fences, dunging plowland, tending swine, herding goats, and digging peat. Their names were Sooty and Cowherd, Clumsy and Lout and Laggard, etc. Carl, or churl, was red and ruddy, with rolling eyes, and took to breaking oxen, building plows, timbering houses, and making carts. Earl, the noble, had yellow hair, his cheeks were rosy, his eyes were keen as a young serpent's. His occupation was shaping the shield, bending the bow, hurling the javelin, shaking the lance, riding horses, throwing dice, fencing, and swimming. He began to waken war, to redden the field, and to fell the doomed.[1]
Both churl and earl were largely represented in those who went to sea, but the nobility naturally preponderated, and it is particularly their exploits which the sagas and poems celebrate. Viking warfare was no mere clash of swords; they conducted their military operations with skill and foresight, and showed great power of adapting themselves to new conditions, whether that meant the invasion of an open country or the siege of a fortified town. Much, however, must be credited to their furor Teutonicus, to that exuberance of military spirit which they had inherited from far-off ancestors. Not all were wolf-coated Bearsarks, but all seemed to have that delight in war and conflict for their own sakes which breathes through their poetry:—
- ↑ Corpus Poeticum Boreale, i, pp. 236-40.
