The Northmen, who in ancient times sailed to foreign shores, were far from always being Vikings, bent only on rapine and plunder, and the conquest of new possessions. They were very often peaceful merchants. The remote situation of Scandinavia, and the dangers which the natives of more southern countries pictured to themselves as attendant upon a voyage to that _ultima Thule_ and its heathenish inhabitants, must in ancient days, when navigation was very limited, have deterred foreign merchants from visiting it regularly, and bartering their wares. The Scandinavian tribes, on the contrary, were at that time almost the only seamen. From the want of all that belonged to the exterior comforts and conveniences of life in Scandinavia, the business of a merchant who bartered the products of the north and south, and who brought home with him a knowledge of distant and unknown lands, must early have become a profitable, and, from the dangers connected with it, an honourable profession. The trading voyages of the merchant were not, indeed, held in such esteem as those of the Vikings; yet from the most ancient times certain established customs were observed in the north for the protection of merchant vessels; and the merchant who, as was frequently the case, had distinguished himself by warlike qualities and shrewdness of understanding, was neither despised in the company of Vikings, nor in the King’s hall. Even chiefs of royal descent did not regard it as anything dishonourable to exercise the mercantile profession. Already, in the most ancient times, a number of trading places were scattered round the north, and large annual fairs were held. Once a year the ships of the merchants assembled together from the whole of Scandinavia, perhaps even from the other nearest situated countries, in the Sound of Haleyri, or, as it is now called, Elsinore. Booths were erected along the shore; foreign wares were bartered for fish, hides, and valuable furs; whilst various games, and all sorts of merry-making, took place.