In Norway, Saint Olaf
did the like, killing and torturing those who held by the old gods--
Thor, Odin, and Freya, and the rest. So, partly by force and partly
because they were somewhat tired of bloodshed, horsefights, and the
rest, they received the word of the white Christ and were baptised,
and lived by written law, and did not avenge themselves by their own
hands.
They were Christians now, but they did not forget the old times, the
old feuds and fightings and Bersarks, and dealings with ghosts, and
with dead bodies that arose and wrought horrible things, haunting
houses and strangling men. The Icelandic ghosts were able-bodied,
well "materialised," and Grettir and Olaf Howard's son fought them
with strength of arm and edge of steel. TRUE stories of the ancient
days were told at the fireside in the endless winter nights by story
tellers or Scalds. It was thought a sin for any one to alter these
old stories, but as generations passed more and more wonderful
matters came into the legend. It was believed that the dead Gunnar,
the famed archer, sang within his cairn or "Howe," the mound wherein
he was buried, and his famous bill or cutting spear was said to have
been made by magic, and to sing in the night before the wounding of
men and the waking of war. People were thought to be "second-
sighted"--that is, to have prophetic vision. The night when Njal's
house was burned his wife saw all the meat on the table "one gore of
blood," just as in Homer the prophet Theoclymenus beheld blood
falling in gouts from the walls, before the slaying of the Wooers.
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