The Religion of the Northmen
Chapter XX
Of the sacred buildings devoted to the worship of the Gods, two kinds are spoken of as being universal, namely, Hörg and Hof.
Hörg (hörgr, plur. hörgar) is the oftenest named in the ancient poems, sagas and laws, (1) but it is not particularly described; it is distinguished, however, from Hof, which was an appellation for the proper temples. (2) The Hörgar, so far as is known, were a kind of Stone-Altars or places of sacrifices under the open sky and surrounded by an inclosure of stones. They were consecrated to certain Deities; sometimes, perhaps, when they consisted of a single stone, regarded as statues or representatives of the Gods, and were besmeared with blood at the sacrifices. Thus it is stated in the Eddaic poem Hyndluljóð, where Freyja is introduced speaking to her favorite Ottar:
"A Hörg he made me
Built up of stone,
---- Now is the stone
Changed into glass----
He sprinkled it over
With the fresh blood of oxen;
Ottar trusted ever
To the Asynjur." (3)
Of Alfhild, a king's daughter, it is said that she was carried off by Starkað one night while she was sprinkling the Hörg with blood at a sacrifice to the Dísir. (4) We probably yet see the remains of such Hörgar in many of the stone-settings which are found in Norway and the neighboring countries. Especially is it likely that the stone-circles, which consist of large upright stones, somewhat pointed at the top and placed at moderate intervals from each other, belonged to this kind of sacrificial places, and perhaps the stones represented the statues of the Gods there worshiped. The great simplicity of these places of sacrifice, warrants the presumption that they are a more ancient arrangement than the actual temples.
The temples of the heathen Northmen were most usually called hof; they were also called goðahús (House of the Gods) or blóthús (House of Sacrifice). None of these buildings are left standing, so far as is known, not even any ruins of them, which might afford us some idea of their construction; for the first propagators of Christianity were very careful to have every building of the kind destroyed, or at least transformed into a Christian church, and under the transformation the older form was soon no longer to be recognized. We must, therefore, be content with the ancient descriptions, some of which, as they are found in our Sagas, are tolerably complete.
When the Norse Chieftain Thorolf Mostrarskegg left Norway in order to settle in Iceland, he tore down the temple of Thor on the Island Moster, which he had presided over, and took with him most of the timber, together with the earth beneath the platform on which Thor's statue had been seated. When he had come to Iceland and had there, according to Thor's directions---or rather, according to the directions of the Sacred Columns upon which Thor's image was carved (5)---selected his place of abode at Thorsnes on the southern side of Breiðafjörd, he built on the spot a large hof of the same timber and probably in the same form as the torn-down temple of Moster. The door of this temple was in the side-wall, near one end; within the door stood the sacred columns, and in them there were nails which were called reginnaglar (nails of the Gods), but of their meaning no information is given. Within this house there was another, like the choir in Christian churches, and here, in the middle of the floor, stood a platform (stallr), and an altar upon which lay a ring with the ends unjoined (hríngr mótlauss) weighing two ounces. By this ring all oaths were taken, and the ruler was to wear it upon his arm at all meetings. On the platform stood the bowl for the sacrificial blood (laut-bolli), in which was the laut-teinn, a kind of sprinkling-rod with which they sprinkled the laut, or blood of animals sacrificed to the Gods. Around about the platform within the smaller house (afhúsit), were placed the statues of the Gods. Near at hand was the Doomring (dómhríngr), within which human beings were doomed to sacrifice, and within this ring stood Thor's Stone, upon which the victims were broken when about to be offered up. It was believed that traces of blood were still visible upon this stone long after the introduction of Christianity. (6)
The Icelandic chieftain Thorgrim, a son of the Northman Helgi Bjola, was a great performer of sacrifices. On his farm-land (tún) at Kjalarnes, in southwestern Iceland, he raised a temple one hudnred feet long by sixty wide, in which Thor received the highest honors. It was built round inside like a cap (with a vaulted roof), and was all tented overhead (hung with tapestry). Thor's statue stood in the middle, the other Gods upon both sides. Before Thor stood an elevated place (stallr), made with great art, and covered on the top with iron. Upon this burned a fire which was never extinguished, called the sacred fire; there lay, also, upon it a large ring of silver which the hof-goði was to wear on his arm at all meetings, and by which all were to swear. There was, besides, upon it a large copper bowl, into which they collected the blood of the animals or men that were given to Thor. This they called laut or lautbolli, and out of it the people and cattle were to be sprinkled. The victim was to be served up at the banquet, but the human beings that were sacrificed, were thrown, after being killed, into a swampy pool near the door, which was called the sacrificial pool (blót-kéllda). (7)
By the former of these descriptions, which is undoubtedly very credible, it may be seen that in the heathen temples of the ancient Northmen, there was sometimes a distinction made between the inner Most-Holy, where the statues of the Gods were placed, and the outer part of the temple, doubtless the most spacious part, in which it may be presumed the sacrificial banquets were held. It must, therefore, have been this last-named part of the temple that is described elsewhere in the Sagas as being so constructed as to have fires burning along the floor, with the flesh-pots hanging over them and with seats upon each side for the accomodation of the guests. (8) This outer part of the temple is, doubtless, the same building which in other places is called the Dísarsalr. For instance, in Frithjof's Saga this is described as being the highest among the buildings of the temple in Baldur's grove, and constructed for the festivals with fires along the floor and seats upon the sides. (9) In the Ynglinga Saga, the Dísar hall of the temple at Upsala is described as having been so large that King Adils rode around inside of it. (10) It was necessary, also, that the building in which all the people of a large district were to assemble at the sacrificial festivals, should be very capacious. It is, moreover, possible that this special arrangement was peculiar to the public temples, which were common to the inhabitants of a whole district (fylki) or large portion of the country, while the smaller temples, which were often to be regarded as only the house-chapels of private individuals, were constructed in a different manner and perhaps more in accordance with the second of the above-mentioned ones.
We also find allusions to high board-fences (skiðgarðar, mod. Norw. Skidgaarde) surrounding the temples, and metallic rings, which were in the temple doors, probably for the purpose of drawing them up. In the door of the temple of Hlaði there was a ring, which was thought to be of gold, but which was afterwards discovered to be of copper within.
The temples of Norway, as well as all other buildings in that country in the earliest times, were built of wood; at least, we never find any temple of stone expressly mentioned, nor is it certain that the Northmen out of Norway---in Sweden, Denmark, or other countries---erected their temples of any more durable material.
When we find in many places in the Sagas, that the temples, especially the smaller ones, are spoken of as being tented inside or hung with tapestry, there is nothing improbable therein, for such decorations were much used in the houses of the Norse Chieftains of antiquity; but when it is said of the temple in which Hákon Jarl worshiped Thorgerd Hörgabrúd, that it was inwardly adorned with inlayings of gold and silver, and furnished with so many glass windows (glar-gluggar), that there was nowhere any shadow, it may be received as one of the embellishments added to the legend by a later age. Neither can we place implicit confidence in the glowing descriptions given of the Temple at Upsala, by Adam Bremen and his commentator; for as the former speaks of it being "all decorated with gold" (so must we understand totum ex auro paratum), and the latter tells of the ever-green tree that grew by it, it appears that through ignorance they transferred the myths of the "gold-roofed Valhalla" and the "ever-green Ash Yggdrasill" to that last celebrated relic of the heathen worship of the Northmen. (11)
The temples were sometimes dedicated to a single Deity, but much more frequently to several of them; there is even an account of one in Gothland containing one hundred statues of the Gods; (12) a statement, however, which appears to be exaggerated. But even when there were many Gods worshiped in a temple, it was mostly but one or two that occupied the first rank; and it has already been observed that in Norway and Iceland, Thor usually enjoyed this honor. (13)
The temples were looked upon as sacred and inviolate; no deed of violence could be committed with impunity within their walls, nor upon their grounds. This sacredness was expressed in the ancient language by the name of Ve; and whosoever violated it was called "vargr i veum"---a wolf in the sanctuary---and was declared an outlaw to all persons. We find in the Sagas many traces of the veneration of the ancient Northmen for their temples. Of the great sanctity which rested upon the temple in Baldur's grove, in Sokn, we have before spoken. When the Icelander Hrapp had burned the temple in Gudbrandsdal, which Hákon Jarl and Dala-Guðbrand owned in fellowship, the Jarl declared the deed to be one which should shut out the perpetrator from Valhalla. The aforementioned Icelandic settler Thorolf Mostrarskegg, regarded as sacred the whole promontory of Thorsnes, which received its name because of Thor's image had drifted to land there, and because the temple of Thor was erected upon it. The ground should not be defiled by blood shed in anger (heiptarblóð), nor by any of the baser necessities of nature; for the later a rock along the coast was appointed. There was one isolated rocky hill upon the promontory which Thorolf held in special veneration. It was named Helgafell---the Holy Rock---and Thorolf believed that an abode was prepared in it for him and his family after death. It was so very holy that no one could look upon it before he had washed himself, and it was a place of refuge for both man and beast. Thorolf established a Heraðs-Þing----a district court of justice---upon the extremity of the promontory. After his death, some of those who attended the court would not take the trouble to go out upon the rocks to attend to the calls of nature; thereupon arose a battle between those refractory persons and the inhabitants of Thorsnes. The Assembling-place (Þingvöllr) became defiled with blood, and this gave occasion for it to be removed higher up the promontory, for the ground upon which it had been could not now be considered holier than any other. (14) When the Norse chieftain Thorhadd the Old, who had been hofgoði at Mæri in Throndheim, went over to Iceland, he took down the temple beforehand and carried with him the hof-mold (mold or earth under the foundations of the temple) together with the sacred columns. He settled on Stöðvar-fjörð, on the eastern coast of Iceland, whither he transferred the sacredness of Mæri (Mærina helgi) to the whole Fjörð. He allowed no living being to be killed there, except the cattle that he required to be slaughtered for his household. (15)
It was not lawful to bear arms into the temples. When King Olaf Tryggvason went into the temple at Mæri, it is related that those of his men and the countrymen who followed him were unarmed; the king himself had only a gold-mounted staff or mace in his hand. (16) The Northman Hrafn had to give up to the Icelandic chieftain and hof-goði Ingemund a splendid sword in forfeiture, because he had, while absorbed in conversation with the chieftain, heedlessly entered with his sword in hand into the temple in Vatnsdal, which the latter presided over. "It is not the custom," said Ingemund to him, "to bear arms into the temple, and thou wilt be exposed to the wrath of the Gods if thou do not make atonement." It would be safest, he added, for Hrafn to give him the sword, and thus enable him to appease the wrath of the Gods. (17)
The temples were supported partly by the income of landed property which was bestowed upon them and partly by the so-called temple-tax (hoftollr), a contribution which had to be paid by all who frequented a particular temple. Of the first-mentioned kind the so-called Uppsala-auðr (Upsala property), in Sweden, appears to have been. It was possessions belonging to the temple at Upsala, and its directors were the kings of that place. (18) Similar Temple-lands are spoken of in Iceland; for instance, it is related of the goði Jörund Hrafnsson, who erected a temple on his estate Svertingstad in the East Fjörðung of Iceland, that he appropriated to himself a large tract of unoccupied land and bestowed it on the temple. (19) The temple-tax or contribution was universal in Iceland, as in all probability it was also in Norway, and is similar to the Tithes, which in Christian times have been paid to the Church. The superintendent of the temple---hof-goði or hof-gyðia---received the contribution and made use of it together with the temple possessions, but in return had to take charge of the temple and keep it in repair.
It may be assumed that many temples in Norway, even chief-temples, which were attended by the whole population of a Fylki or Province, were actually the private property of certain chieftains who had erected them in the first place and presided over them, and in whose family this supremacy or priesthood afterward became hereditary. It thus becomes explicable how such chieftains could have authority to tear down temples and take them along when they left the country, as we have above seen was the case both with the temple of Mæri in Throndheim, which appears to have been a Chief-Temple of the inhabitants of Inner-Throndheim, and with the temple on Moster. (20)
Endnotes
1. Landnmb. II., 16; Orv. Odds S. 29; Older Gula-Þing Laws, cap. 29. [Back]
2. The O. Edda: Völuspá 7; Vafþr. 38; Helgakv. Hjörv. 4. [Back]
3. The O. Edda: Hyndluljóð 10. [Back]
4. Hervarar S. 1. [Back]
5. See above, Chap. XIX. [Back]
6. Eyrb. S. 4, 10; Landnmb. II., 12. [Back]
7. Kjalnes S. 2. [Back]
8. Snor.: Hák. Góð. S. 16. [Back]
9. Friðþ. S. 5, 9. [Back]
10. Snor.: Ynglinga S. 33. [Back]
11. Ad. Brem.: de situ Daniæ, 133. [Back]
12. Jomsv. S. in Fornm. S. XI. 12. [Back]
13. Chap. XVII. [Back]
14. Eyrb. S. 4, 9, 10. [Back]
15. Landnmb. IV. 6. [Back]
16. Ol. Tr. S. in Fornm. S. II. 167. [Back]
17. Vatnsd. S. 16. [Back]
18. Snor.: Yngl. S., 12; compare with Ol. Hel. S. 76. [Back]
19. Landnmb. V. 3. [Back]
20. Landnmb. IV., 6; Eyrb. S. 3. [Back]
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