word saga means a historical tale.