Page:A history of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages, volume 3.djvu/437

 REPRESSION IN NORWAY. 421 invaders, and, setting fire to the reeds, burned the sorceress and all who were with her.* When Olaf Tryggvesson, early in the eleventh century, endeav- ored to christianize Norway, he recognized the sorcerers as the most formidable enemies of the faith, and handled them unspar- ingly. At a Thing, or assembly, in Yiken, he proclaimed that lie would banish all who could be proved to deal with spirits or in witchcraft, and this he followed up with proceedings somewhat rigorous. He ransacked the district and had all the sorcerers brought together; he gave them a great feast with plenty of liquor, and when they were drunk he had the house fired, so that none escaped save Ey vind Kellda, a grandson of Harald Harfaager, and a peculiarly obnoxious wizard, who climbed through the smoke-hole in the roof. In the spring Olaf celebrated Easter on Kormt Island, when thither came Eyvind in a long ship fully manned with sorcerers. Landing, they put on caps of darkness, which rendered them invisible, and surrounded themselves with a thick mist, but when they came to Augvaldsness, where King Olaf lay, it became clear day and they were stricken with blindness, so that they wandered helplessly around till the king's men seized them and brought them before him. He had them bound and placed on a rock which was bare only at low water, and Snorri Sturlason says that in his time it was still known as the Skerry of Shrieks. Another pious act related of Olaf illustrates both the methods requisite to spread the gospel among the rugged heroes of Norway and one of the explanations given by the Christians of the powers of sorcerers. Olaf captured Eyvind Kinnrif, a noted sorcerer, and sought to convert him, but in vain. Then a pan of fire was placed upon his belly, which he stoically endured until he burst asunder before asking its removal. Eegarding this tardy request as a sign of yielding, Olaf asked him " Eyvind, wilt thou now believe in Christ ?" " No," replied Eyvind, " I can take no baptism, for I am an evil spirit placed in a man's body by Lap- land sorcery, because in no other way could my father and mother 4 (Ed. Kolderup Rosenvinge p. 36).— Athelstan's Dooms, i. 6.— Laws of Edward the Elder, 6.— LI. Henrici lxxi. § 1.— Ingulph's Chron. Contin. (Bonn's Edition, p. 258).
 * Laws of Edward and Guthrum, 11.— Laws of Ethelred, v. 7.— Cnut Secular.