for the hero is found in the picture of Ragnarr Loðbrók who when tortured in the snake-pit goes laughing to his death. With their enemies the Vikings had an evil reputation for cumming and deceit, but the incidents cited in illustration (such as the feigned desire for baptism on the part of a dying leader, which led to the capture of Luna, and the frequent mention of feigned retreats) hardly support this: the enemy were outwitted rather than deceived. Two common but widely different aspects of Viking character are reflected in the portraiture of their two chief gods; on the one side Othin (Odin), whose common epithets are "the wise, the prudent, the sagacious," on the other, Thor, endowed with mighty strength, but less polished and refined. The besetting sins of the Vikings were too great love of wine and women. The rich vine-lands of the Rhine were ceded to the Vikings at their special request, in 885, and one of the best known examples of Viking cruelty is the murder of Archbishop Aelfheah (Alphege) at a drunken orgie in 1012, when he was pelted to death with the skulls of oxen slaughtered for the feast. Many are the references to their immorality. Wandering from country to country they often had wives in each and polygamy prevailed, at least among the leaders. From Ireland in the west to Russia in the east the same story is told. In Ireland we hear of what would seem to be harems for women, while in Russia we are told of the Grand Duke Vladimir, great grandson of Rurik, the founder of the Russian kingdom, that he had more than 800 concubines. Such excesses were unknown in Scandinavia itself. Legitimate wives were esteemed and took part in the national life to an unusual extent. Women at times took part in fighting, and heroic figures are found in the sagas and other historical records such are Ota (Auðr), the wife of Turgeis, who, as a völva or prophetess, gave audience on the high altar at Clonmacnois, and Auðr the Deep-minded, wife of Olaf the White, whose figure stands out clear among the early settlers in Iceland.
In outward appearance the Vikings were marked by a love of "purple and fine raiment." Foreign, and more especially English, clothing was much sought after, and when in 968 the Irish plundered Limerick we hear how they carried off from the Norsemen "their choicest possessions, their beautiful foreign saddles, their gold and silver, their woven cloths of every kind and colour, their silk and satin raiment, beauteous and variegated, both scarlet and green." From John of Wallingford we learn how much attention the Vikings paid to the care of the body, indulging in Sabbath baths and daily hair-combing. The graves of the period have often yielded rich finds of ornaments in silver and bronze, and the geographical distribution of the famous Viking brooches, oval and convex in shape, can be used as an index of extent of the conquests of the Northmen. The style of decoration is that derived from the interweaving of heads and limbs of animals which is found in Northern Europe in the preceding age, but the influence of Irish art is
