ve spoken
with her in the temple's night, But have not therefore broken
Balder's peace!' More none would hear. A murmur of deep horror The
diet traversed; they who nearest stood Drew back, as I had with
the plague been smitten."[1]

[Footnote 1: Anderson's _Viking Tales of the North_, p. 223.]

And so, because Fridthjof would not lie, he lost his bride and became
a wanderer from his land, and Ingeborg became the wife of another;
and this record is to this day told to the honor of Fridthjof,
in accordance with the standard of the North in the matter of
truth-telling.

In ancient Persia, the same high standard prevailed. Herodotus says of
the Persians: "The most disgraceful thing in the world, they think,
is to tell a lie; the next worse, to owe a debt; because, among other
reasons, the debtor is obliged to tell lies."[1] "Their sons are
carefully instructed, from their fifth to their twentieth year, in
three things alone,--to ride, to draw the bow, and to speak the
truth."[2] Here the one duty in the realm of morals is truth-telling.
In the famous inscription of Darius, the son of Hystaspes, on the Rock
of Behistun,[3] there are repeated references to lying as the chief of
sins, and to the evil time when lying was introduced into Persia, and
"the lie grew in the provinces, in Persia as well as in Media and in
the other provinces." Darius claims to have had the help of "Ormuzd
and the other gods that may exist," because he "was not wicked, nor a
liar;" and he enjoins it on his successor to "punish severely him who
is a liar or a rebel."

[Footnote 1: Rawlinson's _Herodotus_, Bk. I., sec. 139.]

[Footnote 2: _Ibid_., Bk. I., sec. 136.]

[Footnote 3: Sayce's _Introduction to Ezra, Nehemiah, and Esther_, pp.
120-137.]

The Zoroastrian designation of heaven was the "Home of Song;"
while hell was known as the "Home of the Lie."[1] There was in the
Zoroastrian thought only two rival principles in the universe,
represented by Ormuzd and Ahriman, as the God of truth, and the father
of lies; and the lie was ever and always an offspring of Ahriman, the
evil principle: it could not emanate from or be consistent with the
God of truth. The same idea was manifest in the designation of the
subordinate divinities of the Zoroastrian religion. Mithra was the god
of light, and as there is no concealment in the light, Mithra was also
god of truth. A liar was the enemy of righteousness.[2]

[Footnote 1: Mueller's _S