superstition were immediately treated with such distinguished honours by the assembled multitude, and promised by the priests such superlative felicity hereafter, that they not unfrequently rejoiced in the fate they were about to suffer.

Upon any particular emergency, however, to avert, for instance, a famine or a pestilence, or to secure some important victory, they hesitated not to spill the blood even of their nobles or kings. The first king of Vermland, a province of Sweden, was thus burnt, in order to arrest the progress of a dearth.* Hacon, king of Norway, sacrificed his son to Odin, with the view of obtaining the victory over his enemy Harald; and Aune, king of Sweden, devoted his nine sons to Odin, for the selfish purpose of prolonging his own life.

Various ceremonies were observed at the immolation of these unfortunate wretches.

* Wormii Monument. Danic. page 25.

+ Saxo Grammat. Lib. 10.

Worm. Monument. Danic. Lib. 1, page 28.

They were usually led before the altar where burnt the sacred fire, and where was placed a considerable number of iron and brazen vessels, to receive the blood of the victims.

If animals were merely sacrificed, their entrails were inspected whilst yet warm, auguries thence deduced, and the carcases dressed for the assembly, who, without distinction, kings, nobles and people, sate down to consume even the flesh of horses, with the utmost avidity.

When men were the victims, the priest, after consecration, exclaimed, "I send or devote thee to Odin," and immediately they were killed in the most expeditious manner, and their blood sprinkled upon the people, upon the altars, images, and walls of the temple, and upon the sacred grove which covered its precincts. Their bodies were either afterwards burnt, or, what was more usually the case, suspended in the sacred grove.

This tremendous grove, which consisted of very large and aged trees, and which was distinguished by the appellation of Odin's

Grove, was an object of extreme reverence and awe; every tree and every leaf was deemed sacred, and what greatly added to the solemnity and horror its gloomy shades inspired, was the circumstance of its being full of the bodies of men and animals who had been sacrificed, and who hung on the branches of this wood, until they were taken and burnt, in honour either of Odin or of Thor.

Lucan has, in his Pharsalia, most ad mirably described a grove of this kind, an object of religious veneration to the Massilians, and of extreme terror to the soldiers of Cæsar.

Lucus erat longo nunquam violatus ab ævo, &c.
Not far away for ages past had stood
An old inviolated sacred wood;

Whose gloomy boughs, thick interwoven, made
A chilly, chearless everlasting shade;
There, nor the rustic gods, nor satyrs sport,
Nor fawns and sylvans with the nymphs resort:
But barb'rous priests some dreadful power adore,
And lustrate every tree with human gore.
If mysteries in times of old received,
And pious ancientry be yet believed,

There nor the feather'd songster builds her nest,
Nor lonely dens conceal the savage beast:
There no tempestuous winds presume to fly,
Ev'n light'nings glance aloof, and shoot obliquely by.
No wanton breezes toss the dancing leaves,
But shiv'ring horror in the branches heaves.
Black springs with pitchy streams divide the ground,
And bubbling tumble with a sullen sound.
Old images of forms mishapen stand,
Rude and unknowing of the artist's hand;
With hoary filth begrim'd, each ghastly head
Strikes the astonish'd gazer's soul with dread.
No gods, who long in common shapes appear'd,
Were e'er with such religious awe rever❜d:
But zealous crouds in ignorance adore,'
And still the less they know, they fear the more.
Oft, as fame tells, the earth in sounds of woe
Is heard to groan from hollow depths below:
The baleful yew, tho' dead, has oft been seen
To rise from earth, and spring with dusky green;
With sparkling flames the trees unburning shine,
And round their boles prodigious serpents twine.
The pious worshippers approach not near,

But shun their gods, and kneel with distant fear:
The priest himself, when, or the day, or night,
Rolling have reach'd their full meridian height,
Refrains the gloomy paths with wary feet,
Dreading the Demon of the Grove to meet;
Who, terrible to sight, at that fix'd hour,
Still treads the round about his dreary bower.

Rowe,

The mode in which the victims were sacrificed in honour of Hertha, was sometimes different from that used on the altars of Odin and Thor. In the neighbourhood of the temple was a deep well, and into this the selected captive was thrown headlong. If he immediately descended to the bottom, the favourable acceptance of the Goddess was confidently inferred; but if he swam and struggled long upon the surface of the water, she was deemed to have refused the proffered sacrifice.

Not only at Upsal, but in Denmark, Norway and Iceland, were these sanguinary rites established, and though not accompanied by so much splendour, were not less destructive of human life. Dithmar, Bishop of Merseburgh, an historian of the eleventh century, relates, that at Lederum in Zealand, at that time the capital of Denmark, “every nine years, in the month of January, the Danes flock together in crowds, and offer to their gods ninety-nine men, as many horses, dogs and cocks, with the certain hope of peasing the gods by these victims."* Similar

* Dithm. Merseburg. Chronic. Lib. 1. page 12.

ap