taskmaster to
death, "not to sweeten his after-life, but to continue her dreary
service."

The Norse sources are full of tragic examples of immolation. When the
bright sun god Baldur, the wisest, most eloquent, and mildest of all the
Ases, is finally slain, at the instigation of the evil god Loki, by a
twig of mistletoe in the hands of the blind god Hodur, his wife, the
goddess Nanna, is burned with him. Likewise, the Valkyrie Brunhild, in
the Old Norse version of the Siegfried legend, kills herself so that she
may be burned with her beloved Sigurd. Hakon Jarl, the last great
partisan of paganism in Scandinavia, woos in his old age beautiful
Gunhild, but she is unwilling to expose her blooming youth to the risk
of being burned with her aged husband.

The toil and trouble of life rested upon woman's weak shoulders; the
menial work at home and in the field was her lot. The man roved in war
or on the hunting ground, and while at home was an impassive onlooker of
her labors. He gave himself up to the enjoyment of his barbarous
pleasures of drinking mead, lying idly on the skins of the wild beasts
killed by his rude weapons, or gambling with such desperateness as
sometimes to impel him, when all else was lost, to stake wife and
children, nay, his own person, on the result of chance. Freedom and
absolute liberty of life was the manly ideal, since according to the
word of Caesar "trained and accustomed from childhood to no business or
discipline (outside of war and hunt, to be sure,) they do nothing at all
against their own will."

A highly important occupation of the ancient Teutonic woman was the
brewing of beer from barley and other grain. Thus, the Edda relates that
King Alrek of Hordaland decides the question which of his two wives he
is to discard, in order to terminate their eternal altercations in his
household, by the superior skill of one of them in brewing beer. Also
the making and the care of wine, which the Teutons learned to know and
appreciate from the Romans, belonged to the sphere of woman, for women
not infrequently served as cupbearers to the men in their halls. It is,
however, true that the Suevi, at least, forbade the importation of wine
within their realm, because they believed that men by its use became
effeminate and unfit for heavy labors.

Even though we assume the menial labors of the household to have been
done by slaves, yet we learn that royal women took an active part in
washing. The pernic