Page:The Heimskringla; or, Chronicle of the Kings of Norway Vol 1.djvu/129

 Court Things, of District Things for administering law, of Things for consultation of all engaged in an expedition; and in all matters, and on all occasions, in which men were embarked with common interests, a reference to themselves, a universal spirit of self-government in society, was established. King Swerrer, who reigned from 1177 to 1203, after the period when Snorro Sturleson's work ends, although taking his own way in his military enterprises, appears in a saga of his reign never to have omitted calling a Thing, and bringing it round by his speeches, which are often very characteristic, to his own opinion and plans.

So essential were Things considered wheresoever men were acting with a common stake and interest, that in war expeditions the call to a Thing on the war-horn or trumpet appears to have been a settled signal-call known to all men,—like the call to arms, or the call to attack; and each kind of Thing, whether it was a general Thing that was summoned, or a House Thing of the king's counsellors, or a Herd Thing of the court, or of the leaders of the troops, appears to have had its distinct peculiar call on the war-horn known to all men. In the ordinary affairs of the country, the Things were assembled in a simple and effective way. A bod, called a budstikke in Norway, where it is still used, was a stick of wood like a constable's baton, with a spike at the end of it, which was passed from house to house, as a signal for the people to assemble. In each house it was well known to which neighbouring house it had to be passed, and the penalties for detaining the bod were very heavy. In modern times, the place, house, and occasion of meeting, are stated on a slip of paper inclosed in the bottom of the budstick; but in former times the Thing-place, and the time allowed for repairing there, were known, and whether to go armed or unarmed was the only matter requiring to be indi-