protected by the king, even at the cost of his life.

But gentle birth and birth royal place certain families above the common
body of freemen (landed or not); and for a commoner to pretend to a
king's daughter is an act of presumption, and generally rigorously
resented.

The "smith" was the object of a curious prejudice, probably akin to that
expressed in St. Patrick's "Lorica", and derived from the smith's having
inherited the functions of the savage weapon-maker with his poisons and
charms. The curious attempt to distinguish smiths into good and
useful swordsmiths and base and bad goldsmiths seems a merely modern
explanation: Weland could both forge swords and make ornaments of
metal. Starcad's loathing for a smith recalls the mockery with which the
Homeric gods treat Hephaistos.

Slavery.--As noble birth is manifest by fine eyes and personal beauty,
courage and endurance, and delicate behaviour, so the slave nature
is manifested by cowardice, treachery, unbridled lust, bad manners,
falsehood, and low physical traits. Slaves had, of course, no right
either of honour, or life, or limb. Captive ladies are sent to a
brothel; captive kings cruelly put to death. Born slaves were naturally
still less considered, they were flogged; it was disgraceful to
kill them with honourable steel; to accept a slight service from a
slave-woman was beneath old Starcad's dignity. A man who loved another
man's slave-woman, and did base service to her master to obtain her as
his consort, was looked down on. Slaves frequently ran away to escape
punishment for carelessness, or fault, or to gain liberty.