community where the freemen would be thought equal; but the truth is that among all the Germanic nations there was a wide difference between the theory and practice of the constitution. The meanest freeman present at the Thing might, for any thing we know, have a vote; he might even have the right of speech; but still the real power lay in the hands of a few noble chiefs. What made the authority of this president, this logsogomadr, or promulgator of the law, the more formidable, is the fact, that though he was not, as some writers have contended, a legislator, no laws were made without his concurrence; and of these he had the interpretation, no less than the administration. His office therefore being more than executive, and conferred for so long a period, made him irresponsible, except when the Thing was actually assembled. As we have before observed, Ulfliot was the first who held this dignity. The laws he enacted were, we are told, preserved for two centuries by tradition only, before they were committed to writing. This is not credible. The Runic art at least was understood many centuries before his time; and so, we may infer, were the ordinary characters: at least we read of communication by letter between the sovereigns and jarls of the time. The more important of Ulfliot’s laws must have been invested in a dress less perishable than oral tradition. For ages before his time, every German tribe with which we are acquainted, had, besides its common or unwritten, its statute or written, law; and we know not why Scandinavia should in this respect be different from such barbarous tribes as the Saxons, or Finns, or Suabians, during the same period. On this subject, however, more in the proper place.[10]