To Compel the Stingy

 What Scyld heard from Heimdall:

But if their hearts are hardened, void of love
For one another, gifts now foreign, strange,
Uncertain, then these craven souls shall be
Enthralled that they might give again, constrained
Against their stinginess to recompense
The doors upon their hinges closed where doors
Ought open be, to welcome guests. For fear
Has overtaken many, spoiled all
The networks gift-for-gift in Yuletime mood
That everyday took care of vital need.



Tacitus, Germania :

Frumenti modum dominus, aut pecoris aut vestis, ut colono, injungit.
"A certain measure of grain or cattle or clothing was imposed upon them by their lord, like a tenant-farmer."

The thralls, who had broken the chain of the gift-redistribution cycle which Tacitus previously described :

Mos est civitatibus ultro ac viritim conferre principibus vel armentorum vel frugum, quod pro honore acceptum, etiam necessitatibus subvenit.

"It is the custom of the communities to voluntarily and man-by-man bestow on their chiefs cattle and crops, which are accepted as a mark of honor as well as to assist them in their needs."

To break the gift circulation that is the heartblood of the community, and how it feeds needs -- whether under mark of fear or of greed -- reduces the wealth of the community, creates strife, closes doors, and the Gods wish open doors. Those who do not come up to their full robustness, the fruiting of all fertility within their grasp, particularly those talents Gods-given, may be compelled to give where they are stingy. This interferes with some people's tainted, corrupted notion of freedom, but this just shows they do not understand freedom at all. It is a fullness meant to fruit the larger folk.