Full resolution (JPEG) - On this page / på denna sida - II. Land and People from the Heathen Period
<< prev. page << föreg. sida << >> nästa sida >> next page >>
Below is the raw OCR text
from the above scanned image.
Do you see an error? Proofread the page now!
Här nedan syns maskintolkade texten från faksimilbilden ovan.
Ser du något fel? Korrekturläs sidan nu!
This page has been proofread at least once.
(diff)
(history)
Denna sida har korrekturlästs minst en gång.
(skillnad)
(historik)
was enforced [1], and mere participation therein
imported peace between the rival races [2]. Under the
shield of peace the sacrifice with the attendant
banquet was prepared; deliberations were held,
sentence passed, and traffic conducted, for which
reason Ting, the old name of these conventions,
means both sacrifice, banquet, diet, assize, and
fair [3]. Odin it is said took possession of the land
by erecting a temple and sacrificing after the
manner of the Asae, and the people paid tribute to
him, that he might sacrifice in their behalf for a
plentiful harvest. Thus the right of property, as
well as agriculture, proceeded from the gods.
The herds of our forefathers constituted their
principal wealth; whence they used the word (fä,
cattle) as synonymous with property in general,
and sought for no other standard of value. Upon
the celebration of the great national sacrifices in
Upsala was founded the claim and right of the
Swedes to give a sovereign to the whole realm, for
the Upsala king was guardian of the holy altar, as
the heathen Scald calls him [4]. The household no
less than the commonwealth was based upon the
worship of the gods, and therefore the particle ve,
vi, occurring in the name of so many places,
means both a dwelling generally and a sanctuary [5].
The father of a family, on the pillars surrounding
whose high seat were carved the images of the
gods [6], was called himself, like the prince, Drott,
and was priest, judge, and leader for his household.
Marriage, as conformable to law, was distinguished
from irregular connexions, but did not exclude
them. Along with his wedded wife, who was
called Adalkona [7], a man might without blame
keep concubines; but the heritable estate passed
to the legitimate children, although the illegitimate
were not otherwise excluded from all inheritance.
As with the Greeks and Romans, and among all
Pagans, the father was free either to expose or
bring up a new-born child; in the latter case he
raised it from the earth in his arms, and had it
sprinkled with water and named in the presence
of his chief kinsmen. A purchase concluded with
the father or the nearest relative (though it was
rather a symbolical expression for contract
generally), was the legal form of matrimony, and made
the children legitimately born (lagfödda). The
legally married spouse, as distinguished from the
woman who had been seduced or stolen away in
war, was said to be won ‘by gifts and speech’ [8], or
was, as in Homer, bought with presents [9]. The
gods took to themselves wives after the same
fashion [10]. Thor’s hammer, laid upon the knee of
the veiled bride, inaugurated her into her new
destiny [11], as the same sign consecrated the funeral
pile on which the dead were burned [12]. The god’s
mace is probably symbolized also by the wedge-shaped
pebbles, so often met with in old graves,
and called by the common people Thor’s wedges
(Thorviggar). Adoration of the gods, as among
almost all nations, was united with the
commemoration of the dead. Hence their assemblies for
religious solemnities were called höga-tings [13], as the
sacrifices were for the most part offered at the
barrows in which their relics were inclosed. Here
also were held the kemp-games, athletic sports of
a jovial and martial character; whence the sagas
speak of the play-grounds (leke-valla) in the
neighbourhood of the ting-sites, of which names and
customs still observed in some places revive the
remembrance. After the introduction of Christianity,
too, we find the churches, in allusion to this old
usage, not unfrequently built in the vicinity of
heathen places of burial. For this life as for that
to come, an oath was regarded as the strongest
bond. After death, the perjurer wandered with
the murderer and the adulterer “in streams of
venom, at the strand of corpses remote from the
sun, in the castle which is woven of the spines of
snakes [14],” and among the common people of Sweden
a saying yet holds, that no grass will grow on the
grave of a perjurer.
The same religion which in certain conjunctures
lent its sanction to peace, made vengeance for
bloodshed the holiest of duties [15], and thereby
generated incessant feuds, the bitterness of which was
little mitigated by the determinate fines through
which the laws opened a path to reconciliation. A
violent death was deemed so pleasing to the gods,
that it was not sought for in the field of battle only;
“to gash oneself to Odin with the sword” was
deemed better than to die of sickness or of old age.
Those who were advanced in years precipitated
themselves from lofty cliffs, which thence received
the appellation of kith-rocks, and so “fared to
Valhalla [16].” Three such cliffs in West-Gothland and
Bleking still bear the latter name [17], and to another
<< prev. page << föreg. sida << >> nästa sida >> next page >>
