Page:A history of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages, volume 3.djvu/423

 NORSE MAGIC. 407 God would vouchsafe to overcome the devil. Tapers and vest- ments and holy water and sacred texts were too much for the evil spirits ; the king's ships sailed into the fiord with smooth water around them, though everywhere else the waves ran high enough to hide the mountains : Raud was captured, and, as he ob- stinately refused baptism, Olaf put him to the most cruel death that his ingenuity could devise.* The sorcerer also had endless power of creating illusions. A beleaguered wizard could cause a flock of sheep to appear like a band of warriors hastening to his assistance. Yet this would ap- pear superfluous, since by his glances alone he could convulse nature and cause instant death. Gunhild, who married King Eric Blood- Axe, says of the two Lap sorcerers who taught her magic : " When they are angry the very earth turns away in terror and whatever living thing they look upon falls dead." When she be- trayed them to Eric she cast them into a deep sleep and drew seal- skin bags over their heads, so that Eric and his men could despatch them in safety. Similarly when Olaf Pa surprised Stigandi asleep he drew a skin over the wizard's head. There chanced to be a small hole in it through which Stigandi's glance fell upon the grassy slope of an opposite mountain, whereupon the spot was torn up with a whirlwind and living herb never grew there again.f One of the most terrifying powers of the witch was her fearful cannibalism, a belief which the Teutons shared with the Romans. This is referred to in some of the texts of the Salic law and in the legislation of Charlemagne, and the unlimited extent of popular credulity with regard to it is seen in an adventure of Thorodd, an envoy of St. Olaf, who saw a witch- wife tear eleven men to pieces, throw them on the fire, and commence devouring them, when she was driven off.:): (Laing's Heimskringla). t Keyser, op. cit. pp. 268, 271-2.— Haralcl Harfaager's Saga, 34 (Laing's Heims- kringla).— All this is nearly equalled by the powers attributed in 1437 by Eu- genius IV. to the witches of his time, who by a simple word or touch or sign could regulate the weather or bewitch whom they pleased (Raynald. ann. 1437, No. 27). L. Emendata Tit. lxvii., but not in the others).— Capit. Carol. Mag. de Partibus
 * Grougaldr.— Olaf Haraldsson's Saga, 8.— Olaf Tryggvesson's Saga, 85-7.
 * L. Salic. Text. Herold, Tit. lxvii (also in the third text of Pardessus, and the