Let me get to my mother, It is cold for me on the floor, What is fitter for a boy Than his father’s arms. You need not whet the iron, Nor cut the turf, Leave this hideous work, I shall live yet with men. (Landnáma V. c. 6.) Thereupon the boy was water-sprinkled, and named Thorstein.” The custom of exposing children was so deeply rooted in the minds of the people that Christianity itself could not at first prevent it from taking place. “It was then made law, that all men of the country should become Christians, and such as were not baptized should be so. But in regard to child exposure and the eating of horseflesh the old law was to stand; men would be allowed to sacrifice in secret, if they wished to, but became outlaws if witnesses saw it” (Islendingabók, c. 7). “Sigvat skáld and other Icelanders were with King Olaf as has been told. Olaf enquired carefully how Christianity was kept in Iceland. He thought it was very badly kept when they told him that it was allowed by the laws to eat horseflesh and expose children as the heathens used to do” (St. Olaf’s Saga, c. 56). It was the general custom among the chiefs and other leading men not to have the children reared at home, but to have them educated with some distinguished friend for the future duties of life. Those who received them were bound to treat them as their own children, with love and kindness; and there are many examples in the Sagas of the great love of the foster-parents for their foster-children. The general custom was first to have the child _knee-seated_ (_knésetja_), or put on the knees of him who was to be fosterer; the child was then called the knee-seated (_knésetningr_) of his foster-father, who bestowed upon him as much care as if he had been his own child. “Harald (Gormsson) took Harald, son of Eirik (Blood-axe), to raise him, and knee-seated him; he was raised in his hird”[72] (Fornmanna Sögur, i., ch. 19). “Höskuld, an Icelandic chief, having died and his sons having held _arvel_ after him, one of these, Thorleik by name, was jealous of his stepbrother Olaf, whose mother was Melkorka, an Irish king’s daughter, who had been bought as a thrall by Höskuld. To conciliate him, Olaf offered to foster Thorleik’s son, saying: ‘I will foster thy son, for he is always called a lesser man who fosters the child of another’”[73] (Laxdæla, c. 27). To raise another’s child was a proof that the fosterer considered himself of lower or subordinate position than the father. A very good example in this respect is that of Harald Fairhair and Athelstan of England.