oubtful, they
make it a point to carry off their slain. To abandon their shield is a
flagitious crime. The person guilty of it is interdicted from religious
rites and excluded from the assembly of the state. Many who survived
their honour on the day of battle have closed a life of ignominy by a
halter."

Teutonic Customs

The kings of this rude but warlike folk were elected by the suffrages of
the nobility, and their leaders in battle, as was inevitable with such
a people, were chosen by reason of their personal prowess. The legal
functions were exercised by the priesthood, and punishments were thus
held to be sanctioned by the gods. Among this barbaric people the female
sex was held as absolutely sacred, the functions of wife and mother
being accounted among the highest possible to humanity, and we observe
in ancient accounts of the race that typically Teutonic conception of
the woman as seer or prophetess which so strongly colours early Germanic
literature. Women, indeed, in later times, when Christianity had
nominally conquered Paganism, remained as the sole conservators of the
ancient Teutonic magico-religious lore, and in the curtained recesses of
dark-timbered halls whiled away the white hours of winter by the painful
spelling out of runic characters and the practice of arts which they
were destined to convey from the priests of Odin and Thor to the witches
of medieval days.

Costume of the Early Teuton

The personal appearance of these barbarians was as rude and simple as
were their manners. Says Tacitus:

"The clothing in use is a loose mantle, made fast with a clasp, or, when
that cannot be had, with a thorn. Naked in other respects, they loiter
away whole days by the fireside. The rich wear a garment, not, indeed,
displayed and flowing, like the Parthians or the people of Sarmatia,
but drawn so tight that the form of the limbs is palpably expressed. The
skins of wild animals are also much in use. Near the frontier, on the
borders of the Rhine, the inhabitants wear them, but with an air of
neglect that shows them altogether indifferent about the choice, The
people who live more remote, near the northern seas, and have not
acquired by commerce a taste for new-fashioned apparel, are more curious
in the selection. They choose particular beasts and, having stripped
off the furs, clothe themselves with the spoil, decorated with
parti-coloured spots, or fragments taken from the skins of fish that
swim the ocea