des these minor
worships there is the public one, connected with a large tribe or
with a king's court. A temple on the same plan as a large
dwelling-house forms a place of meeting and of sacrifice, an asylum,
and a place of oaths and covenants. On a table in front of the high
seat stands the bowl which, filled with blood and along with certain
sticks, forms a means of divination. A gold ring also lies there,
which a man puts on when he is about to swear an oath, and which the
priest puts on at meetings.

The priest has the duty of keeping up the building and property of
the temple and of maintaining the sacrifices. At the latter various
rites are done with the blood of victims, and those present feast on
the flesh and drink toasts. The first cup is for Wodan, various other
gods are celebrated, and there is a cup of remembrance for the
departed. Sacrifices are offered for the crops, for victory, for any
great object on which the community is bent. In this ritual there is
no evidence of any idols. Though the Icelanders are not without art,
the great gods have not yet perhaps assumed to their minds such
definite figures as to be thus set forth: no Homer has placed them
clear before the inward eye. The rites are bloody, the altar has ever
anew to be made to shine with the blood of victims. Human sacrifices
are only resorted to in times of great common danger, as a terrible
last resort; the god to whom the human victim is devoted is moved by
the bloodshed to avert his anger, or to make greater exertions for
his people. Bloodshed forms the strongest of all bonds. To link
themselves together in an indissoluble brotherhood, two friends
mingle their blood on the ground and then each of them treads on it.
The shedding of human blood at the launching of a ship or at the
laying of the foundation of a building is also known. Savage and
cruel as this religion is, there are signs that it is softening, and
that some of its darker rites are beginning to admit of commutation.
When Christianity approaches, the Icelanders feel that it must make a
great change, and that some of the cruelties which they regard as the
good old customs, will have to be laid aside. We hear of the
stipulation being made that if they receive baptism they shall not be
required to give up the removal of unpromising children nor the
eating of horseflesh.

The Eddas, in which Scandinavian mythology reaches its ultimate form,
seem to belong to a higher plane of hum