In the Saga of Hakon the Good, Hakon's tolerance made him so beloved that even though he was a Christian, he was said to have gained entrance into Vallhöll because he had allowed the people to worship as they pleased and had not torn down the Heathen places of worship. After his rule it was much different with the kings that followed him, and seldom did a king of Norway end out his rule without revolt.

The truest, deepest spiritual satisfaction proceeds from joyfully lived duty, (frith) which is not by any means a yoke or set of constraints or restraints. It is exactly the opposite. It is a wide-open free path of constant reward for its adherent. It brings to him all material necessities, all social and spiritual satisfactions, and a life so lived is destined to continue on after he moves on to other worlds. Only in such a life here is he capable of living to the higher ideal of the higher realms, anything less and he will be trodden underfoot in situations beyond his ken or perhaps even his comprehension. This life on Mithgarthr is a practice field for what is to come. If his will and love are so intended, and though in the further worlds he will begin again anew as if a child, he will have earned the opportunity and built within himself the proper structure for his life to come.

The good names for such men of our old tongues were not used, as may be suggested by some, as mere pandering for favor by retainers or court skalds. They were honest descriptions of noble behavior. For the poet to say, for example, the leader was a 'hater of gold', a 'ring-breaker', a 'breaker of splendid wealth', 'money's enemy', a 'hater of the sea-fire', or that 'the chieftain has got rid of red wealth', shows that true men, and true leaders, were averse to hoarding and the showiness of material things, that in fact they felt demeaned and ignoble in setting what they had received before themselves as some gaudy symbol of their power, that in fact if they lived with the sword alone on which they slept. They would know the power within them to be highest, and the strength shared with them by their ancestors and Regin to be the most sublime. Wealth is often referred to as 'the heavy burden', and it was the highest manner of compliment that a man knew how to 'scatter' it away from himself. When the poet asks, 'Who knows how to diminish wealth?' he expects the answer to be 'he who cheats the light of his palm', the true ruler of the folk or household. In Havamal it says:

74. A man knows not,             if nothing he knows,
That gold oft apes begets;
One man is wealthy             and one is poor,
Yet scorn for him none should know. (Havamal 74)

75. Among Fitjung's sons saw I well-stocked folds,-
Now bear they the beggar's staff;
Wealth is as swift as a winking eye,
Of friends the falsest it is. (Havamal 75)

Leaders were said to 'benefit men with the destroyer-of-unity (gold)', to 'share out Grotti's bright snow (silver)', to 'throw wealth'. When frith and accomplishment are known in the land, it is said 'palm's-amber becomes quite normal to men, the gift is made real', and here 'gift' implies the living force of the leader's hammingja onto his folk. His ancestral 'gift' is making itself known in actual physical forms. There are those that would follow a leader with such an inner 'gift', whether they ever saw the sight of silver or not, for the impalpable, presently unseen reward of their troth to him or her is felt within them, it lives between their leader and themselves in strongly manifest force. There is no question of doubting it once it is felt.

This particular gift is shared out through absolute, surrendering trust in that higher power, and without that sense of true surrender it does not fully take life, yet when it does take root and take hold, higher Will blossoms within men, and higher Wit, and their determination ceases to turn toward temporal things, it turns toward those things which will live far beyond them. It nurtures the lives of their successors, it builds up for them a strong inner foundation for their lives beyond, and it grants them absolute utter personal freedom of expression, for the parameters it sets shapes their sense of ethics, their motivations, and their reason. As Havamal says, a good name never dies.

76. Cattle die, and kinsmen die,
And so one dies one's self;
But a noble name will never die,
If good renown one gets.
77. Cattle die,             and kinsmen die,
And so one dies one's self;
One thing I know              that never dies,
The fame of a dead man's deeds. (Havamal 76-77)

Such a person knew the value of wisdom over gold. Wealth is the 'falsest of friends' but wisdom, once gained, was a wealth that could never be taken from one and would bring more benefit than gold ever could.

11.A better burden             may no man bear
For wanderings wide than wisdom;
It is better than wealth             on unknown ways,
And in grief a refuge it gives. (Havamal 11)

19.He alone is aware             who has wandered wide,
And far abroad has fared,
How great a mind             is guided by him
That wealth of wisdom has. (Havamal 19)

There is no greater freedom, in any world, in any age, than to live such well-wrought duty, and nothing, by far, more beautiful, than its execution. It is life lived as poetry, as finely-tuned song; it is an elegant dance such as the turning stars burn forth, and just like the stars who are set in their places, yet burn brightly enough to be seen in every world – just as even after the destruction of their physical forms their light continues to reach all - so do those shine who live forever in the spirit of True duty.

Of freedom, the ancestors prized above life and it was thought the highest praise to be willing to give up life in the fight for freedom. The land of Iceland as well as America, was first settled by those fleeing tyranny in search of a land where they could live free. As the Havamal verse says below, better to be master of little than to have more but be slave to others.

36. Forth shall one go,             nor stay as a guest
In a single spot forever;
Love becomes loathing             if long one sits
By the hearth in another's home.
Better a house,             though a hut it be,
A man is master at home;
A pair of goats and a patched-up roof
Are better far than begging.
37. Better a house,             though a hut it be,
A man is master at home;
His heart is bleeding             who needs must beg
When food he fain would have. (Havamal 36-37)

Always it is better to do something oneself whenever possible instead of depending on another person to do it. The more one can do for oneself the more free one is.

9. Happy the one who wins for himself
Favour and praises fair;
Less safe by far is the wisdom found
That is hid in another's heart.

10. Happy the man who has while he lives
Wisdom and praise as well,
For evil counsel a man full oft
Has from another's heart. (Havamal 9-10)