er customs, such as "marriage by
purchase", already looked on as archaic in Saxo's day; and the free
women in Denmark had clearly long had a veto or refusal of a husband for
some time back, and sometimes even free choice. "Go-betweens" negotiate
marriages.

Betrothal was of course the usage. For the groom to defile an espoused
woman is a foul reproach. Gifts made to father-in-law after bridal by
bridegroom seem to denote the old bride-price. Taking the bride home in
her car was an important ceremony, and a bride is taken to her future
husband's by her father. The wedding-feast, as in France in Rabelais'
time, was a noisy and drunken and tumultuous rejoicing, when
bone-throwing was in favor, with other rough sports and jokes. The three
days after the bridal and their observance in "sword-bed" are noticed
below.

A commoner or one of slave-blood could not pretend to wed a high-born
lady. A woman would sometimes require some proof of power or courage at
her suitor's hands; thus Gywritha, like the famous lady who weds Harold
Fairhair, required her husband Siwar to be over-king of the whole land.
But in most instances the father or brother betrothed the girl, and she
consented to their choice. Unwelcome suitors perish.

The prohibited degrees were, of course, different from those established
by the mediaeval church, and brother weds brother's widow in good
archaic fashion. Foster-sister and foster-brother may marry, as Saxo
notices carefully. The Wolsung incest is not noticed by Saxo. He only
knew, apparently, the North-German form of the Niflung story. But the
reproachfulness of incest is apparent.

Birth and beauty were looked for in a bride by Saxo's heroes, and
chastity was required. The modesty of maidens in old days is eulogised
by Saxo, and the penalty for its infraction was severe: sale abroad into
slavery to grind the quern in the mud of the yard. One of the tests of
virtue is noticed, "lac in ubere".

That favourite "motif", the "Patient Grizzle", occurs, rather, however,
in the Border ballad than the Petrarcan form.

"Good wives" die with their husbands as they have vowed, or of grief for
their loss, and are wholly devoted to their interests. Among "bad wives"
are those that wed their husband's slayer, run away from their husbands,
plot against their husbands' lives. The penalty for adultery is death to
both, at husband's option--disfigurement by cutting off the nose of
the guilty woman, an archaic practice