The condition of faith and belief in the Viking age was, then, chaotic, but, fortunately for purposes of clear statement, there was, to the Norse mind at least, no necessary connexion between beliefs and morality, between faith and conduct, and the ideas on which they based their philosophy and practice of life are fairly distinct. The central ideas which dominate the Norse view of life are an ever-present sense of the passingness of all things and a deep consciousness of the over-ruling power of Fate. All earthly things are transitory and the one thing which lasts is good fame. 'Wealth dies, kinsmen die, man himself must die, but the fame which a man wins rightly for himself never dies; one thing I know that never dies, the judgment passed on every man that dies,' says the poet of the _Hávamál_, the great storehouse of the gnomic wisdom of the Norsemen. 'All things are unstable and transitory, let no man therefore be arrogant or over-confident. The wise man will never praise the day before it is evening.' Prudence and foresight are ever necessary. All things are determined by a fate which is irrevocable and cannot be avoided. Every man must die the death that is appointed for him, and the man whose final day has not yet come may face unmoved the greatest danger. This sense of an inevitable fate must lead to no weakening of character or weariness of life. Death must be faced with cheerful stoicism and our judgment of the worth of any man must depend on the way in which he awaits the decree of fate. Place no great trust in others whether friend or foe, least of all place trust in women. 'Wommennes conseils been ful ofte colde,' says Chaucer in the _Nun's Priest's Tale_, using an old Scandinavian proverb. 'Be friendly to your friends and a foeman to your foes. Practice hospitality and hate lying and untruthfulness.' With their enemies the Vikings had an evil reputation for cunning and deceit, but when we study the incidents on which this charge was based--as for example the story of the capture of Luna (_v. supra_, p. 47) or the oft-repeated trick of feigning flight, only to lure the enemy away from safe ground--one must confess that they show an enemy outwitted rather than deceived. This aspect of Viking character perhaps finds its best illustration in the figure of Odin. His common epithets are 'the wise,' 'the prudent,' 'the sagacious'; he is a god of witchcraft and knows all the secret powers of nature and stands in contrast to the simple-minded Thor, endowed with mighty strength, but less polished and refined. The development of the worship of Odin in Norway belongs specially to the later Iron Age, and it is worthy of note that his worship seems to have prevailed chiefly in military circles, among princes and their retainers.