On the Shield of Achilles was depicted a scene at the _Althing_ (to use the Icelandic expression): "The folk were gathered in the assembly place; for there was a strife arisen, two men striving about the blood-price of a man slain; the one claiming to pay full atonement, expounding to the people, but the other denied him, and would take naught." The people are taking sides, and shouting, the heralds restrain them, the γέροντες (the _probi homines_ or _prud'hommes_) sit listening, on stone seats in the sacred circle.[2] The public sense had enabled the slayer to remain at home, if the kin of the dead would accept the blood-wyte, and allow the feud to be pacified. As Aias says to Achilles, "a man accepts recompense of his brother's murderer, or for his dead son; and so the manslayer for a great price abides in his own land...."[3] Probably it was usual to accept the blood-price if a man had been slain openly, sword in hand; but when a premeditated murder was committed, actual revenge was desired. There was nothing reckoned mean or contemptible in the pacific arrangement: in heroic Iceland it was hard indeed to induce men to accept it. These are the manners of a settled people, who will bear much for the sake of peace, and of a people free from superstitious dread of the blood curse, and ignorant of the filthy rite of purification by the blood of swine, which was a regular piece of ritual in historic Hellas, and is familiar to Aeschylus,[4] the Ionian epic poets, and to Apollonius Rhodius. Certainly the rite was unknown to Homer, who mentions many homicides but says nothing of purification or of pollution. This point is later studied in detail. The life of the heroes in peace is the life of all early aristocracies who do not idle, and do not intrigue in a Court. The women spin and embroider, like Penelope and Helen, and keep their eyes on household affairs, and on their poultry, mainly geese. Nausicaa sees to the washing of the linen. The men hunt hares and boars, and attend "days of law" in the legal courts, and take part in funeral games. As yet we hear of no periodical games, such as the Olympian, Isthmian, and Pythian, though the legends of historic Greece pretend that these were founded in pre-Homeric times. The princes also looked well to their lands. Odysseus alone is mentioned as a skilled ploughman, carpenter, and shipwright, as some of the Icelandic heroes are swordsmiths, but we see little of any prince but Odysseus in peaceful life. There are professional artisans, whose services are highly valued, carpenters, potters, bronze-smiths, and weavers.