There were certain clans who had no fixed abode, wandering long distances and living in huts to be abandoned; but such as these had become fewer and fewer and now most of the people lived in villages, some little and some great, but all with broad lands about them, whose boundaries were marked in many ways, some by scarred trees, sometimes by stones and sometimes by other tokens. So, as well, were marked the limits of the hides of lands allotted to each family, and these must by no means be disregarded, either the village mark, or the limit of the allotments. He who took an allotment, too, must, in token of possession and defense, break a branch from some tree upon it, or seat himself in the midst of the field, or build a fire upon it, for its ownership was a grave matter and not to be considered lightly. Some tilling the women did, though we were, as yet, but little farmers, and they also wove and spun. As for the men, we lived first for the fighting and the honour, and chiefly next, it seemed to me, for the feasting and deep drinking, with hunting and fishing and the fashioning of weapons as our only labour. Great were our feasts and it sometimes happened that they had more to them than mere carousal, especially when the feast was to one who had died valiantly in battle. There would be much eating and drinking, it is true, but there would also be much praise of the dead, which came generously from great hearts, and earnest prayers that Woden would receive the hero kindly. It seems to me that it was to our honour that we did not forget our dead, not even the little ones who passed, and I recall me that I made and kept for a friend one for whom I had heretofore cared slightly, because, when his child died, he had buried in the grave of the little one its foolish playthings and had slain a dog the child had loved and buried it also, that the dog might show the helpless and timorous one the way to the country of the dead. Stark and harsh and rough we were, but, in some things, we were most kindly and but as children.