Page:The Heimskringla; or, Chronicle of the Kings of Norway Vol 1.djvu/67

 people in that age. It is to be observed, that, for the Northmen, these levies for predatory expeditions were by no means unpopular or onerous. "To gather property" by plundering the coasts of cattle, meal, malt, wool, slaves, was a favourite summer occupation. When the crops were in the ground in spring, the whole population, which was seafaring as well as agricultural in its habits, was altogether idle until harvest; and the great success in amassing booty, as vikings, on the coasts, made the Leding, as it was called, a favourite service during many reigns: and it appears that the service might be commuted sometimes into a war tax, when it was inconvenient to go on the levy. Every man, it is to be observed, who went upon these expeditions, was udal born to some portion of land at home; that is, had certain udal rights of succession, or of purchase, or of partition, connected with the little estate of the family of which he was a member. All these complicated rights and interests connecting people settled in Northumberland, East Anglia, Normandy, or Iceland, with landed property situated in the valleys of Norway, required a body of men, like the scalds, whose sole occupation was to record in their stories trustworthy accounts, not only of the historical events, but of the deaths, intermarriages, pedigrees, and other family circumstances of every person of any note engaged in them. We find, accordingly, that the sagas are, as justly observed by Pinkerton, rather memoirs of individuals than history. They give the most careful heraldic tracing of every man's kin they speak of, because he was kin to landowners at home, or they were kin to him. In such a social state we may believe that the class of scalds were not, as we generally suppose, merely a class of story-tellers, poets, or harpers, going about with gossip, song, and music; but were interwoven with the social institutions of the country, and