("Beowulf's Lay".) "Suicide" .-- This was more honourable than what Earl Siward of Northumberland called a "cow-death." Hadding resolves to commit suicide at his friend's death.

Wermund resolves to commit suicide if his son be slain (in hopelessness of being able to avenge him, cf.

"Njal's Saga", where the hero, a Christian, prefers to perish in his burning house than live dishonoured, "for I am an old man and little fitted to avenge my sons, but I will not live in shame").

Persons commit suicide by slaying each other in time of famine; while in England (so Baeda tells) they "decliffed" themselves in companies, and, as in the comic little Icelandic tale Gautrec's birth, a Tarpeian death is noted as the customary method of relieving folks from the hateful starvation death.

It is probable that the violent death relieved the ghost or the survivors of some inconveniences which a "straw death" would have brought about.
"Procedure by Wager of Battle" .-- This archaic process pervades Saxo's whole narrative.