wooden sticks or pegs or weights such as were employed in scales were made use of in a like manner.47 Though any one might consult the gods in the ways mentioned, there seems no doubt that in connection with some of the pagan places of worship there were persons believed to be possessed of special skill in securing divine communications. In the ancient writings is mentioned a temple of Frey in charge of a woman one of whose functions was to consult the will of the deity. But the greatest oracle of the North was connected with the temple at Uppsala, which was well known beyond the boundaries of Sweden and was consulted by foreign rulers.48 Belief in That the Scandinavians of the ancient time believed firmly in a life beyond the grave is shown not only by the verbal testimony of the sagas but also by the elaborate equipment buried with the dead; and this equipment indicates that they expected to live in the hereafter very much as they did during their career in the flesh. But, as in the case of people of virtually all religions, Christianity included, -there was mental confusion and inconsistency with reference to just where the soul abode after death. The belief that after a long journey it dwelt with the gods in celestial regions existed side by side with worship on the grave mounds and the conviction that the soul lived within the mound. Also, change as well as confusion is discernible in connection with the belief in a special dwelling place for the spirits of the dead; in earlier times, Helheim was spoken of as the abode of all departed souls; later, during the Viking Age, when the warrior was especially exalted, Valhalla, the heaven of battle-slain 47 Petersen, Nordboernes Gudedyrkelse og Gudetro, 31-32. 48 Chadwick, "The Ancient Teutonic Priesthood," in Folklore, XI, 300. Norsemen, assumed a prominent place in the religious views of the North. And yet, there was uncertainty as to who should go to Valhalla after all, for some believed that those who met death otherwise than while fighting should abide there as well as the warriors.49 Christianity also made its influence felt, towards the close of the heathen period, in the Scandinavian attitude towards the after life. Since the purely heathen religion did not take cognizance of sin in the Christian sense, during early times there seems to have been no separation. of souls after death by classification into good and bad, righteous and wicked, though there was a conviction that the person who in the flesh had violated the ethical code of the time would be despised in the after life. But, later, a shadowy idea of a final doomsday was incorporated with the earlier belief, and, with it, a somewhat nebulous view that the virtuous as well as the merely brave would go to Valhalla, while blasphemy and baseness would close this place to even those displaying the greatest physical courage.50 tion Period Besides the instances already mentioned, the Christian religion influenced the people of the North in other ways before the new faith was actually adopted. The Transi- The Scandinavian warriors and merchants who wandered in foreign countries were the chief disseminators of Christian usages at home; and one practice to which the historical sources frequently refer as common among them should be first mentioned. This was "prime signing." They had themselves signed with the cross (prima signatio), even though they by no means accepted the faith of Christians; and neither did the ceremony presuppose that they had 49 Craigie, Religion of Ancient Scandinavia, 17. 50 Njála, 89. forsaken the gods of their fathers. Great advantage to trade came from this concession to the religion of the South, for Christians were much more willing to mingle with prime-signed men than with heathen who had not taken this step.51 By the opening of the tenth century a goodly proportion of the Scandinavian people had become somewhat familiar with the observances of the Christian religion, and upon the continent the Church counted many Northmen among its converts. In the western islands progress was slower, perhaps partly because some of the settlers affiliated with the defeated and dying Celtic Church and appear to have worshipped Columba, its leader during its days of prosperity, as half saint and half god.52 The introduction of Christianity into the North produced various gradations of views, as regards personal religion. Some men became frankly skeptical, abandoning the old deities but refusing to accept the new; others-probably only a few-adopted a deistic conception broader than either of the faiths with which they were acquainted, consisting of a belief in a great Creator and in the immortality of the soul, qualified by a realization of the limitation of human knowledge concerning matters divine. An Icelander of this class, Thorstein Ingemundsson, expressed the firm conviction that his dead father would enjoy a blissful reward for his piety "with him who created the sun and all the world, who ever he may be." 53 More were probably mixed in their faith, like Helge the Lean, who put his trust in Christ in some regards and named his homestead "Christness," "but yet would pray to Thor on sea voyages and in hard 51 Grettis Saga Asmundarsonar, 37; Njála, 158. 52 Origines Islandicae, I, 27, 28, 29, 32, 34. 53 Keyser, Nordmaendenes Religionsforfatning i Hedendommen, 176–177. stresses, and in all things that he thought were of most account to him." 54 Other Northmen, on the other hand, long refused even to compromise, and steadily held to the gods of their fathers, even though members of their family adopted the new religion; and thus relatives were estranged. Beorn, a Norwegian, was one of this conservative class. When he reached the Shetlands, where some of his family had preceded him, he found that his brother and sisters had adopted the new faith, and he "thought it a craven thing that they had thrown over the old way which their kinsmen had held and he could not rest there and would not make his abode there." Consequently, he departed and settled in Iceland.55 54 Origines Islandicae, I, 149. 55 Ibid., 258. CHAPTER XXIII SUPERSTITION There are beech-runes, help-runes, love-runes, and great power-runes, for whomsoever will, to have for charms, pure and genuine, till the world falls in ruin. Profit by them if thou canst. From a spell song in Volsunga Saga. the North men as Re Beliefs and No single people have the monopoly of superstitious ideas, and among no group of human beings do the superstitious beliefs and practices differ greatly from those found elsewhere; for unenlight- Status of ened minds react similarly to similar, uncomprehended phenomena. But the naïve sagas gards Su-unlike most of the European literature perstitious contemporary with them-present real crosssection views of life, colored with various Practices erroneous beliefs and numerous quaint misinterpretations of natural phenomena; and, in consequence, the superstitious views of the Northmen are revealed with unusual clearness, leaving the unjustifiable impression that these people were superstitious to a unique degree. As a matter of fact, they were probably no more characterized by superstition than the other Teutons, or the Celtic peoples of the Middle Ages; and they were probably less dominated by superstitious fear. Furthermore, in consideration of the lack of scientific knowledge in the Viking Age it seems probable that the ancient Scandinavians were freer from the taint of superstition than the people of the present period. They were, however, possessed of a large body of miscellaneous misbeliefs and distorted views which are of special interest |