In the following text it will be noted that in som e cases specificpage references are m issing from footnotes citing authoritativesources. W here this occurs it is due to one of two re a so n s: eitherthe w riter w as w orking from a MS translation of the originalw ork, or was using a copy of the original. In both cases the actualsources were not available at the tim e this p ap er w as w ritten.This paper, in a slightly different form , was originally p rep aredfor an d subm itted to the D epartm ent of Social Anthropology,U niversity of E dinburgh, in p artial fulfillm ent of the req u irem ents for the degree of H onours M.A.Grateful thanks are due to the following persons for p erm itting the w riter to m ake use of unpublished m aterial: ProfessorGeorg M orgenstierne of Oslo, L en n art Edelberg of Ribe, andKlaus F erd in an d of A arhus. I am also indebted to the latter twofor reading this in m anuscript an d for the illum inating discussions w hich followed.
