Page:Northern Antiquities 2.djvu/265

shallow. But he knows not how to sing an answer, when men pose him with a difficult question^[1].

“Many are thought to be knit in the tyes of sincere kindness: but when it comes to the proof, how much are they deceived. Slander is the common vice of the age. Even the host back-bites his guest.

“One's own home is the best home, though never so small^[2]. Every thing one eats at home is sweet. He who lives at another man’s table is often obliged to wrong his palate.

“I have never yet found a man so generous and munificent, as that to receive at his house was not to receive: nor any so free and liberal of his gifts, as to reject a present when it was returned to him.

1. Alluding to the Ænigmas and Riddles which it was usual to propose as a trial of wit. See many of them in the Hervarer Saga. Both the riddle and answer, I believe, was usually sung in the manner of a little catch.
2. This is like our English Proverb, “Home is home, be it never so homely.”