The Religion of Ancient Scandinavia
Chapter 3
Another offence which is frequently mentioned is that of slaying a man in a holy place; in this connection, however, the regular word used is not hof but vé, which has a more general meaning. One who committed this offence incurred the penalty of outlawry, and was designated by the name of vargr í véum, 'wolf in holy places.' The same view of bloodshed as a crime against the sanctity of a holy place is illustrated in the cases of Thorsness and Stödvar-firth in Iceland, where the killing of anything was forbidden. In the case of Thorsness it was decided, after a battle had taken place there, that it was defiled by the blood that had fallen on it, and 'was now no more holy than other places.'
Along with the timber-buildings known as hof, there is frequent mention, both in the historical and legendary sources of other sacred places called hörgar. In its simplest form the hörg was evidently a kind of stone-altar or sacrificial cairn standing in the open air; in modern Norwegian and Icelandic the word is applied to a mountain-top. This is most clearly indicated by the words of Hyndlu-ljóð, where Freyja says of Ottar, 'He made me a hörg, piled up with stones; now these stones are turned to glass. He reddened it in the fresh blood of oxen. Ottar always believed in the goddesses.' In contrast to the burning of temples, the usual expression for the destroying of hörgar is 'breaking,' which also indicates a structure of stones. In some cases, however, the name of hörg seems to be applied to something more approaching the nature of the hof; this not only appears to be implied in the use of 'timbered,' which occurs in at least two poetic passages, but is also suggested by the wording of the old Norwegian law, 'if a man raises a mound (haug), or makes a house, and calls it a hörg,' etc. The stone altars or cairns would naturally be more primitive places of worship than the temples, but they continued in use along with these down to the disappearance of the old religion. The altar in the temple, indeed, was no doubt the representative of the earlier and ruder one in the open air, for both are spoken of as being 'reddened' with the blood of the sacrifice.
It has been already made clear that the gods worshipped were represented in the temples by images, which in the historical accounts are called by the naems of líkneski ('likeness') and skurð-goð ('carved gods,' probably an epithet applied by Christians). The descriptions given by Adam of Bremen of those which stood in the temple at Upsala has already been quoted (p. 4); here it is only necessary to add that in no other writing of historical value is there any mention of an image of Odin. With Thor the case is very different. Another image of this deity is mentioned by Adam himself, who relates that about the year 1030 an English missionary in Sweden found it standing in the assembly-place of the heathens. In his religious zeal he smashed it with an axe, and was at once put to death by the angry-worshippers. Images of Thor are also frequently referred to in the Icelandic sagas. In the year 998, when King Olaf Tryggvason was christianising Norway, he entered the temple at Mærin in Thrandheim, 'and when the king came where the gods were, there sat Thor, adorned with gold and silver, and was most honoured of all the gods.' In the fullest account of this incident it is stated that the image was seated in a splendid chariot, to which were harnessed two goats beautifully carved out of wood; both chariot and goats were on wheels, and the cords attached to the goats' horns were of silver. Thor in his chariot is also mentioned as one of the images in the temple belonging to Earl Hákon and Gudbrand in the Dales, which is described in Njál's Saga. There is no mention of the chariot, however, in the account of this image given in connection with King Olaf's visit to the Dales in 1021. There it is said to have been 'of great stature, and hollow inside, with the hammer in his hand; under him there is a kind of pedestal or platform, on which he stands when he is outside; and on him there is no lack of gold and silver.' This image was carried out to the place where the people of the district held their meeting with Olaf, and those already assembled there paid homage to it. It was set down in the middle of the ground, and on one side of it sat the heathens, and on the other the king and his followers. It is also related that at the battle of Svöldr in the year 1000, Earl Eirík had an image of Thor in the prow of his ship, but threw it aside and put a cross in its place when he found his men unable to board Olaf Tryggvason's vessel.
Mention has already been made (pp. 7-8) of the likeness of Thor carved on the chief pillars of the temple in Mostr, and no doubt similar representations of the god were not uncommon. In that part of the story of Thormod the poet which takes place in Greenland, about 1027, a large chair is described as having on its back an image of Thor with his hammer.
That some at least of the other gods were similarly represented in the temples may be assumed as beyond doubt, but the evidence on this point is very scanty. It seems likely that there was an image of Frey at Thrandheim, and it is highly probable that this god would be largely figured in Sweden, although the texts in which there is mention of this are of a very legendary character. It is doubtful, also, whether any reliance can be placed on the passage in Droplaugarsona Saga, which describes Frey and Thor as sitting on the lower bench in a temple, while Frigg and Freyja occupied the higher. More historical, perhaps, is the image of Frey which ornamented the talisman given by King Harald to Ingimund
(p. 25).
In the traditions connected with Earl Hákon there are several references to an image of Thorgerd. The earl is related to have taken Sigmund Brestisson to a secluded building in the forest, in which there were 'a number of gods.' At the inner end of the house was the image of a woman splendidly dressed. What follows is of a legendary character, but the building and image appear again in the story of Olaf Tryggvason, who not only stripped Thorgerd of all her 'gold and silver and good clothes,' but dragged the image at a horse's tail, knocked it to pieces with a club, and finally burned it along with that of Frey. In Njál's Saga, Earl Hákon and Gudbrand are said to have had a great temple in the Dales in which there were images of Thorgerd and Irpa; the former was as tall as a full-grown man, and had a large gold ring on her arm and a hood on her head. These accounts may have a foundation in fact, but that given in Harðar Saga of a temple in Iceland with an image of Thorgerd is probably mere invention, perhaps an echo of the passage in Njál's Saga.
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