Others there were who possessed not a rood of territory, whose only property was their ships, the crews their subjects, the sword their sceptre; who had no alternative but to plunder or perish, to slay or starve, or stay at home and prey upon their brethren, who themselves were ever darting out from the herbless coast to seize whatever they saw passing upon the sea. If the family retained any landed possession, one son stayed at home to inherit it, the rest sallied out with their ships to seek their fortune across the deep; for a few vessels, well equipped and ably manned, were considered a rich inheritance amongst the Danes. At twelve years of age, they were initiated into this piratical profession, and taught to believe that to plunder and to slay were the only honourable passports to wealth and glory--the only employments that were considered noble. The lessons their fathers taught them, all tended to the same end, for they left their children no wealth. "Go, my sons," said they, "and reap riches and renown, with your ships and your swords." They learned to despise inherited property; they valued that most which had been won by the greatest danger, and prized highest the plunder which they had become possessed of by venturing into the most perilous paths. In bays and creeks, and in the shadows of jutting headlands, they concealed themselves, where they were ever ready, at a moment's notice, to rush upon the passing prey. When out at sea, they cared not where they were driven to, so long as it was not to their own coast. They called the storm their servant, and wherever it carried them, they said "that was the spot where they desired to go--the tempest that hurled them along with its mighty breath but came, that the rowers might rest their weary arms." Those who were drowned, they believed, went safely to Odin; those who survived, but laughed at the storm they had escaped. Danger depressed them not, and death they but considered as a common and necessary companion, who went on his appointed mission to conduct them to the halls of Odin, and returned again unheeded, and dwelt amongst them from day to day; coming and going like a common messenger that scarcely merited a passing remark. They looked upon the Saxon Christians as traitors to their gods; and as they had been crushed under the iron hand of Charlemagne, and been subjected to revolting cruelties to compel them to renounce their ancient creed, they believed that they rendered true service to Odin by slaughtering the priests, and destroying the churches of Christ. Such of the unconverted Saxons as still inhabited the neighbourhood of Jutland, readily formed a league with the more distant sea-kings, and, thus banded together, they made head against their common enemies, though their near brethren; for they now looked upon them as renegades, and neither the resemblance which they bore to each other in feature or language, nor