Page:The Heimskringla; or, Chronicle of the Kings of Norway Vol 2.djvu/384

 376 chronicle of the saga viii. This verse is the last : — " A holy bond between us still* Makes me wish speedy end to ill: The sluggard waits till afternoon, — At once, great Magnus! grant our boon. Thee we will serve with heart and hand, With thee we'll fight by sea or land : With Olaf's sword take Olaf's mind, And to thy bonders be more kind." In this song the king was exhorted to observe the laws which his father had established. This exhort- ation had a good effect on the king, for many others held the same language to him. So at last the king consulted the most prudent men, who ordered all affairs according to law. Thereafter King Magnus had the law-book composed in writing which is still in use in Drontheim district, and is called The Grey Goose. f King Magnus afterwards became very po- pular, and was beloved by all the country people, and therefore he was called Magnus the Good. Chapter The king of the English, King Harald, died t five XVIII of the years after his father King Canute, and was buried English beside his father at Winchester. After his death his kings. brother Hardacanute, the second son of the old King Canute, was king of England, and was thus king both t The Grey Goose, so called probably from the colour of the parch- ment 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 Grey 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, protec- tion of pregnant women and even of domestic animals from injury, roads, bridges, vagrants, beggars, are subjects treated of in this code. — See Nordisk Tidscrift for Oldkyndighed 1 H. 1 B. 1832 om Graagaasen ved Schlegel. % In 1039, according to the Saxon Chronicle.
 * The bond of godfather at his baptism, to which Sigvat often alludes.