tradition).

(b) No remedy for wrong done to a Swede by a Dane to be legally
recoverable. (This is the traditional interpretation of the conqueror's
haughty dealing; we may compare it with the Middle-English legends of
the pride of the Dane towards the conquered English. The Tradition sums
up the position in such concrete forms as this Law of Helge's.)

Two statutes of RAGNAR are mentioned:--

(a) That any householder should give up to his service in war the worst
of his children, or the laziest of his slaves (a curious tradition, and
used by Saxo as an opportunity for patriotic exaltation).

(b) That all suits shall be absolutely referred to the judgment of
twelve chosen elders (Lodbroc here appearing in the strange character of
originator of trial by jury).

"Tributes".--Akin to laws are the tributes decreed and imposed by kings
and conquerors of old. Tribute infers subjection in archaic law. The
poll-tax in the fourteenth century in England was unpopular, because of
its seeming to degrade Englishmen to the level of Frenchmen, who paid
tribute like vanquished men to their absolute lord, as well as for other
reasons connected with the collection of the tax.

The old fur tax (mentioned in "Egil's Saga") is here ascribed to FRODE,
who makes the Finns pay him, every three years, a car full or sledge
full of skins for every ten heads; and extorts one skin per head from
the Perms. It is Frode, too (though Saxo has carved a number of Frodes
out of one or two kings of gigantic personality), that made the Saxons