ay water, and take the clay
that lies around the well, and sprinkle them up over the ash for that
its boughs should not wither or rot. All those men that have fallen in
the fight, and borne wounds and toil unto death, from the beginning of
the world, are come to Odin in Valhall; a very great throng is there,
and many more shall yet come; the flesh of the boar Soerfmnir is sodden
for them every day, and he is whole again at even; and the mead they
drink that flows from the teats of the she-goat Heidhrun. The meat Odin
has on his board he gives to his two wolves, Geri and Freki, and he
needs no meat, wine is to him both meat and drink; ravens twain sit on
his shoulders, and say into his ear all tidings that they see and hear;
they are called Huginn and Muninn (mind and memory); them sends he at
dawn to fly over the whole world, and they come back at breakfast-tide,
thereby becomes he wise in many tidings, and for this men call him
Raven's-god. Every day, when they have clothed them, the heroes put on
their arms and go out into the yard and fight and fell each other; that
is their play, and when it looks toward mealtime, then ride they home to
Valhall and sit down to drink. For murderers and men forsworn is a great
hall, and a bad, and the doors look northward; it is altogether wrought
of adder-backs like a wattled house, but the worms' heads turn into the
house, and blow venom, so that rivers of venom run along the hall, and
in those rivers must such men wade forever." There was no priest-class;
every chief was priest for his own folk, offered sacrifice, performed
ceremonies, and so on.

In politics the homestead, with its franklin-owner, was the unit; the
"thing", or hundred-moot, the primal organisation, and the "godord",
or chieftainship, its tie. The chief who had led a band of kinsmen and
followers to the new country, taken possession of land, and shared it
among them, became their head-ruler and priest at home, speaker and
president of their Thing, and their representative in any dealings with
neighbouring chiefs and their clients. He was not a feudal lord, for
any franklin could change his "godord" as he liked, and the right
of "judgment by peers" was in full use. At first there was no higher
organisation than the local thing. A central thing, and a speaker to
speak a single "law" for the whole island, was instituted in 929, and
afterwards the island was divided in four quarters, each with a court,
under the Al-thi